William Binney is a whistle blower and 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency. He’s regarded as one of the best mathematicians and code breakers in N.S.A.’s history. Or so says New York Times reporter and filmmaker Laura Poitras.
Binney is featured in Poitras’ documentary short about the N.S.A. post 911. The video is incredibly discerning, as Binney reveals the secrets and public privacy violations the N.S.A. has been committing since 2001.
The documentary opens, “Following 911, the National Security Agency began a top-secret surveillance program to spy on U.S. citizens without warrants.”
Here’s how the story goes. Binney had been breaking codes and data systems for a long time. He developed a program (codenamed “Stellar Wind”) during the cold war to spy on the Soviet Union.
After 911, the N.S.A. took Binney’s program and started using it to spy on United States Citizens. “It was simply a different input,” Binney says, “domestic rather than foreign.”
The N.S.A. is currently building the country’s biggest data storage facility in Bluffdale, Utah. It seems like something a conspiracy theorist would say. But it’s there, easy to see in Poitras’ video.
Binney calculates the facility has the capacity to store 100 years of the world’s electronic communications. He describes the information as a collection of domains (activities like cell phone calls and bank information). The domains are then graphed out as virtual timelines of every American’s life. Like Facebook, but with EVERY electronic step you’ve taken since 2001.
Pretty scary, right? How does the N.S.A. get away with this?
At the Def Con Hacker Conference the American Civil Liberties Union spoke about USSID 18, NSA’a top-secret manual of definitions and legal directives that break the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The NSA determines in its manual that an “intercept” doesn’t occur until the media is read or the audio is actually listened to – until someone puts on some headphones and pushes play.
Why isn’t this a bigger deal? A number of Senators have voiced concern, including Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Mark Udall (Colorado) who are trying to revise amendments to insure greater privacy protection. But, like most top-secret government projects, the public is the last to know.
U.S. citizens simply have no clue.
What’s all this mean? Technology is miraculously dangerous tool. We are all connected, including the N.S.A. and their “extremely impeachable crimes,” as Binney puts it.
Be careful what you do and say over the phone and on the internet. At an increasing rate, you are being watched by surveillance cameras, satellites, and huge computer intercept systems. We’re progressing technologically, and the 1984 vision is not in the future.
It seems to be here and now.