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Posted on 08/25/2014 7:37:48 PM PDT by bamahead
The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly two dozen U.S. government agencies with a “Google-like” search engine built to share more than 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept.
The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies. Planning documents for ICREACH, as the search engine is called, cite the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration as key participants.
ICREACH contains information on the private communications of foreigners and, it appears, millions of records on American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing. Details about its existence are contained in the archive of materials provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Earlier revelations sourced to the Snowden documents have exposed a multitude of NSA programs for collecting large volumes of communications. The NSA has acknowledged that it shares some of its collected data with domestic agencies like the FBI, but details about the method and scope of its sharing have remained shrouded in secrecy.
ICREACH has been accessible to more than 1,000 analysts at 23 U.S. government agencies that perform intelligence work, according to a 2010 memo. A planning document from 2007 lists the DEA, FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency as core members. Information shared through ICREACH can be used to track people’s movements, map out their networks of associates, help predict future actions, and potentially reveal religious affiliations or political beliefs.
The creation of ICREACH represented a landmark moment in the history of classified U.S. government surveillance, according to the NSA documents.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstlook.org ...
Icy reach.
Chilling.
There’s the secret google and then there’s the public, commercial arm of the Puzzle Palace called “Google”.
They love google.
The machines require the data to learn — yet, privacy must be respected.
The irony is the amount of information exposed via Obamacare.
color me shocked.
After all, Feds are above the law...
I still have no faith in Snowden.
He seems a double agent to me.
Maybe worse.
850 billion records?
astounding
Consider from the first discussions of the Constitution until the Bill of Rights was ratified by the last of the 13 founding States, how many people debated, discussed and corresponded about the meaning of the right to be secure in their persons and papers.
Would anyone who was familiar with that process think for a single second that the Fourth, in the minds of those who proposed, discussed and ratified, would permit a federal official to record the origin and destination addresses of every piece of mail that those people posted? Or that it would permit a federal official to read all their private papers while they slept soundly in a bed at a roadhouse while on their way home from their proceedings?
I THINK NOT!
If we are to have the wholesale cataloging and archiving of all our electronic communications, even if only the details of the envelope we sent them in, we must have a public debate and we must either amend the Constitution or we must impeach all officials who have given themselves permission to suspend and violate the Fourth Amendment.
One solution is to make this the second order of business for the coming Article V Convention the states are going to hold to consider amendments to repair the dysfunctional federal Leviathan State.
The first order of business is to put a stop to government being able to create near-infinite amounts of money out of thin air with which it buys near-infinite amounts of government bureaucracy, one of which is the massive scale NSA surveillance machine.
The danger is not the law enforcement agencies getting the data, the danger is the regime getting it and using it against their enemies.
Vets and Tea Party members should know how easy it is be become an enemy of the State.
Well, we could use this to our advantage. Emails send to whoever outlining Dem illegal backing with cash of drugs deals, kickbacks paid to Dem officials, these are just examples, nothing I would know about. I will tell you this, nothing is truly done in secret, someone always knows.
4L8R
Is the ICReach motto “Be Evil”?
The real problem is secret voyeurism. Who are the people receiving the information? A secret elite unauthorized by democracy. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who watches the watchers? There should be a vastly expanded system of checks & balances with extremely harsh penalties for crimes & misdemeanors.... oh, but I forgot, we already have that but, at this end stage of our democracy, the tools have been allowed to drop to the ground and will soon be lost altogether.
We can start with blatantly unconstitutional and proceed from there.
FYI
“I still have no faith in Snowden.
He seems a double agent to me.
Maybe worse.”
Yeah, a gay mole perhaps.
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