Spy Agencies Are Doing WHAT? -- By George Washington, Zero Hedge

Revelations about the breathtaking scope of government spying are coming so fast that it's time for an updated roundup:

• The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just "metadata" ... although that is enough to destroy your privacy

• The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that "everything" is relevant ... so it spies on everyone.  For example, the NSA "oversight" court believes the mere claim that terrorists use the phone system is enough to show that all phone records are relevant

• NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word

• It's not just the NSA ... Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS – concerned only with domestic issues - spy on Americans as well. The Drug Enforcement Administration has had direct access to AT&T phone records for 25 years

• The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally "launder" the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way ... and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges

• The Department of Health and Human Services will also have access to vast quantities of sensitive federal data on Americans as part of Obamacare (here's the underlying Government Accountability Office report)

• The NSA not only shares our information with other American agencies, it also gives personal, sensitive unfiltered information on Americans to Israel and other foreign nations

• And it's not only governments.  Private contractors can also view all of your data (and the government isn’t keeping track of which contractors see your data and which don’t). And because background checks regarding some contractors are falsified, it is hard to know the types of people that might have your information.  Indeed, private contractors are involved in spying on behalf of governments world-wide

• It's not just your computer and your phone. It is well-documented that the government may be spying on us through cars and buses, streetlights, at airports and on the street, via mobile scanners and drones, through our smart meters, and in many other ways

• Top counter-terror experts say that the government’s mass spying doesn't keep us safe

• Indeed, they say that mass spying actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts (more here and here)

• They say we can, instead, keep everyone safe without violating the Constitution ... more cheaply and efficiently than the current system

• There is no real oversight by Congress, the courts, or the executive branch of government. And see this and this.

• Indeed, most Congress members had no idea what the NSA is doing. Even staunch defenders of the NSA - and congress members on the intelligence oversight committees - now say they've been kept in the dark

• A Federal judge who was on the secret spying court for 3 years says that it's a kangaroo court

• Even the current judges on the secret spying court now admit that they're out of the loop and powerless to exercise real oversight.

• When these judges raised concerns about NSA spying, the Justice Department completely ignored them

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