Does anyone seriously think the program is actually to stop terror? It is here to control the population in the country. Oh you want to run for president with ideas we don't like? It would be sad if someone publishes all this data we are sitting on.
No way! That actually happened! [1] my god, why aren't the American public and press even asking these questions?
However, he must have changed his mind for some other reason, because otherwise that would mean the NSA blackmailed the president of the USA. Which of course is completely unrealistic!
[1] http://www.propublica.org/article/the-surveillance-reforms-o...
Another (not so clear) example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scan... He was called "Wall Streets worst nightmare", and suddenly he has to resign because he spent time with a prostitute.
Or do you mean to imply that it was a fabricated hit job? Because to me it seems to be a real problem when a law enforcement official is giving himself special treatment.
Suspected parallel construction. They used illegal collected records in order to find the dirt, and then dug it out using other means that were quasi-legal.
That having been said, an anti-prostitution crusader who is using prostitutes deserves exactly what he got. If he hadn't been a crusader, I would have been sympathetic.
It just like Republican congressmen. I really don't care how or with whom they're having sex, as long as they aren't crusading against what they, themselves, are doing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
They threw a bunch of insider trading charges at him when he impeded efforts by the NSA to get Qwest (of which he was chairman and CEO at the time) to do warrantless bulk collection.
The other two leaders of the legislature have been prosecuted for corruption. His Lieutenant Governor upon succeeding Spitzer disclosed that he was a cocaine user that routinely cheated on his wife. You need to look at Spitzer through the lens of corruption that is NY politics... He was a victim of hubris, not conspiracy.
More likely, it's simply the continued concentration of executive power combined with fear of political fallout in the event an attack happened in the wake of scaling back these programs.
Also, just watch candidate Obama debate President Obama on government surveillance [2].
I mean, short of someone providing a document detailing how the NSA intents on spying on the next presidents of the United States and manipulating them, I don't see any more clear evidence than this.
I am not even sure about that. It is there because it is already there. By that I mean it is a giant bureaucratic investment project with billions of dollars flowing through. Many careers (oh look job creation!), business opportunities, support, training, etc tied into it.
During terrorist scares its powers expanded because there was an opportunity to expand, so expand it did. But not because some cabal of Illuminati wanted to read sexting messages of every person on earth.
So now it is sort of a cancer that feeds and grows and acquires power for itself. The same with TSA and many other such, at the time, seemingly temporary institutions and measures.
However, I believe it is ALSO dangerous to have all this information as pointed out by the OP. Again, this is why we are supposed to have congressional oversight and why transparency and secret courts are such hot issues.
Gongressional oversight, in the form of some special briefings, and meetings and such, means nothing. In a real democracy what you should have is oversight by the people, in an open and transparent system. Congress itself doesn't have that oversight (what with gerrymandering et al).
In this context what exactly would that entail?
If spying needed to happen, the procedures should be open and transparent. All the stuff Snowden brought forward, should have been released officially in advance.
But before of that, the democratic thing for such a mass offense against privacy would be a referendum: "We need to massively track you, including such and such information and sources. Yes / No".
Furthermore, nothing secret should go on that's not explicitly voted, e.g. absolutely no sharing of the data meant for national security with police departments to head-start a case against a citizen etc.
No indefinite storage of those items either. Delete them with a rolling delete every few years or so.
"It's there because it's there" is probably true, but that doesn't preclude the "population control" part. Such a system, will: 1) fight tendencies for change that doesn't play well with it ("self preservation"). 2) Find ways to justify its existance and funding, including targeting people, labelling them as "threats", and convincing politicians and the public about its necessity.
For targets of such a system think Aaron Swartz, Snowden, Assange, activists and such (and back to the past: the red scare, the huge FBI files and government interference with people like MLK, etc).
>But not because some cabal of Illuminati wanted to read sexting messages of every person on earth.
No, but a cabal of high ranking officials and corporations wanted a multi-billion system they could profit from, and have forever wanted a populace that plays by the establishment rules. It doesn't have to involve ancient orders to be a conspiracy, all power decisions taken behind closed doors and in a non democratic way are.
The problem with these files is that they are only going to really bite us over a longer period of time. When intelligence services get more reckless about them (procedures becoming more lax over time is a natural decay), and when they contain sufficient data over a long period.
Imagine what Nixon would have done with this data. We don't even need to invoke dictators!
Hanlon's Razor - just because it sucks at catching terrorists doesn't mean it wasn't motivated by a desire to Do Something.
[1] I don't think spying on the populace comports with American values, but harassing people for their political speech is a whole 'nother ballpark.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/king-like-all-frauds-yo...
Of course, simple blackmail would be a poor use of such information. Much better to use it to create missinformation, know who in the targets environment that is weak, and how to subtle encourage internal disruption in the ranks. You can even identify who is likely to become the next president from early age, and then recruit those before they can become a threat to the party.
Now, if instead it was, [Zambia] does so and so, is it believable?
So therein you find your fallacy of exceptionalist presumption. If you think that, say, the Pakistani government could execute this, then I assure you the United States can.
There's no magic change in the greed of power from one land to another.
The only difference between USA's corruption and others, is that USA is super-good at hiding it.
NSA's collected data is perfectly (ab)usable without revealing its source and to believe it hasn't already happened numerous times is denial. There must be all kinds of unrevealed scandals they're sitting on and it's undeniable human nature that at the government level the knowledge of these scandals hasn't been used as leverage on people. I can't even accept NSA employees haven't numerously abused their access to spy on friends & family.
They already do something similar: it's called parallel construction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
The better argument is that it could be used to blackmail people.
But right now there is zero the program is being used for those sort of nefarious purposes.
If you're running for president, you've scratched the right backs and suppressed any distasteful political ideas you may have had. You aren't a threat because you've been vetted by the power structure already.
I do agree that the surveillance state now exists to maintain power in all spheres. Exposing yourself is handing over a large chunk of that power, which is where I disagree with your sentiment.
Just think of the value of knowing what your foreign competitors are up to, on national and economic levels.