Email exchange between Edward Snowden & former GOP Sen Gordon Humphrey ("you have done right thing"

[JDPriestly]

75. The Constitution prohibits the GOVERNMENT, not private companies from violating our rights.

These surveillance programs are "secret." That means that neither you nor I really know what is going on. Why would a program like this be "secret"? What is our government hiding from us?

Why isn't it open and honest and transparent with us as Obama promised?

I'll tell you what I firmly believe until the facts to the contrary are proven. I think that in some if not all instances, our government pipes right into the billing and records of our communications companies and siphons off all our records.

The case law has authorized the government to obtain pen registers from private communications services providers in specific criminal inquiries. The government has interpreted that to mean that it can obtain vast amounts of data of the nature of a pen register and subpoena via a secret court any specific records it desires.

Snowden told us that in fact the individuals who manage and understand the NSA's system, the systems managers, etc., can go in and get the records of any person whose e-mail address they have.

So that means first, that the government is abusing this program to go beyond just obtaining pen registers and thus wants to keep what it is doing a secret from us, and second, that the government is not respecting the limitations placed on it by the Constitution with regard to obtaining our papers and personal things with a warrant based on probable cause and with regard to respecting our rights under the First and other Amendments to our Constitution.

The government is overstepping.

In addition, to support my theory, please note that the secrecy about this program is so strongly enforced that even members of Congress like Wyden do not dare speak about its perils and excesses openly other than to hint that they exist.

And, the government hires outside contractors to do this dirty work. The extent to which our constitutional protections prohibit government contractors from violating our rights is a bit of a a gray area (or at least it was 20 years ago, and I haven't heard about a Supreme Court decision fully clarifying it).

The government is sneaking around.

In addition, the definition of terrorism in the Patriot Act and as applied is so vague and arbitrary as to be meaningless.

Why wasn't the guy who shot Gabby Gifford considered a terrorist while some guy who discusses a crazy scheme with a government instigator is hauled off to jail?

That makes utterly no sense to me.

Something stinks really badly here. It's all secret so pinpointing just what is wrong is difficult for an ordinary person like me. But something is very wrong.

Obama promised transparency. I understood that the government would be open with us, not that they would make our personal lives into transparent objects for their examination.

As I wrote yesterday, the propagandizing of Americans is what collecting our records is about. It makes propagandizing us much easier. The government can target our particular propensities and intellectual levels. The entire concept from collecting data to spewing government propaganda is anti-democracy and anti-human-rights.

During the 2012 election, Obama studied computer records and social networks to target voters and get them out. That system worked well. Now the government is incorporating that technique just as private companies have.

We don't want our government doing that kind of surveillance and then propagandizing and ultimately psychological control over us.

People who do not understand this don't deserve to be free and won't be for long.