Long before the name, Edward Snowden became known, the National Security Agency (NSA) was involved in warrantless wiretapping and eavesdropping on people all around the world; and yes, even Americans.
This was known and done repeatedly before Barack Obama assumed the presidency, and at the highest levels of government.
In the 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, by national security reporter James Bamford, he tells how the so-called FISA court (from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act), signed secret court orders without even reading them.
He quotes a former NSA intern who brought NSA requests to them. Now a prominent law professor at George Washington University Law School, Jonathan Turley recounts: “I was shocked with what I saw. I was convinced that the judge…..would have signed anything that we put in front of him, and I wasn’t entirely sure that he had actually read what we put in front of him.” (p.113)
But even that was too much for the Bush administration; for after 9\11 they decided that the president was not bound by the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. They informed the then-president of judge of the FISA court, federal judge Royce Lamberth that the president decided to conduct warrantless surveillance.
Period.
Lamberth, at the meeting in the Attorney General’s office, agreed to not even inform his fellow judges on the FISA court. (116)
Secret courts. Secret decisions.
By October 4th, 2001, it was a done deal. It has only grown since then.
The Snowden revelations have brought those measures to light recently, with the bugging of presidents, prime ministers and even a chancellor (Germanys Angela Merkel)
Why? Because they can. They have the capability.
If you don’t think they can, or are, presently bugging Americans – well, you’re being naïve.
This is the U.S. today – all ears – all the time.
-©’13 maj
[Source: Bamford, James. The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. (New York: Doubleday/Random House, 2008) [pp395], $27.95]