Thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden many more people
in the US and world-wide are learning about extensive US-government
surveillance and spying. There are
publicly available numbers that show the reality of these problems are bigger
than most think and most of this spying is happening with little or no judicial
oversight.
Hundreds of Thousands Subject to Government Surveillance
The first reality is that hundreds of thousands of people in
the US have been subject to government surveillance in each of the last few
years. Government surveillance of people in the US is much more widespread than
those in power want to admit. In the last three years alone about 5000
requests have been granted for complete electronic surveillance authorized by
the secret FISA court. The FBI has
authorized another 50,000 surveillance operations with National Security
Letters in the last three years. The
government admits that well over 300,000 people have had their phone calls
intercepted by state and federal wiretaps in the last year alone. More than 50,000 government requests for
internet information are received each year as reported by internet providers. And,
remember, these are the publicly reported numbers so you can be confident there
is a whole lot more going on which has not been publicly reported.
Courts Almost Never Deny Government Requests for
Surveillance
The second reality is that there is little to no serious
oversight or accountability by the courts of this surveillance. Government spy defenders keep suggesting the
courts are looking carefully and rigorously at all this and only letting a tiny
number of really bad people be spied on.
Not true. Despite thousands of
requests by the federal government to look deeply into people's lives, the
secret federal FISA court turned down no requests at all in the last three
years. The state and federal courts report
on wiretap applications document over 2000 applications annually for
surveillance, which authorize the interception of hundreds of thousands of calls
and emails. The courts have turned down
the government two times in the most recent report. FBI national security letters do not even
have to be authorized by a court at all.
The lack of Congressional oversight is plain to see but the lack of any
judicial review of many of these surveillance actions and the very weak
oversight where courts do review should concern anyone who cares about
government accountability.
Let's break down the surveillance by the authority for
spying.
In FISA Court Government Always Wins
The US government has tried to say the public should not
worry about government scooping up hundreds of millions of phone calls and
internet activities because no real information is disclosed unless it is
authorized by what is called the FISA court.
Therefore, you can trust us with this information.
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