NSA Whistle-Blower: “Now We Are All Persons of Interest”
June 7th, 2013Via: Salon:
For Thomas Drake, the former National Security Agency employee who blew the whistle on the agency’s expansive post-9/11 surveillance programs in 2006, the latest revelation of blanket surveillance is simply “déjà vu.”
Drake, who was indicted under the Espionage Act and faced life in prison before federal charges against him were eventually dropped, told Salon Thursday that news that the NSA had a top secret order to retain millions of Americans’ phone records daily came as “no surprise.”
“Since 9/11, with the help of a series of enabling legislation, this sort of surveillance has become routine and institutionalized,” he said. “That order is extraordinary in showing how routine this is,” noted Drake — referring to the top secret government order obtained by the Guardian, in which telecom giant Verizon is commanded “on a daily basis” to provide the NSA with “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad, or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”
In my recollection, we have been discussing the snooping and spying re internet, emails, etc. for years now(seems like that) on Cryptogon. The American “news media” I hope is shocked and hopefully shamed at how their “24/7” news mentality has totally missed the point and has resulted in “no news” for years now.
Mr. Drake should be awarded a MEDAL OF HONOR from and get a lottery bonus from WE THE PEOPLES for the shame and suffering he had to bear for speaking the truth.
I don’t know how the Guardian scooped all that they did, but its about God dammed time someone is speaking about the snooping.