It's Not OK

Meta Data Madness

What's the Government Afraid of: Why the Founding Fathers would be shocked. Part 1 of 5

 

Any time we react in fear instead of relying on our core beliefs and principles, bad things happen. We live in a time of relentless fear mongering by the government and the mainstream media, and it's only natural to react to those fears. We all need to make, as best we each can, dispassionate decisions in the face of uncertainty. As example, many unprepared people live happily with the small risk of encountering an intruder; after all nothing in life is risk free.

 

It seems to me that hate-mongering and scapegoating are tools used by the 1% (to use recent Occupy terminology) to keep the rest of us fighting amongst ourselves rather than uniting against the forces that are impoverishing so many people. The government and mainstream media continually distract us with issues that don't impact the bottom line of the 1%. Firearm ownership is one of these issues and frankly I don't think that those in power care; they just want us distracted so that far more important matters can be settled unreported and behind closed doors.

 

For example: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed in the House despite a campaign against the bill from civil rights groups who say the sharing of such information threatens online privacy. CISPA would provide sweeping liability protection to private companies that share information about cyber threats with the Federal Government, including the internet activity of private citizens.

 

Congress is using the recent events in Boston to push the CISPA legislation which it considers to be urgent. “In the case of Boston, they were real bombs. In this case they’re digital bombs. These bombs are on their way. That’s why this legislation is so urgent. For if we don’t and those digital bombs land and attack the United States, and Congress failed to act, then Congress has that on his hands”. It sounds too much like CYA instead of good policy, and luckily (this time) the Senate has given little indication that the bill will come up for consideration.

 

But don’t relax, the federal government is already using a program to monitor online internet traffic and enforce CISPA-like data sharing between Internet Service providers and the Department of Defense. Although it’s often quoted that “Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws”, it’s actually a secret Federal Justice Court that renews this access. Every three months they also re-authorize the collection, storage, and analysis of telephone “meta data” for almost all phones. Evidently this has been going on for the last seven years, without our knowledge.

 

The Pentagon has explained to internet service providers (ISPs) and other system administrators how to let their customers know that their traffic is being fed to the government. The Defense Department’s Defense Industrial Base cyber pilot program has been renamed to Enhanced Cybersecurity Services. It “expressly covers monitoring of data and communications in transit rather than just accessing data at rest”, and it goes on to say, “That information may be disclosed for any purpose, including to the government”.

 

In the meantime the Justice Department is under investigation for secretly collecting the phone records of Associated Press (AP) reporters; including their work, home, and cell numbers. The AP is protesting what it calls a massive and unprecedented intrusion into the process of gathering news. It says the Justice Department is flouting 1st Amendment rights in its attempt to prosecute what it calls a criminal leak investigation. The Justice Department’s response is, “We’ve been doing this for the last seven years, what’s the big deal”.

 

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is also currently under investigation for applying extra scrutiny to applicants with statements that "criticize how the country is run" or that sought to educate the public on how to "make America a better place to live". An IRS official admitted that the agency made "mistakes" in the past few years with tax-exempt status applications submitted by groups with the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their names. In New York all public cameras are networked into a central location, where software can keep track of suspicious behavior, and Oakland California is beginning a similar project. Civil defense camps, phone monitoring, and drones over American citizens are only the things we know about.