I Am Not A Number--I am a Free Man--The Prisoner

Or Paranoia is having all the facts--Bill Burroughs.

Back from Africa,I have been offline for nearly two weeks and without a cellphone. I would advise the same for some breathing space for your brain but the news on reaching home shows you why this might be a necessity.

Ron Paul supporter,temporary hire at Booz, Hamilton and former NSA tech support guy leaks to another Ron Paul supporter, Glenn Greenwald, a court order allowing the NSA to collect data on all cellphones by one company, the power points about the NSA program called Prism and President Obama's decision to draw up a list for cyberwarfare. Edward Snowden flees to Hong Kong because he can't live in a society that does to its citizens what he was doing and holds up in a hotel. Yesterday,Booz Hamilton fired him and said that he didn't make $200,000 as reported but only about $110,000--clearly a shrewd move by the company to neutralize a huge PR disaster(Cough).

Edward Snowden left his girlfriend in Hawaii where he was living and fled the country. Depending on whether you think he is a hero or a traitor, the girlfriend is portrayed as either a ballerina,which she is, or a lap dancer. While Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S.,Snowden has expressed interest in seeking asylum in Iceland and today Putin said Russia may offer him asylum.

The release of the materials came as President Obama was meeting with the new Chinese leader to discuss among other things the cyberwarfare of the Chinese against American Corporations and our military. 

Rand Paul immediately said he would take the issue to the Supreme Court to have Prism ruled unconstitutional. Democratic Senators like Bernie Sanders weighed in protesting the idea of the U.S. spying on its citizens. And the political debate refreshingly became diverse and not as polarized as the last five years.

A lot of the problem stems from the original Patriot Act and its renewals, the latest being 2011. Ignorance of the law may not be an excuse but with national security matters it would be useful to know what the law is and even our Congresscritters don't know because the law is secret. After years of permanent war, it is a perfect time for a fully, more open debate on the whole issue of data mining and the use of data by the U.S. Government. 

The big glaring issue in the Snowden controversy is the role of private contractors in intelligence and counter-terrorism. Over 1,900 companies are involved in this business and over 500,000 individuals  are employed. If a "temporary" worker like Snowden had access to all he claims, this is a massive problem.

Do all the internet companies cooperate with the NSA on these matters? Sure. Do they provide all your details to the NSA. You betcha. Since the late 1980s, all software has entry points for the NSA or they could not be approved. 

The issue of privacy now becomes complicated with the technological advances but a national discussion is warranted. However,I fear that it will not happen because there are very few people who understand,let alone can explain the implications of things like data-mining and the like. We have created a monster that we do not control and there are no authorities who can either. 

This week I have been reading geek literature on Data Mining, which is now a bonafide speciality and I can tell you I only understand the vaguest outlines of the subject. It makes you long for the days of "The Conversation" and Gene Hackman, a man who is disgusted with eavesdropping on people. 

The immediate fallout of these revelations has been diplomatic. The German government wants to know why they are the biggest target for the NSA among allied countries and the UK has had to explain before parliament what protections they are affording British citizens. The world most sympathetic to the United States is getting fed up with spending time trying to rationalize their relationship with us as new revelations come out via Wikileaks, Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden.

The American public is pretty sanguine about all this as polls show support for more government monitoring of communications. My question is what can you do with all this data? A terrorist-watch list of over 600,000 people and no one can seem to use it to locate terrorists. Information more than all the libraries of human existence combined stretching back to Alexandria and virtually undigested.

And are specific domestic groups targeted? What we know is that Occupy Wall Street had all its phones targeted and combine with the coordination of the various police forces and the federal government this represents a form of repression. Tea Party groups. Not so much despite Glenn Beck's hysteria that the IRS information combined with NSA data can be downloaded with a push of a finger and all teapartiers will be arrested.

Jonathan Turley at George Washington University said at the beginning of the Obama administration that he would rue the day he did nothing to roll back the surveillance state and punish the culprits of the Bush Administration. I think he is right. The expansion of the surveillance state does soil President Obama's legacy and if not corrected portends ill for the future.

Congress pretends it has not been fully briefed on these programs. Hogwash, they have received nearly two dozen briefings by the NSA and FBI in the last year alone. The initial approval of these programs received large bipartisan support. Complaints that "we didn't know they were so extensive" are nonsense. Senators Udall and Wyden has been obliquely warning people about the dark side of these programs for the last few years. The problem has been they have been constrained from forthrightly talking about them because they are "secret". 

And the judiciary has basically ratified these programs. Unlike the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration has gone to the FISA court for approval. But that's no great shakes either because the administration is batting close to 1,000 in the cases, which makes it appear FISA is a rubber stamp to whatever the Administration wants.

At a minimum, the court's decisions should be made public. Hearings on these controversial programs also should be public so we know what they are and what they are not. And the whole subject of private contractors carrying out the intelligence for the state needs to be debated. I can not see how you can privatize intelligence and have both transparency and accountability. And Congress should hold hearings on the Snowden case. Did he really have access to all what he claims or not and if he did, how was that possible and can that be prevented in the future.