Posted on 07/09/2013 11:41:17 AM PDT by Nachum
Clayton Seymour, a 36-year-old IT specialist from Hilliard, Ohio, recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NSA, curious as to whether any data about him was being collected.
What he received in response made his blood boil.
“I am a generally law abiding citizen with nothing I can think of that would require monitoring,” Seymour wrote to me, “but I wanted to know if I was having data collected about me and if so, what.”
So Seymour sent in an FOIA request. Weeks later, a letter from the NSA arrived explaining that he was not entitled to any information. “When I got the declined letter, I was furious,” he told me. “I feel betrayed.”
Seymour had decided to request his NSA file after coming across a recent post of mine instructing Americans on how to properly request such files from the FBI and NSA. A Navy vet and two-time Obama voter who supported the President’s platform of greater governmental transparency, Seymour was shocked by the letter he received.
The letter, which first acknowledges the media coverage surrounding its surveillance systems, quickly moves to justify why none of that data can be obtained by an American citizen in a standard FOIA request:
(Excerpt) Read more at survivalandbeyond.net ...
And if they weren’t collecting info on him specifically then, they are now.
” What if a few million people all demanded to see their NSA files under a FOIA, then after rejection sued in a class action suit? “
Laudable. Only problem is we are now under a dictatorship. Laws mean nothing.
The employees of the agency would perjure themselves in court, refuse to cooperate with the court, claim the court has no jurisdiction over them, and rationalize it all by saying anything they do is for the Greater Good because they can't let The Enemy (roughly defined as whoever is bothering them at a particular moment) get an advantage on them.
It's pretty clear to the populace at large that these guys now run the government for their own benefit, and consider the citizenry to be a subservient serf class.
ONLY terrorists get protection from the NSA.
THEIR communications are ignored.
THEIR Passports not needed.
AND they are weaponized by Holder (Fast&Furious)
and Obama/Clinton (MANPADs).
You’re “enlightened” if you voted for transparency. You’re a racist if you’re pissed off that you didn’t get it.
I'm not shocked at all. obama thanks you for your vote. Think before voting next time, Seymour.
It belongs to King Zero and his Democrat Court. Oligarchy with a monarchical figurehead is our future if we can't "wake up" the American electorate (and stop Dem election theft).
A Navy vet who voted twice for Zero? Wonder if he woke up yet.....
“A Navy vet and two-time Obama voter”
He sounds gay to me.
If they are collecting data on every citizen in the US, then they would theoretically have a dossier on you and everything that you’ve ever done or did. If that’s the case, that’s information that would be uncovered in a traditional FOIA request. It’s also data to which you should have access anyway, since it’s something you knowingly did already.
However, if they were to release that data to you, you would have the tools at your disposal to at least close up some of the glaringly obvious leaks, things like weak passwords or poor browsing habits. After that, they would be revealing how they get your data (from your ISP vs. from the bank itself, for instance). It would create a slippery slope that would technically reveal “trade secrets” used by the NSA for hacking your life.
I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with this practice, but I can understand why they would deny the request. They’ve literally set it up so that revealing the information you request is a violation of national trade secrets and legally cannot be released. They created a legal Faraday cage.
Sorry, Clayton: Knowledge is Ignorance.
” DOJ + NSA + IRS = KGB”
And here we are!
Rejected for no standing.
Rejected due to sovereign immunity clause.
Rejected due to national security concerns.
Secret government operations against our own citizens need to end.
This is the stuff of how future massive protests and revolutions begin.
” DOJ + NSA + IRS = KGB”
Also = protests and revolts.
If it was his own info, he should have filed a Privacy Act request. Harder to deny.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.