CEO Who Resisted NSA Spying Out Of Prison, Vindicated By Snowden

[JDPriestly]

49. Nacchio's experience answers your question.

It isn't that we Americans are so secretive. At 70, I have very little to hide, and most of that very little is known to my doctor, my family and my friends and of no interest to the NSA or anyone else.

But, we have this document called the Constitution of the United States. It bars the government from passing any law (or acting in the absence of a law) that would deprive us of our very natural rights, those we are born with like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, a fair trial, etc. They are all written down in the covenant that forms the basis of our country -- again, it's called the Constitution of the United States. The NSA is not respecting our rights under that document. It does not request a warrant based on probable cause before it searches our persons, houses, papers, and effects. And its search of our persons, houses, papers, and effects is unreasonable because its search encompasses nearly everything that relates to our persons, houses, papers and effects. Don't bring up the Smith v. Maryland case. That was handed down in the late 1970s and did not pertain to a world in which we do everything from break up with our boyfriends to join organizations to sign petitions, to find boyfriends (not at my age, but well), to discuss what we had for breakfast this morning, to pay our bills, to communicate with our doctors, to buy and borrow books and clothing. . . . all the things that we used to do in our houses, all the papers we used to keep in hard copy. In short, if the Fourth Amendment does not apply to electronic media, its' meaning and purpose are eviscerated. And the NSA has obviously violated it.

But then we go on to other amendments. The NSA spying on Americans without probable call also eviscerates virtually every one of them. In fact, that good old Third Amendment, the one about quartering troops in houses (Remember: No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.) I understand that the day will soon be here if it isn't already when through the camera on your computer (the one you use to Skype), the government will be able to intrude into your very home. Might as well have the entire NSA army housed in your living room or wherever you keep your computer.

Worst of all, your right to a fair trial can be compromised by the NSA and indeed by the entire concept of secret courts and secret evidence.

Horrors! The NSA surveillance is the obliteration of our Bill of Rights. And don't tell me it is just metadata. I know what can be done with a list of phone numbers. I used to work at the phone company and later had a job in which I sometimes reviewed phone numbers for legal purposes and with the knowledge of the person whose phone numbers I was reviewing.

It's one thing when a private company takes your computer information for strictly private purposes -- like locating you as a potential customer. That private company does not have the ability to dream up some sort of criminal charge against you and then claim that, for reasons of national security, it doesn't have to produce the evidence you have to exonerate yourself.

And that is precisely what Nacchio claims happened to him. Watch the video at # 13 below. I don't know whether his viewpoint is "correct or true" or not. None of us can know because too much of the relevant evidence was apparently excluded from the trial on national security grounds.

The Redcoats could never have thought of such a horrible violation of people's rights. What did our ancestors fight the American Revolution for if not to eliminate the possibility that an American government would ever adopt the heavy-handed methods that the NSA is using today?

Don't brush the complaints about the spying off so easily.

As for the legitimate and important pursuit of terrorists and the acquisition of foreign intelligence, the NSA could do all that quite well without violating our Constitution. And it should.

I will tell you as one who lived in Europe on the edge of Eastern Europe at the relevant time, if the information Americans were getting about the Soviet menace in the late '70s and early '80s was coming from the CIA, they had it totally wrong and any person including any CIA agent living where I was in Europe would have known it. The Soviet Union was dying long before 1989 -- long before 1989. Hungary and Austria had a trade agreement that permitted free travel between the two countires well before 1989.

Once the Hungarian-Austrian border was open, the finale on the Soviet Union was a pretty sure thing. If the CIA did not see that coming, it's because they weren't looking.