Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Ex-NSA Official Says Government Has Intercepted Trillions of Communications
August 29, 2012
Not that anyone who reads much (a small minority, I know) is surprised but whistleblower William Binney, a former official with the National Security agency, has accused the U.S. government of intercepting trillions of phone calls and e-mails.
Binney is regarded as one of the best mathematicians and code brokers in NSA history. He says he left the NSA in late 2001 after he learned that the government intended to use the September 11th terrorist attacks as justification for launching a data collection program intended to intercept communications between U.S. citizens. The program, which Binney says he helped create, was never intended for domestic surveillance.
The NSA is building a storage facility in Utah bigger than anything ever built by Apple or Google. By Binney's estimate, the facility will be able to store 100 years of the world's electronic communications.
I'm not sure that we're entirely a democracy today but if what Binney says is true, we won't be a democracy for long.
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