In a story today on a USAToday website, a federal judge, Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith, said that at least 30,000 secret spying warrants are issued each year. These secret orders are authorized by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, known as ECPA. These warrants are not only secretly issued, and the targeted individuals not notified, but the findings are not available even to Congress or the appellate courts.
Here are some of Smith’s findings, which will be published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review:
These electronic surveillance orders … grant law enforcement access to the electronic lives of our citizens — who we call, where we go, when we text, what websites we visit, what emails we send. Unlike most court orders, electronic surveillance orders are permanently hidden from public view by various ECPA provisions, including sealed court files, gag orders, and delayed-notice. It’s as though these orders were written in invisible ink — legible to the phone companies and electronic service providers who execute them, yet imperceptible to targeted individuals, the general public, and even other arms of government, including Congress and appellate courts.
But in my opinion, this is not the whole story. The United States government and its agencies, its agents of force, its police, its military, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and on and on, are all participating in the unwarranted surveillance of American citizens on a constant basis. This particular story concentrates on just one aspect of this invasion against us, but it is now far reaching and continually expanding.
I, as well as many others, have recently been writing about the drone programs currently going on, and the planned 30,000 new drones expected to be deployed domestically over the next few years. Also, as most should remember, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, that was created in 1979, has and is currently allowing for the secret spying on American citizens. If one considers these abominable agencies, along with all the others, it should be apparent that the scope of government spying on citizens is rampant.
But this is only a small part of the surveillance of us citizens. As the drones come online, all of us will be subject to being watched on a constant basis. Already, our emails, our phone conversations, our social site information and correspondence, and more are being listened to, captured, and databased. Currently, the largest government spy and data storage center is being built by the National Security Agency (NSA) in Bluffdale, Utah. Virtually all forms of communications can and will be monitored, and in turn databased. No personal data will be private, and no private information will be safe.
We are now firmly in a total surveillance and tyrannical police state. Nothing is sacred, and nothing is secure. I am not downplaying the 30,000 secret warrants mentioned above, but that is the least of our problems today. We are all being targeted, and any one of us can be constantly watched, all without cause or warrant.
As the great William (Bill) L. Anderson said to me today: Americans have lost whatever love they had for liberty. And they expect the rest of us to be as submissive.
If this pathetic submissive behavior is not reversed, we are all doomed to slavery!