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Verrilli, sworn in as Solicitor General three years ago, assured the Court in the "Clapper v. Amnesty International USA" case that defendants would be informed of evidence coming from NSA. The Department of Justice had reviewed his draft testimony and did not tell Verrilli that this was not the truth.
In the case, a majority of the Supreme Court justices decided to wait until a criminal defendant was actually convicted with the admitted use of NSA evidence before ruling on whether this violates the Fourth Amendment and the requirement of court warrants based on "probable cause" before police searches can be conducted.
The result of the Supreme Court's decision was that the challenge to the constitutionality of NSA's mass collection was abruptly stopped, and the mass surveillance continued. But Verrilli subsequently found out that his assurances had been false, and there ensued an argument with the Department of Justice, which opposed revealing use of NSA sources in any court.
Verrilli apparently prevailed partially, with the government subsequently notifying a few defendants in ongoing terrorism cases that NSA sources were used.
Separation of Powers?
We cannot escape some pretty dismal conclusions here. Not only have the Executive and Legislative branches been corrupted by establishing, funding, hiding and promoting unconstitutional surveillance programs for over 12 years, but the Judicial branch has been corrupted, too.
The discovery process in criminal cases is now stacked in favor of the government through its devious means for hiding unconstitutional surveillance and using it in ways beyond the narrow declared purpose of thwarting terrorism.
Moreover, federal courts at the district, appeals and Supreme Court levels have allowed the government to evade legal accountability by insisting that plaintiffs must be able to prove what often is not provable, that they were surveilled through highly secretive NSA means. And, if the plaintiffs make too much progress, the government can always get a lawsuit thrown out by invoking "state secrets."
The Separation of Powers designed by the Constitution's Framers to prevent excessive accumulation of power by one of the branches has stopped functioning amid the modern concept of "permanent war" and the unwillingness of all but a few hearty souls to challenge the invocation of "national security." Plus, the corporate-owned U.S. media, with very few exceptions, is fully complicit.
Thus, a massive, intrusive power now looms over every one of us -- and especially those few brave individuals with inside knowledge who might be inclined to inform the rest of us about the threat. Whistleblowers, like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, face decades in prison for divulging important secrets to the American people. And so the legal rot continues.
The concept of a "United Stasi of America," coined by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg a year ago, has been given real meaning by the unconstitutional behavior and dereliction of duty on the part of both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.
Just days after the first published disclosure from Snowden, Ellsberg underscored that the NSA, FBI and CIA now have surveillance capabilities that East Germany's Stasi secret police could scarcely have imagined.
What, We Worry?
Last June, Mathew Schofield of McClatchy conducted an interesting interview of a former Wolfgang Schmidt, a former lieutenant colonel in the Stasi, in Berlin. With the Snowden revelations beginning to tumble out into the media, Schofield described Schmidt as he pondered the sheer magnitude of domestic spying in the United States.
Schmidt: "You know, for us, this would have been a dream come true."
Schofield continues: "In those days, his department was limited to tapping 40 phones at a time, he recalled. Decide to spy on a new victim and an old one had to be dropped, because of a lack of equipment. He finds breathtaking the idea that the U.S. government receives daily reports on the cellphone usage of millions of Americans and can monitor the Internet traffic of millions more."
"So much information, on so many people," says Schmidt who, at that point, volunteers a stern warning for Schofield and the rest of us:
"It is the height of naivete to think that, once collected, this information won't be used. This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people's privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place." [emphasis added]
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