NSA Whistleblower: “We are headed towards a Police State”

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

According to former National Security Agency employee, Kirk Wiebe, the agency had the capability to grab everyone’s data even before 9/11. He said that the terrorist events of 2001 were a trigger for the NSA to act with complete disregard for the US Constitution and mainly the Forth Amendment.

Wiebe and his fellow whistleblower Thomas Drake, explain that the terrorist attacks gave the NSA and the US government an excuse to get military contractors involved in the creation of a broader surveillance state that provides no limits whatsoever to what government agencies such as the NSA can do with any piece of information from US citizens or even people who reside abroad.

As it stands today, the power of the NSA is simply unchecked. Drake says that inside the agency there is a widely held belief that it is necessary to trade anonymity for security, which is the opposite of what the United States founding fathers advised people to do. When asked about whether the United States could unwind the powers afforded to the NSA and other government agencies, he referred viewers to the secretive ways in which the NSA misbehaved in 1960s and 70s to conclude that it is not possible to simply trust the agency or anything it does today.

The questions back in the 60s and 70s was whether or not the availability of a technical capacity to spy on everyone, as it is done today, could be manageable to avoid abuse, or even further, if it could be rolled back. According to Drake, the question is why would people trust the NSA anymore than it did in the 60s and 70s, when it was well-known that the agency was operating above the law?

When questioned about whether the United States was moving towards becoming a tyrannical state, just as other nations like North Korea or China, Kirk Wiebe was clear and succinct: “In my estimation we are. We are headed towards a Police State.” Wiebe candidly recounted how the current intelligence operations led by the NSA look a lot like Gestapo or like Stasi in Germany. “We are moving in that direction. People are trashing the Constitution. They’ve lost their respect for it.

He also told viewers how he had written congressman Rosco Bartlet about his concerns and how the answer he got back from Mr. Bartlet was as astonishing as the concerns he posed on the letter regarding privacy and legislation. Congressman Bartlet responded that the thing that gave him confidence about the creation and approval of spectacular powers given to the NSA and other government agencies was that “everything was being done in good faith.”

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