What’s the deal with Edward Snowden? What Top Secret information and secrets did he disclose? What makes information “Top Secret”? How did Mr. Snowden come to be in possession of “Top Secret” anything? What exactly are they collecting? Recordings of phone calls, emails, Facebook posts, Skype, credit card transactions, even your banking records! They not only know who you are, but where you are: Your smart phone’s GPS coordinates are being collected by the trillions along with the content of your phone calls . Some assumptions, based on reality, must be made. Does Mr. Snowden have a security clearance? Did he abuse his clearance level? Where did he get this information and did he have a “need to know” it? The “need to know” standard is ridiculous, since the activities of the NSA were well known throughout parts of the agency. Especially vulnerable are the very employees who were listening in. Good grief, multiple millions of American citizens knew in their hearts and souls that this was going on. Not until someone attached a name to it - PRISM, did it become impossible to deny its existence. We must debunk NSA’s affixing of the designation, “Top Secret”, because nothing Mr. Snowden disclosed could possibly be of any harm to the national defense of this country. The classification of information in the United States has historically been authorized by executive order. The current authority is established by Executive Order 13292. To paraphrase, the definition of “Top Secret” designation is applied to material, that the release of which would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security. In other words, the release of classifiable material could or would pose a danger to this country, our status with other countries or render aid and comfort to our enemies. Since when do our enemies give a hoot about the content of my telephone calls, emails, my banking transactions, my credit card purchases, my investments and social media postings and those of more than 300,000,000 other Americans? How would the knowledge that NSA (and others) are collecting of my stuff aid our enemies or how could the release of the information possibly be of interest to anyone other than my correspondents? Who are the enemies? This whole concept is so damn irrational unless as Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and they are us” or some such. Therein is the crux of the whole thing. We apparently are the enemy. We are the enemies of this Administration. Holy Crap, when did that happen? They are supposed to be working for us! Check their job descriptions in the Constitution. So what it boils down to is the NSA higher ups misclassified this so-called “Top Secret” PRIZIM PROGRAM the existence of which Mr. Snowden passed on to the press. This resulted in some employees of the United States (our employees) were caught with their pants down and are now embarrassed that they were spying on all of us, without probable cause, without warrants and for what purpose? Could it be for the preparation of some “hit lists” to eliminate certain groups of people? If so, who and why? Does the Constitution, the law of the land, mean absolutely nothing to these power-hungry, and power-grabbing loons at the top the pyramid? We are being told by some that the telephone calls, emails, etc. are being captured but not listened to or read. Do you really believe that? The humongous data center that is currently in process is a testimony to the fact that they are capturing and storing all this electronic chatter we created. Well, next I suppose we will learn that they are not only listening in on everything we do and not only keeping it on file, but preparing electronic dossiers on every person in this country. Actually, I would expect that this is already happening. I intend to send for a copy of my dossier under the Freedom of Information Act to NSA and others. The rest of the citizens of this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave should do the same. Am I pissed? You bet. Can I do anything about it? Probably not but when they haul me in because of something they think exists in my dossier, they will have to drag me kicking and biting down the hall to the interrogation station. The superstructure of this country is completely out of control. They now have a system in place that makes the Gestapo pale in comparison. Next, we will be required to spy on our neighbors and friends and report the activities we observe back to Big Brother. And if we don’t, the IRS will find a way to tax us for non-compliance. Back to Mr. Snowden’s predicament; where was the NSA Inspector General in all of this? The Offices of the Inspectors General in the federal agencies were established by the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, with the general purpose of (paraphrasing, here) keeping watch on agencies, including the heads of those agencies to insure that operations are in compliance with laws, executive orders and regulations: and when unlawful acts are committed, those infractions are referred to the U S Attorney General for prosecution. Section 7 of that Inspector General Act provides that the IG “will receive and investigate complaints or information from an employee of the establishment concerning the possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law, rules, or regulations, or mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or a substantial and specific danger to the public health and safety” Also, contained in subsection (c) of that same section in provides “Any employee who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel actin, shall not, with respect to such authority, take or threaten to take any action against any employee as a reprisal for making a complaint or disclosing information to an Inspector Genera, unless the complaint was made or the information disclosed with the knowledge that is was false or with willful disregard for its truth or falsity.” So did Mr. Snowden make his disclosure to the IG? Probably not. He is a contractor not an employee so his status under the Inspector General Act is questionable. I have seen no indication that he did or did not involve the IG. I would not have done so. You have to understand the unique relationship that the IG of an agency has with his agency’s leadership. The IG does not report to the head of the agency in a supervisor/supervised relationship. He keeps the agency head advised of things of routine or extraordinary nature; but he makes periodic reports to Congress and he is actually is appointed by and under the supervision of the White House. People, this is the most dangerous undertaking that has ever been conceived by an administration of this nation. Someone else said this first, but I paraphrase it here: Having access to this vast amount of information is a recipe for abuse of power. Power over information means power over individuals.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 19:24:20 +0000
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