PDA

View Full Version : Mass Surveillance Programs Futile in Fighting Terror – Snowden




DamianTV
03-15-2016, 07:33 PM
https://www.rt.com/news/335585-mass-surveillance-privacy-snowden/


Bulk data gathering programs used by US intelligence have no effect in combating terrorism and have failed to prevent any attacks in their 10 years of operation, whistleblower and former NSA contactor Edward Snowden, claims in a recent interview.

“In the wake of the revelations of mass surveillance the [US] president appointed two independent commissions to review the efficiency of these [surveillance] programs, what they really did and what effect they had in combating terrorism. [The commissions comprised] the highest priests of these programs, they found these programs had never stopped a single terrorist attack and never made a concrete difference in a terrorist investigation,” Snowden told Spanish TV channel Sexta.

The whistleblower went on saying, that “they [the NSA, CIA] violated the constitution and the rights of 330 million Americans for 10 years. We have to ask ourselves: was it ever worth it?”He also stated that despite being justified by preventing terrorist attacks, surveillance programs are more often used for completely different purposes.

"It was diplomatic manipulation, economic spying and social control. It was about power, and there is no doubt that mass surveillance increases the power of the government."

Snowden stressed that bulk data collection is “more aggressive and invasive today than it was before. Law enforcement and intelligence structures do not any longer bother to pick up a suspect and hack his cell phone, they cut in into all lines and communications […] at the heart of the society.”

According to the whistleblower, the US is by far not the only country using methods of this form of surveillance, with Spanish, French, German and British governments also spying on their people extensively because progress in communication technologies “had made it cheap, had made it easy, had made it simple […] The paradigm we had inherited from the past had changed, so instead of watching a particular individual we began watching everyone all of the time because of the advances in technology had made it cheap easy simple – just in case they became interesting later.”

Snowden spoke much about the concept of privacy, which he called “the foundation of all rights” and “the word for liberty”.

[B]“Individuals should never neglect maintaining their personal privacy, which makes the foundation of most basic human rights. Freedoms of speech, religion and private property all originate from privacy.”

...

He also argued about not caring for privacy because one has nothing to hide, insisting that “it is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say”, or saying “you don’t care about the freedom of press because you’re not a journalist”.

...

Full article on link.

---

Without Privacy, everything is subject to approval.

The War on Privacy is the same as the War on Drugs, it is a War on People.

Governments are not the only threat to Privacy. Corporations are just as dangerous to individual liberty and freedom. Granting information to a Corporation enables that Corporation to dictate and regulate the every day behaviors in normal life.

Dianne
03-15-2016, 07:49 PM
Of course they are. The surveillance is for us, not for terrorists. The Feds want to know what you buy, where you live, how much money you make, what you eat, what you think of them, how much in your bank account, how much they can steal from you. NSA is to suppress and rob the "little man". The last financial crisis was a clear indicator of how they stole the wealth of those who had saved for years, stole their homes too with illegal foreclosures "your word against the banksters word" ... bankster always wins.

FindLiberty
03-15-2016, 08:25 PM
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson

It is instinctive and the very nature of the beast to feed on its people. Nothing unusual or unexpected is going on. It will never stop since...

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force.
Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment
should it be left to irresponsible action - pseudo-GeorgeWashingtonism