Huffington Post – by Paige Lavender
National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said the NSA wants to collect more phone records, even after being the subject of recent public unease.
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) asked Alexander if the NSA wants “the phone records of all Americans” during a congressional hearing Thursday.
“I believe it is in the nation’s best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we can search when the nation needs to do it, yes,” Alexander replied.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) reminded Alexander of Americans’ distrust in the NSA since Edward Snowden disclosed documents on previously secret U.S. internet and phone surveillance programs in June.
“A lot of Americans have lost trust in what you’re doing,” Warner said.
During the same hearing, James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, said he would consider limits to ease concerns raised by disclosures of NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone and email data.
Matt Sledge contributed to this report.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/keith-alexander-nsa_n_3998071.html#!
Once again, the government is failing to discuss the real issues. If Alexander was only talking about recording the sender, recipient, date and time of every call it would be bad enough, but the NSA is already gathering so much more. It is telling that the law that gives the government access to telecommunication company’s data also forbids those companies to disclose what they’re providing. Make no mistake, the NSA is or will soon collect every digital communication in its entirety including phone conversations, emails, texts, facebook and twitter content, plus a wide range of internet traffic. The reason they are doing so is that they can. The technology has evolved to the point where it is a relatively easy task. The quantity of data that can be effectively managed is essentially infinite. All of the data will be indexed via sophisticated computer algorithms that will allow the government to search the data much like we use Google to search the web. Only a naïve fool would believe that they would go to all this trouble only for the purpose of interdicting active terror plots. No, this is about the government obtaining a level of control over its citizens that is unprecedented in history. If this is allowed to continue, freedom as we know it will soon be a fond memory.
INSERT PICTURE OF KEITH” THE GALL” ALEXANDER
HOMETOWN BOY GOES BAD, MUST BE PUT DOWN!
The electric required to run just ONE NSA data collection, the one in Utah, is 65 megawatts, or enough juice to power 65,000 homes.
That’s one helluva storage space.