Government Surveillance Threatens Journalism, Law and Thus Democracy

Lauren McCauley | Common Dreams | Reader Supported News | July 29, 2014

Interviews with dozens of leading journalists and attorneys found that U.S. government overreach is eroding critically important freedoms

 

he impunity with which the American government spies on journalists and attorneys is undermining the American people’s ability to hold their leaders accountable, thus threatening the core of our democracy, charged a joint report published Monday by two leading rights organizations.

The report—With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy, published by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch—draws from extensive interviews with dozens of top journalists, lawyers and senior government officials. What the authors found is that recent revelations of widespread government surveillance have forced many professionals to alter or abandon work related to “matters of great public concern.”

According to the report, “Surveillance has magnified existing concerns among journalists and their sources over the administration’s crackdown on leaks.” With increasing prosecution of whistleblowers, restrictions on communication between intelligence officials and the media, and snitch programs for federal workers, journalists say that their sources have become “increasingly scared to talk about anything.”

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NSA Said to Search Content of Messages to and From US

Headquarters of the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. Español: Instalaciones generales de la NSA en Fort Meade, Maryland. Русский: Штаб-квартира АНБ, Форт-Мид, Мэриленд, США (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CHARLIE SAVAGE | New York Times | August 9, 2013

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials.

The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official.

While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching — without warrants — through the contents of Americans’ communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations.

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Broader Sifting of Data Abroad Is Seen by N.S.A.

The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CHARLIE SAVAGE | New York Times | August 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials.

The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official.

While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching — without warrants — through the contents of Americans’ communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations.

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Snowden Documents: NSA Pays Secret Funding for GCHQ

GCHQ / Always listening (Photo credit: George Rex)

Nick Hopkins and Julian Borger | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | August 1, 2013

The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain’s intelligence gathering programmes.

The top secret payments are set out in documents which make clear that the Americans expect a return on the investment, and that GCHQ has to work hard to meet their demands. “GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight,” a GCHQ strategy briefing said.

The funding underlines the closeness of the relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency. But it will raise fears about the hold Washington has over the UK’s biggest and most important intelligence agency, and whether Britain’s dependency on the NSA has become too great.

In one revealing document from 2010, GCHQ acknowledged that the US had “raised a number of issues with regards to meeting NSA’s minimum expectations”. It said GCHQ “still remains short of the full NSA ask”.

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Freedom or Security? Balance This!

Steve Weissman | Reader Supported News | June 10, 2013

Ever since we learned that Big Brother is tracing us and everyone with whom we communicate, where, and for how long on both telephone and the Internet, we have heard endlessly that we need to find the proper balance between freedom and security.

To which we should all respond, “Horse feathers!” As Benjamin Franklin put it, “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

Forgive a free speech fanatic for telling the truth in public, but as Franklin suggested, balancing is the last thing we need. Once we empower government to balance our freedoms against the threat it poses to them, the national security bureaucrats and their helpers in the police and intelligence services will have won. Game over! We lose yet again and our freedoms become even more marginal to any meaningful exercise of democratic power.

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