Sen. Ron Wyden (D – OR) has been trying to push the NSA into further disclosures of its activities at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, and has regularly been at the center of the NSA’s overt lies about the program, when he pressed for specifics they didn’t feel like giving.
Today, Wyden’s questions centered around the NSA’s mass collection of cellphone GPS data to track the movements of ordinary Americans, pointedly asking NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander to provide details of past or future plans to do so.
Alexander initially insisted only that no such collection is being done under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, to which Sen. Wyden reiterated his question as asking whether the program has ever happened, and not just if it is currently happening under one specific legal section. Alexander refused to answer, saying the matter was “classified.”
Wyden is privy to classified data, and often raises questions about programs he already knows are going on in open session in an attempt to get the matter out in the open. Though we don’t have any confirmation yet, it is unlikely that Alexander would attempt to address the question with a non-answer then a cop-out if there wasn’t something there.
This is the best summary of the erroneous policy at the root of the NSA spying:
"To find a needle in a haystack, you first need to have the haystack".
Meaning they need to collect "everything" or as much as possible to maintain the stack, "blind folded" as there's no permission yet to look, waiting for authorization to come through after which the haystack is searched.
But the haystack is "total awareness", the ambition to store everything about everyone for at least a certain time frame. And then wait for occasions to arise to use it under the guise of law. This is why Wyden doesn't need to hint: we can already deduce that all available locations and movements of citizens are stored as much as possible for a given time period. Just not looked at which they don't consider "collecting" as such.
They are devious and dirty beyond all understanding. THIS IS AMERICA?
The practice of categorizing certain government documents and government activities "classified" should be ended. No government activity should be "classified".
Nobody would argue that armies should not be able to keep their military strategy or battle plans secret in an actual war. But the use of "classifying" government activities in peace time is just a way of protecting wrongdoers, covering up illegal and unconstitutional activites, or hiding embarrassing actions by the government or its employees.