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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Yet ANOTHER ‘secretÂ’ government spy program is stealing your cellphone data Yet ANOTHER ‘secret’ government spy program is stealing your cellphone data Posted by: Jon Dougherty November 25, 2014 •Unconstitutional behavior by our government, and in particular trampling of the Bill of Rights, has become routine •A ‘shadow government’ operates under the guise of ‘national security’ •Allegations by a Tufts University constitutional scholar have been called spot-on by intel and military insiders At one point in our nation’s history, the Bill of Rights mattered. They were the guiding principles of government, and though there have been those, from the outset of our republic, who have always attempted to usurp power, the modern American state is the epitome of the post-constitutional condition. It fact, so entrenched has unconstitutional usurpation of power become that some of our cultural icons ridicule and dismiss it as though it were the norm. In a recent show, comedic actor Bill Maher scoffed at the GOP takeover of both chambers of Congress, noting that despite a Republican landslide, “Obama is still kicking your ass,” a reference to the president’s recent executive amnesty. Perhaps the one right that is abuse most these days, though, is the one supposedly guaranteeing Americans’ right to privacy: The Fourth Amendment. In this, the Digital Age, that is a right that has all but vanished. The evidence of that is everywhere, but is embodied in a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, which noted that the Justice Department – like the NSA before it – is “scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones” through technology that has been deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers. The department, of course, has justified such blatant unconstitutionality as necessary in its “high-tech hunt for criminal suspects,” WSJ reported. But the real result was predictable: The operations are snagging large amounts of data from innocent Americans, people familiar with them are saying. More from the WSJ: "The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program." Planes are equipped with devices—some known as “dirtboxes” to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them—which mimic cell towers of large telecommunications firms and trick cellphones into reporting their unique registration information. The two-foot-square devices permit federal agents to grab data from tens of thousands of cellphones during a single flight, which includes their identifying information and the general location of the user, sources told the paper. The same sources, WSJ reported, would not say, though, just how often the data-scooping flights occur or how long they last – only that they take place “on a regular basis,” which hints that they are more frequent than rare. Naturally, the Justice Department was in no mood to confirm such operations. One Justice Department official hid behind the department’s supposedly noble intentions, saying only that disclosure of such programs – if they existed of course – would only tip off criminal suspects or foreign agents and provide them with U.S. surveillance technology capabilities. Oh, and anyway, the spokesman told WSJ, the department compile with federal law, which includes getting secret court orders from a secret court that pretty much rubber stamps all requests from federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights be damned. “The program is the latest example of the extent to which the U.S. is training its surveillance lens inside the U.S.,” WSJ reported. “It is similar in approach to the National Security Agency’s program to collect millions of Americans phone records, in that it scoops up large volumes of data in order to find a single person or a handful of people. The U.S. government justified the phone-records collection by arguing it is a minimally invasive way of searching for terrorists.” Christopher Soghoian, chief technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, called it “a dragnet surveillance program. It’s inexcusable and it’s likely—to the extent judges are authorizing it—[that] they have no idea of the scale of it.” That’s a nice thought, Mr. Soghoian, but the fact is judges on the FISA – Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – court most likely are aware of the technology, but are merely buying into the government’s argument that hey, it’s necessary if we’re to “protect the country” and “get the bad guys.” As noted by Tufts University legal scholar and researcher Michael Glennon, the reason why constitutional abuses “in the name of national security” are so blatant – and frequent – is because the country’s national security apparatus has become an entity unto itself, unrestrained by the Constitution and virtually untouchable by those we elect to ensure that our government’s actions always adhere to our nation’s founding principles. After reading the book The English Constitution, which was an analysis by 19th -century journalist Walter Bagehot, Glennon was shocked to find modern-day relevance to the American Constitution. The book “laid bare the dual nature of British governance,” said a Tufts University report, which added: "It suggested that one part of government was for popular consumption, and another more hidden part was for real, consumed with getting things done in the world. As he read, Glennon, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School, where he also teaches constitutional law, saw distinct parallels with the current American political scene." At that, Glennon thought it best to examine the similarities in a 30-page paper that he then sent to a number of friends and colleagues, asking them to either validate what he argued or refute it. Most of those whom he sent his paper just happened to be experts – well-informed and seasoned operatives in the CIA, the military and the State Department. He told them, “Look, I’m thinking of writing a book. Tell me if this is wrong.” Every single one responded: “What you have here is exactly right.” Americans really don’t have many advocates in government these days, as more evidence continues to demonstrate. At what point will that lack of representation truly take its toll? That remains to be seen. What do YOU think Americans ought to do to demand more accountability from their elected leaders? Do YOU believe that constitutional rights should be disregarded by the government just to “keep the country safe?” Shouldn’t the Bill of Rights matter at ALL times? SHOUT IT OUT! Poster Comment: The spying goes on and on. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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