MCViewPoint

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/02/andrew-p-napolitano/it-can-happen-here/

We remain embroiled in a debate over the nature and extent of our own government’s spying on us. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was enacted in 1978 as a response to the unlawful government spying of the Watergate era, was a lawful means for the government to engage in foreign surveillance on U.S. soil, but it has morphed into unchecked government spying on ordinary Americans.

The surveillance state is now here…

Why should anyone care about these political games?

The loss of liberty rarely comes about overnight or in one stroke. In a democracy, that loss is normally a slow process, often pushed along by well-intentioned folks who do not even realize until it is too late that they have created a monster. FISA is a monster. It began as a means of surveilling foreign agents in the U.S., and today it is used for surveilling any American at any time…

If you call a bookstore in Florence from a telephone in New Jersey, the government’s computers will be alerted. A federal agent will download the digital copy of your conversation, even though it was only about ordering a book. Then that communication may be used to justify surveillance of you whenever you talk to anyone else, in the U.S. or in any foreign country.

This is blatantly unconstitutional, and it is often fruitless. And we know it can happen to anyone…

The political use of intelligence data makes the owner of the data a serious threat to personal liberty, and it renders his instruments monstrous.

Be seeing you