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When Executive Power Goes Too Far

When Executive Power Goes Too Far

That warm and fuzzy feeling the government would have you believe it is trying to emulate while fraudulently trampling your rights under the illusion of keeping you safe from terrorists they constantly create (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37316.htm) has grown cold and blurry. When a democratically elected U.S. President can use a secret, never publicized Executive Order to illegally spy on the whole world — including members of the U.S. Congress (link: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/nsa-spying-congress) — there are bound to be some serious repercussions.
When Executive Power Goes Too Far
When federal judges — corrupt, blackmailed, or otherwise — decree the government’s illegal actions as Constitutional, any semblance of Democracy and the Rule of Law become non-existent. Claiming that your illegal actions are necessary to protect us is the argument of tyranny (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37277.htm) not freedom. Acting as the world’s policeman when you have created the very terrorists you’re allegedly keeping everyone safe from (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37273.htm) is farcical, immoral, and criminal.

President Obama’s dubious claims that America’s illegal surveillance state has never abused its authority (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/31-2) are blatant lies. Despite Obama’s lies, reality tells us a different story. Illegal surveillance is used regularly by corrupt governments for blackmail, forcing subservience, silencing critics and opponents, for control, and for power, not for keeping anyone safe. When crooked courts hear only one side of the story, which is usually only trumped up propaganda pieced together to suit the agenda du jour, you end up with chaos and criminality, not rule of law. Chaos and criminality have been the norm for Washington’s culture of corruption since a complicit George W. Bush cabal allowed “terrorist” attacks on 9/11.

NO ONE IS WATCHING THE WATCHERS

Since whistle blower Edward Snowden started releasing mountains of evidence revealing the illegal spying of the National Security Agency (NSA) in June of last year, we’ve learned a lot. We know that the U.S. government has been and still is illegally spying on Americans and foreigners on U.S. soil, but we still know very little about Executive Order 12,333 which supposedly governs the NSA’s surveillance abroad — even when that surveillance sweeps up every American’s communications (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/31).

To learn more about Executive Order 12,333 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in coordination with Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to get the government to release information about its use in accordance with surveillance of Americans’ international communications. There is little we know so far about how that order is used, how it’s regulated and rules that apply to Americans’ international calls and emails.

We do know that Executive Order 12,333 is used to collect nearly 5 billion records per day on America’s cell phones, contact lists or address books from American personal emails and instant messaging accounts and information from Google and Yahoo user accounts as the information from those accounts travels between those company’s data centers located abroad. If you use Gmail or Google, you would be amazed to find out what Google knows about you (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35748.htm). We also know that the NSA abuses its powers and that there has been no oversight from Congress or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts. No one is watching the watchers.

TURNING ‘INTELLIGENCE’ INTO AN OXYMORON

We don’t know how the government interprets the authority given under Executive Order 12,333 which was first signed in 1981 (link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/31). We have learned thanks to Snowden’s revelations that the government has regularly abused those powers and has spied illegally on Americans for more than a decade. How the information is collected abroad and how the government conducts surveillance against targets from information obtained by spying on Americans and violating their privacy remains a mystery.

The lawsuit hopes to shed some light on that mystery. It’s important to get more information on things like Executive Order 12,333 and how the NSA is illegally abusing its authority. The price we’ve paid — both with our freedoms and financially — are astounding. When the NSA turns “intelligence” into an oxymoron we have major problems.

All the illegal surveillance and secrecy used by our government, allegedly in the name of “keeping us safe” is dangerous as evidenced by the fact that regardless of how much our intelligence agencies claim they know, they always seem to get things wrong (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/31-1). Despite its illegal surveillance, the NSA has failed to stop any terrorist attacks, offering yet more evidence that the illegal spying is only being used for control and power, not protection. The fact that most terrorism in the world can be linked back to being created by the U.S. also reveals that the illegal NSA spying is not being used to keep us safe. Using Israel and Saudi Arabia to continue feeding the terrorism machine is more proof that we are not being kept safe, only controlled.

TRUTH IS WASHINGTON’S BIGGEST ENEMY

The U.S. population has a serious problem as Washington — and many of the corrupt Congress critters in it — has supported terrorists for decades. In typical fashion, the largest scaremongers regarding the threat of terrorism are themselves promoting terrorism (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37317.htm) and the U.S., in collusion with Israel and Saudi Arabia, has actually become the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism, often at U.S. taxpayer expense. Crying terrorism to keep us safe from the very terrorists created by Washington is disingenuous as hell.

Truth, as I’ve mentioned many times here in the past, is Washington’s biggest enemy (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37309.htm). America’s corporate press no longer looks for the truth. It only serves to spread the propaganda passed off as News by Washington. It is the responsibility of all thinking people — not just the fraudsters and their “think tanks” that perpetrate the deceptive misconceptions — to expose the lies and speak the truth. The NSA’s illegal surveillance state is unraveling because more of their lies and deceptions have become public knowledge. The more the lies are exposed, the harder the effort to repress dissent in Washington becomes.

Terrorism, to the extent the U.S. government would have you believe, is overhyped to the U.S. public because those who want power over others need to invent more conflict to rationalize their delusional agendas. Washington has been botching Intelligence collection for decades, all the while covering up their malfeasance, violating the constitutional rights of every American, and purposely misleading the public (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-0). The NSA had enough information to stop 9/11 but chose to sit on it. When Executive power goes too far, it’s time to change it and restore Democracy and the Rule of Law.

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