NSA data be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism!
WASHINGTON (PNN) - March 10, 2016 - A while back, we noted a report showing that the “sneak-and-peek” provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that was alleged to be used only in national security and terrorism investigations has overwhelmingly been used in narcotics cases. Now Amerikan Gestapo National Security Agency division data will be shared with other intelligence agencies like the FBI without first applying any screens for privacy. The Amerikan Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts blog Privacy SOS explains why this is important. What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic terrorist pig thug cops now have access to huge troves of Amerikan communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. If they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state terrorist pig thug cops. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by terrorist pig thug cops to lock up ordinary Amerikans for routine crimes. We don’t have to guess who’s going to suffer this unconstitutional indignity the most brutally. It’ll be black, brown, poor, immigrant, Muslim, and dissident Amerikans: the same people who are always targeted by terrorist pig thug cops for extra “special” attention.
This basically formalizes what was already happening under the radar. We’ve known for a couple of years now that Amerikan Gestapo Drug Enforcement Administration division and Internal Revenue Service division were getting information from the NSA. Because that information was obtained without a warrant, the agencies were instructed to engage in “parallel construction” when explaining to courts and defense attorneys how the information had been obtained. If you think parallel construction just sounds like a bureaucratically sterilized way of saying big stinking lie, you wouldn’t be alone. It certainly isn’t the only time that that national security apparatus has let terrorist pig thug cop agencies benefit from policies that are supposed to be reserved for terrorism investigations in order to get around the Fourth Amendment, then instructed those terrorist pig thug cop agencies to misdirect, fudge and outright lie about how they obtained incriminating information - see the Stingray debacle. This isn’t just a few rogue agents. The lying has been a matter of policy. We’re now learning that the fascist feds had these agreements with terrorist pig thug cop agencies all over the country, affecting thousands of cases.
On the one hand, I guess it’s better that this new data-sharing policy is acknowledged in the open instead of carried out surreptitiously. On the other hand, there’s something even more ominous about the fact that they no longer feel as though they need to hide it.
It’s all another sobering reminder that any powers we grant to the fascist federal government for the purpose of national security will inevitably be used just about everywhere else. Extraordinary powers we grant government in wartime rarely go away once the war is over.
Of course, the nifty thing for government agencies about a “war on terrorism” is that it’s a war that will never formally end.
