NSA Spying on Americans

Although many Americans continue to regard Edward Snowden as a traitor, he is seen increasingly by many Europeans as a whistleblowing hero, and for Russia’s Putin, he is the gift that keeps on giving.

The US has lost credibility through the damaging leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and Rand Paul believes the only way to start fresh is "with somebody new in charge" of intelligence services.

At a DC rally activists pushed for reforms that would prohibit blanket surveillance of phone and Internet activity of citizens. They also want a special committee to investigate and report domestic spying violations and create regulatory reforms. Edward Snowden sent an encouraging note to the crowd.

Edward Snowden's latest revelation? The NSA intercepts hundreds of thousands of email address books every day from private accounts on Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook and Hotmail that move though global data links. The NSA also collects about a half million buddy lists from live chat services and email accounts.

Rand Paul joined three Dem senators in introducing legislation that is "the most comprehensive bipartisan intelligence reform proposal since the [Snowden] disclosures of last June."

New details show that NSA's surveillance programs cover 75% of the nation's traffic and can snare emails.

It’s time to ask tough questions about the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities. The problem is that too many Republican members of Congress, who should have the constitutional rights and liberty of their fellow Americans upper most in their minds, have become complicit in the advancement of the surveillance state.

Members of the Sen. Intelligence Committee say there's much more to come about the scope and severity of these violations.

Congress should do its job and conduct much more detailed oversight of the Obama administration's NSA, but the documents really cry out for the creation of a public advocate or ombudsman to represent the Constitution before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to act as a counterpoint to the government’s surveillance state advocacy and to demand the level of detail from the NSA that the Court is currently ill-equipped to obtain.

We can’t shoot our way to victory over radical Islam – this is a cultural war – and preemptive strikes and the creation of the all-pervasive surveillance state necessary to make them a success defy the wisdom and the success of the one proven model we have for winning a cultural war; Ronald Reagan’s victory over communism.

Christie made the mistaken assumption that most Americans think it's just fine for the NSA to be tracking us. That's dead wrong.

House Intelligence Comm. chairman Rep. McCaul (R-TX) says Obama is ducking the NSA spying program debate and is working to save it.

The NYT makes hash of O's claim. The NSA sifts through huge heaps of communications, not just the metadata.

Obama told Leno that the US has no domestic spying program and that the intelligence gathering is a “critical component to counter terrorism.”

Rather than targeting terrorists, millions of innocent Americans suspected of nothing illegal have their private interactions collected by the government.

Until the Republicans' Capitol Hill leadership pulls its head out of the sand and stops buying the lies they are being fed by the Obama administration, or better yet, they are replaced by principled limited government constitutional conservatives like Rep. Justin Amash and Senator Rand Paul, the surveillance state is going to continue to grow and our privacy and liberty will continue to be diminished.

In the first of a four part series on the surveillance state writer Ben Hart outlines 48 facts about how the U.S. government now tracks, monitors, records, and stores most of your activities and communications. Arguing that in this surveillance state you have no privacy anymore Hart claims this has led to a society where you must be very careful what you say, even what to think . . . because whatever you say, write, or even think can (and probably will) be used against you.

Amash Amendment Fails: Constitution 205 – Surveillance State 217

Amash’s amendment may have failed last night, but the debate is far from over, and now we know where to go to find the few votes we need to pass similar legislation in the future – and which Republicans are so weak on the Constitution they may be ripe for a primary challenge.

NSA held 4 hours of top secret briefings to urge Reps. to continue funding its secret surveillance.

The House approved a rule for the Defense spending bill that'll allow votes on Syria, Egypt, and NSA spying amendments.