For the first time in history, all three branches of American government are complicit in violating the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution by facilitating illegal surveillance, Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer, told RT.
The persecution-induced suicide of online activist Aaron Swartz,
the sentencing of US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning
and the Edward Snowden
asylum saga have all made 2013 the year that saw a clampdown on
whistleblowers. Yet the US government’s efforts to stifle this
kind of activity will hardly stop the new tech-savvy generation
from leaking sensitive data, McGovern believes, describing
whistleblowing as “unstoppable.”
The former CIA officer says the NSA has been dubbed ‘No Such
Amendment’ for its bulk surveillance, which is in violation of
the US Constitution, particularly its Fourth Amendment
prohibiting groundless and warrantless searches and seizures.
RT:Do you think in the future the work of
whistleblowers will be discouraged from all that we’ve seen this
year, the clampdown on whistleblowers throughout the globe?
Ray McGovern: Yes, their work will be
discouraged but it will be inevitable. In other words the
discouragement will appear more and more crass, more and more
ineffectual because the cat is out of the bag. There’s this new
generation, technical people, without whom people like NSA and
General Hayden and General Alexander cannot exist. As Julian
Assange said recently, he encourages this new generation to play
the role that the industrial generation did in preparing the way
for the 20th century. Seize the initiative, act courageously,
realize what you have -- what Julian calls “extraordinary power”
– they can’t make the systems work without you and when you talk
about a system’s administrator, it is not just one system. It is
the administrator that ties together a whole network of systems.
The cat is out of the bag. Those who cannot bear, as Martin
Luther King Jr. used to say, the natural medicines of air and
light on what they are doing, are going to be very frantic, will
try to stop this, but it is unstoppable and that’s good news for
the world and not just the United States.
RT:Talking about Aaron Swartz, will there
be a future for guys like him, computer whiz activists?
RM: Yes. You know General Hayden, who actually is the first one
to let himself be suborned by Dick Cheney and George Bush into
violating our Constitution. Now it may appear quaint to people on
the outside of the US, but this Constitution of the US is a
sacred document. It has a fourth amendment and that Fourth
Amendment [spells out] the right of the people to be secure. OK,
secure from “searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
warrants shall issue, except upon probable cause,” describing the
things to be seized or the person to be seized, looked at. Now
that constitution, that amendment has been violated to the point
where wags friends of mine have called the NSA, “No Such
Amendment”. It used to be “No Such Agency”, now it is “No Such
Amendment” and Hayden himself before the national press club
denied that probable cause is in the Fourth Amendment. It is
right here, I can read it to you, if you wish.
RT:But ultimately, will Snowden’s
revelations change anything? Is it going to change the NSA or the
way the people approach trying to protect their privacy?
RM: That is a big question. For the first time
in my professional life, we have a situation where not only the
executive and the Congress, but huge parts of our judicial
system, the three branches of our government, are all complicit
in either winking at or endorsing or letting pass these gross
violations of our Constitution. Now the cat is out of the bag.
One judge has said this is almost Orwellian, and you know what
Orwell stands for. It is almost Orwellian and it is crass
violation of this Constitution. Well, another judge says, “Well,
it may be not so bad.” So it is going to play out in the courts,
but before that could happen, because it will take many years,
it’s going to get done in Congress. And the person who is
responsible for the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner from
Wisconsin, he is in high dudgeon. He is as angry as can be. He
said, I never intended the Patriot Act to be interpreted in such
a way, by secret interpretation, to allow bulk collection of
everything we type, everything we listen to, everything we
communicate. It’s has gotten out of hand and now we’ll see if the
President of the US has enough courage to enforce the
Constitution that he, like I and like millions of others
Americans swore a solemn oath to support and defend against all
enemies, foreign and domestic.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.