Everything You Wanted to Know about Spying

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Spying: The Big Picture

If you?ve been too busy to keep up with the spying scandal, here?s an overview:

• The government is spying on virtually everything we do

• The government?s mass spying doesn?t keep us safe

• NSA spying did not prevent a terror attack on Wall Street

• There is no meaningful oversight of the spying programs by either Congress or the courts

• We can keep everyone safe without violating the Constitution ? more cheaply and efficiently than the current system

• The top counter-terrorism Czar under Clinton and Bush says that revealing NSA spying programs does not harm national security

• Whistleblowers on illegal spying have no ?legal? way to get the information out

• A high-level intelligence source says ?we hack everyone everywhere?

• Some people make a lot of money off of mass spying

• Spying started before 9/11 ? and may have stemmed from an emergency program only meant to be activated in the case of a nuclear war

• Governments and big corporations are doing everything they can to destroy anonymity

• Mass spying creates an easy mark for hackers

• Polls show that the public doesn?t believe the NSA

• Surveillance can be used to frame you if someone in government happens to take a dislike to you

• An NSA whistleblower says that the NSA is spying on ? and blackmailing ? top government officials and military officers (and see this)

• High-level US government officials have warned for 40 years that mass surveillance would lead to tyranny in America

• Government spying has always focused on crushing dissent ? not on keeping us safe

• While the Obama administration is spying on everyone in the country ? it is at the same time the most secretive administration ever (background). That?s despite Obama saying he?s running the most transparent administration ever

• Top constitutional experts say that Obama is worse than Nixon ? and the Stasi East Germans