Under the guise of fighting terrorism, a vast surveillance apparatus has been set up through the National Security Agency and the FBI, which allows the government to learn everything about you -- who you are communicating with, what your views are, what your activities are, where you travel, and if you've had any personal issues or problems in the past. As whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed, the NSA sweeps up phone calling "metadata" of all Americans as well as their emails.
The FBI, through legislation passed after 911, can secretly obtain your personal information by issuing warrantless National Security Letters to anyone -- your employer, your bank, your doctor, your friends, or a library, Hedges said. They also have the technical capabilities through cell phones and GPS systems to track your geographical movements.
Moreover, "they will store this information for perpetuity in government computers," he said.
Additionally, under the Section 1021 provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, the government now has the power to arrest an American citizen simply on the basis that they might be linked to t errorists, place them in jail, and hold them indefinitely, without due process. And, as has happened under Barack Obama, the President can order the assassination of American citizens, if it is determined such individuals are terrorists.
Hedges said that those who try to expose illegal behavior by the government are "hunted down" and pay a heavy price. He pointed to Chelsea Manning, an Army officer who released military files to divulge war crimes by U.S. soldiers, and then was tried on espionage charges; and Snowden, who released classified files to reveal the unconstitutional NSA-spying program, and then had to flee the country to avoid prosecution.
"This is always the way totalitarian secret-police forces work -- the SS, the KGB, the East German Stasi," said Hedges. "Dissent is criminalized, truth is hidden."
As the laws were passed and court decisions handed down that enabled the surveillance state, constitutional provisions such as the 4th Amendment and its guarantee of privacy have been shredded, Hedges said.
Hedges said many people in the legal profession should have spoken up during this period of constitutional erosion, but did not. "Where are the judges, the deans of law schools, the nation's 1 million lawyers?" he asked. "Why do they refuse to defend the Constitution? They have become valued partners, along with a bankrupt press, in a campaign to eradicate our most basic civil liberties."
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