NSA Constitutional Breach
National Intelligence Director James Clapper has publicly acknowledged that the National Security Agency collects and stores private communications data (excepting content) from Verizon and other carriers involving hundreds of millions of ordinary American citizens. This has been ongoing since at least 2006.
Whistleblower and former AT&T technician Mark Klein has provided unrebutted evidence forming a key basis for litigation filed in 2008 charging that NSA has installed a “listening room” at AT&T’s San Francisco data communications hub (and likely a dozen or more additional such hubs around the US) from which NSA can route all phone and Internet traffic in realtime to its facilities for storage and data mining. This July, the court finally rejected the Obama Administration’s “state secrets” defense, ruling that the case may be litigated under the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
For the likely purpose of storing and mining this massive stream of past and realtime data, NSA is building a $2 billion data warehouse north of Provo, Utah, slated for completion later this year. Indicating its immensity, this facility will consume 65 megawatts of power and 1.7 million gallons of cooling water per day.
Constitutional breach
The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The framers included this provision in our Bill of Rights because British soldiers had been routinely issuing “general warrants,” allowing groundless searches of Colonists private homes.
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