The NY Times is carrying a story giving new details on the telecom carriers’ cooperation with secret National Security Agency (and other) domestic spying programs. One revelation is that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers. Another revelation is what exactly the NSA asked for in 2001 that Qwest balked at supplying. According to the article, it was access to the company’s most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls.
One revelation is that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers. Of course if this were an article of abuse of liberties in China we would decry it as an example of the failed system we call communism. Here in America we are now just saying, “Well what have you got to hide anyway?”
I totally disagree with this attitude. I feel that everyone should enjoy freedom from someone always listening in without a warrant. I may not have anything to hide but that doesn’t mean I want my private business listened in on either.
The Bush administration has lobbied for months trying to get legislation passed that would indemnify the large teleco’s from lawsuits that relate to illegal wire tapping. It’s not like they do not have the authority to wiretap when it is necessary. There is the FISA Court that is set up specifically for just that. But once again this administration acts as if they are above the law and wants to do as they damn well please and to hell with the rights of the people or the constitution.
In early 2001 the NSA asked for and were refused access to the Denver phone carrier Qwest. They had asked for access to localized communications switches that carry mainly domestic calls. Among the big carriers Qwest is the only one to have refused the illegal wire tapping requested by the NSA. The NSA has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. Warrants have not been used in creating the huge data base that they have amassed. Not only do we have the Bill of Rights ( fourth amendment) that is supposed to protect us as Americans against this type of warrantless intrusion to our privacy. We also signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as Charter members of the UN where in Article 12 it states: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”.
Now I am not against wiretaps and spying upon criminals and terrorist but I am for going about it in the right way. If we give away or freedoms to gain a little bit of security then the terrorists have already won.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson