{"id":134257,"date":"2014-07-30T18:04:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T18:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=134257"},"modified":"2014-07-30T18:04:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T18:04:47","slug":"eavesdropping-america-nsas-orwellian-surveillance-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/eavesdropping-america-nsas-orwellian-surveillance-state\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEavesdropping on America\u201d: The NSA\u2019s Orwellian Surveillance State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #362f2d;\"><em style=\"font-weight: inherit;\">As a matter of faith, some people believe that God can see and hear everything. But as a matter of fact, the U.S. government now has the kind of surveillance powers formerly attributed only to a supreme being.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #362f2d;\"><em style=\"font-weight: inherit;\">Top \u201cnational security\u201d officials in Washington now have the determination and tech prowess to keep tabs on billions of people. No one elected Uncle Sam to play God. But a dire shortage of democratic constraints has enabled the U.S. surveillance state to keep expanding with steely resolve.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"color: #362f2d;\">By the time Edward Snowden used NSA documents to expose \u2013 beyond any doubt \u2013 a global surveillance dragnet, the situation had deteriorated so badly because the Bush and Obama administrations were able to dismiss earlier warnings to the public as little more than heresy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #362f2d;\">Eight years ago, in the book\u00a0<em style=\"font-weight: inherit;\">State of War<\/em>,\u00a0<em style=\"font-weight: inherit;\">New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reporter James Risen devoted a chapter to the huge expansion of surveillance. A secret decision by President George W. Bush \u201chas opened up America\u2019s domestic telecommunications network to the NSA in unprecedented and deeply troubling new ways, and represents a radical shift in the accepted policies and practices of the modern U.S. intelligence community,\u201d Risen wrote.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #362f2d;\">Risen added: \u201cThe NSA is now tapping into the heart of the nation\u2019s telephone network through direct access to key telecommunications switches that carry many of America\u2019s daily phone calls and e-mail messages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #362f2d;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/eavesdropping-on-america-the-nsas-orwellian-surveillance-state\/5391537?utm_source=feedly&amp;utm_reader=feedly&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=eavesdropping-on-america-the-nsas-orwellian-surveillance-state\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a matter of faith, some people believe that God can see and hear everything. But as a matter of fact, the U.S. government now has the kind of surveillance powers formerly attributed only to a supreme being. Top \u201cnational security\u201d officials in Washington now have the determination and tech prowess to keep tabs on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-134257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-surveillance-big-brother"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}