You are not free Mother Hen Is Watching

"According to Wired, an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court '...requires Verizon to give the NSA metadata on all calls within the U.S. and between the U.S. and foreign countries on an "ongoing, daily basis" for three months.' Unlike orders in years past, there's not even the pretense that one of the parties needed to be in a foreign country. It is unknown (but likely) that other carriers are under the same order...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

 The White House Is All For It Of Course

 

Following a Freedom of Information request, the Deparment of Homeland Security has been forced to release the full list of words it monitors, and some are a lot more innocent than you'd expect.

The list contains the usual suspects -- words like Al-Qaeda and Jihad, who's connection to terrorism is obvious -- but then lots more. Words like port and pork that any of a number of us could be using in when talking about our iPads or lunch. Find the full list in this government report.

More information on this

Wake Up, America: You're Letting Your Privacy Slip Away

 The Unknown Patriot Who Exposed the Government's Verizon Spy Program

 

Mother Hen says: "If this spying on us is to protect us from bad guys then how did the Boston Marathon bombings take place?"

Draw your own conclusions... 

The New York Times editorial board pilloried the Obama administration on Thursday, after it was reported that the National Security Agency actively collects phone log records of millions of Americans under a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) order.

"The administration has now lost all credibility," the Times' editors write. "Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers."

They added: "We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”

PRISM 

 As one of the few members of Congress who have consistently voted against the Patriot Act, I believe the United States should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans. Congress must address this issue and protect the constitutional rights of the American people.

 NSA Whistleblowers: "All U.S. Citizens" Targeted by Surveillance Program, Not Just Verizon Customers

Here, let me make it all better...
 TIL that due to American Public Law 94-479, by the 94th Congress, George Washington is protected from being outranked by any officer in past, present, and future - so if there’s a 6 star general, Washington is automatically upgraded to 7.