Obama Administration Admits Use Of ‘Warrantless Searches’ Of US Citizens

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Obama Administration Admits Use Of “Warrantless Searches” Of US Citizens (ZeroHedge, April 2, 2014):

Just over a month ago, we reported on the Supreme Court’s ruling that police may search a home without obtaining a warrant thus denigrating the Fourth Amendment to the funeral pyre under the Obama Administration’s totalitarian might. Today that decision (and the end of the 4th) were confirmed when the country’s top intelligence official confirmed in a letter to Congress that the Obama administration has conducted warrantless searches of Americans’ communications as part of the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations. While efforts were made to suggest agencies do not deliberately track Americans’ emails, phone calls, and online activity without a warrant, as Sen. Wyden notes, “the facts show that was misleading.”

Via AP,

The Obama administration has conducted warrantless searches of Americans’ communications as part of the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations that target foreigners located outside of the U.S., the administration’s top intelligence official confirmed in a letter to Congress disclosed Tuesday.

These searches were authorized by a secret surveillance court in 2011, but it was unclear until Tuesday whether any such searches on Americans had been conducted.

“Senior officials have sometimes suggested that government agencies do not deliberately read Americans’ emails, monitor their online activity or listen to their phone calls without a warrant,” Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado said in a joint statement. “However, the facts show that those suggestions were misleading, and that intelligence agencies have indeed conducted warrantless searches for Americans’ communications.”

We are sure this will help galvanize domestic and international sentiment against the Obama administrations policies…

Wyden has pressed the administration on whether these searches on Americans have occurred. In a March 28 letter to Wyden, James Clapper, the government’s top intelligence official, said the NSA has searched for Americans’ communications within information it collected when it targeted foreigners located outside the U.S. In his letter, Clapper also pointed to a declassified document released last August that also acknowledged the use of such searches and stated that these searches were reviewed, and there was no finding of wrongdoing. It was unclear how often these searches are conducted.

Documents disclosed last year by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden showed that the government collects mass amounts of data from major Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook through one of its programs designed to target communications of foreigners located outside the U.S. The government is not allowed to use this authority to collect Americans’ communications, but conversations of innocent Americans are collected inadvertently. When this happens, the NSA is required to take certain measures to hide the communications of Americans that have nothing to do with foreign intelligence.

In 2011, the government sought and received approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to search for Americans within the communications it already possessed through its collection of conversations of foreigners outside the U.S. Such searches would only be permissible if there were a foreign intelligence purpose.

A Back-Door Loophole around the Constitution!

Wyden, Udall and other civil liberties advocates call this type of search a back-door loophole in the law that governs surveillance of Americans.

“If a government agency thinks that a particular American is engaged in terrorism or espionage, the Fourth Amendment requires that the government secure a warrant or emergency authorization before monitoring his or her communications,” Wyden and Udall said.

The Obama administration contends the searches are legal because they are searching information they lawfully obtained.

As we subtly suggested before,

Well there goes the fourth amen… oh look, over there: it’s another all time high in the S&P 500. On paper, those who hold stocks have never been richer. Everyone else, barricade your doors, and the police come knocking, don’t even bother answering – they will come in anyway. And also prepare your guns for return to the government: that particular “constitutional” amendment is the next to go.

2 thoughts on “Obama Administration Admits Use Of ‘Warrantless Searches’ Of US Citizens”

  1. I bet this gets next to zero coverage on US media. A couple of pundits will speak out against it……and that will be the end of it. The 18th century Great Enlightenment…..the concept man can actually govern himself…….has been proved wrong.

    As one who spent years in the study of that wonderful era, I am saddened and sickened by what I see. Growing up, I saw the voter had lots of power, and we had all our civil rights. If we found an objectionable creep in power, we could throw them out.

    Since the fall of Richard Nixon, and his failed coup, people went to sleep after his resignation. Instead of being more vigilant, voters got too lazy to follow political events or vote intelligently. People actually would vote as the TV told them to…..I was appalled. Sloppy thought does not make for good government or leadership.

    Now, we have both, sloppy thinking corrupt leaders who are totally sold out to corporations. Abe Lincoln described corporations as the greatest manmade evil. He also said if America falls, it will be due to the Vandals Within, not foreign invasions. He didn’t see global corporations, they didn’t exist. Corporations in his day lived for 40 years……he would be sick if he saw what we have now.

    When I found out last week that Obama, the former editor of the Harvard Review was the first editor to gain that seat without submitting a single article, bells went off. His presidency was planned many years ago, he is a true Manchurian candidate. It creeps me out………and there is nobody to stop him.

    Throughout history, the memorable ones have been kings, emperors and dictators…….not leadership by group. The example of the Roman Republic ought to have told our founders that a parliamentary system would work much better. Since we were at war with England, it was not considered.

    This is so typical of this corporate owned creature, nothing surprises me. The congress is just as bad. There is no legal way to get rid of them……and that really bodes ill for this nation.

    Now that the corrupt supreme court has made it legal for greedy guts to put $3.5 million into any campaign they wish, the voices of the people that were muted by Citizens United, are totally buried. So is the republic, and our future with it.

    Thanks for covering this.

    Reply

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