Massive spying run by the US National Security Agency is in violation of Americansâ„¢ constitutional rights, and all US officials have conspired to do that, says former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Å“The Congress people who are supposed to be supervising the intelligence agencies have not been doing so and the courts, the judicial part of our government, has not been doing its job,” said McGovern in a phone interview with Press TV on Monday.
Thus, there has been Å“the equivalence of a conspiracy between the three branches of our government, the executive which has arrogated all power to itself, the Congress which has acquiesced in that, and the judiciary which has given blanket approval to gross violations of our Fourth Amendment [of the US Constitution]”, McGovern added.
Last month, American whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid on massive surveillance by the NSA including two major spying programs, one for gathering US phone records and another, codenamed PRISM, for tracking the use of US-based web servers by American citizens and other nationals.
Å“Just now, thanks to Mr. Snowden, we have documents proving this. We had earlier reports but now we have documents from the National Security Agency itself showing the extent of this intrusive surveillance,” McGovern said.
US Senator Ron Wyden has also warned American citizens that their smart phone use, text messages, web surfing and phone calls can be logged by the government.
Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald, a prominent American journalist working with Britainâ„¢s Guardian newspaper who published leaks about the NSAâ„¢s spying programs, also said on Sunday that he would soon reveal new information on how low-level NSA contractors access Americansâ„¢ phone and email communications.
ISH/ARA
Republished from: Press TV