Andrew Napolitano hammers gov’t over claim about NSA computers going dark.
In their continuous efforts to create the impression that the government is doing something to keep Americans safe, politicians in Washington have misled and lied to the public. They have violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution. They have created a false sense of security. And they have dispatched and re-dispatched 60,000 federal agents to intercept the telephone calls, text messages and emails of all Americans all the time.
In the process, while publicly claiming they only acquire identifying metadata – the time, date, location, duration, telephone numbers and email addresses of communications – they have in fact surreptitiously gained access to the content of these communications.
On June 1, one of the three claimed legal authorities for all this, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, expired, as Congress was unable to agree on either its reinstitution or the enactment of a substitute. At the time Section 215 was about to expire, President Obama, Attorney General Lynch and FBI Director Comey warned that the NSA’s computers would go dark and the American public would be at the mercy of our enemies. Their warnings were nonsense.
The NSA is a military entity that utilizes the services of military computer experts and agents, employs civilians and hires companies that provide thousands of outside contractors. After nearly 14 years of spying on us – all authorized by a secret court whose judges cannot keep records of what they have ordered or discuss openly what they know – the NSA now has computers and computer personnel physically located in the main switching offices of all telecom and Internet service providers in the United States. It has 24/7 access to the content of everyone’s telephone calls, emails and text messages.
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