Whenever the NSA slips up and actually tells the truth, it becomes obvious why they are so deceptive: the truth reveals them to be frighteningly cold, callous and malicious.
A rare occurrence of NSA truth-telling revealed the lethal implications of their metadata gathering program. According to an article by civil liberties advocate David Cole in the New York Review of Books, former director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden recently confirmed in a hubristic boast that the federal government absolutely kills people based upon metadata. Here is an illuminating quote from the aforementioned article:
As NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker has said, “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” When I quoted Baker at a recent debate at Johns Hopkins University, my opponent, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment “absolutely correct,” and raised him one, asserting, “We kill people based on metadata.”
The relevant questions about the morality and efficacy of extrajudicially murdering people based upon whether they have placed or received a phone call from a supposed terrorist aside, these admissions poke many holes in the NSA’s own propaganda. Now that top NSA brass has told the public that metadata “tells you absolutely everything about somebody’s life” and that it is used as an excuse to kill people, a stake has been driven through the heart of the preposterous facade constructed by the NSA and its apologists asserting that ‘it’s only metadata, so you have nothing to worry about.’
Metadata tells the complete story about someone’s life, and its collection is a highly-invasive, illegal measure under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. A study published in March by Web Policy found that “phone metadata is unambiguously sensitive, even in a small population and over a short time window. We were able to infer medical conditions, firearm ownership, and more, using solely phone metadata.” The feds collecting your metadata is no different than them having intimate access to your credit card bills, health records, political contributions or other sensitive, private data. The ‘don’t worry, it’s only metadata’ crowd is knowingly pushing a deception in an attempt to carry water for the NSA’s ubiquitous spying regime.
Gen. Hayden says that although the NSA and other federal agencies have extinguished many lives based on metadata before, they would never do it here. Sure, the bureaucrats lied for many years saying that they weren’t spying on the private electronic data of Americans, and lied in saying that the Patriot Act would only be used against terrorists and not in the homeland. However, the NSA says it is different this time. Just trust the empty rhetoric of well-established liars, and everything will be fine.
As far as we are concerned, the NSA’s pablum is no longer acceptable. We refuse to be lulled into complacency by the oath-breakers at the NSA and other corrupt federal agencies. We refuse to trust bureaucrats who have routinely committed violations against the rights of the people to reform themselves. Instead, we are being proactive and taking measures to tie up the NSA before it becomes too powerful to vanquish. That is why we have devised the 4th Amendment Protection Act to cut off the NSA from the resources that it needs at the state and local levels. Through widespread disobedience, non-compliance and anti-commandeering, we can stop the surveillance state from being able to function and destroy our freedoms.
Washington D.C. is filled with Michael Hayden’s who feel that it is their divine birthright to exercise absolute, unrestrained power and serve as judge, jury and executioner for the masses. They will not be stopped unless we stand up and show these bullies that we are unafraid to stand against them. We must show Hayden and his ilk that we will tolerate their inhumane dictates no longer. It all begins with YOU fomenting resistance in your local community against the NSA. Do what is right, exercise your sacred rights, and join us in nullifying Big Brother!
