YES WE SCAN, THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY AND FISA SECRET COURT IS WATCHING YOU!

It's disgusting what the American government is doing right now. They're using the argument of "national security" to justify their bullying and it's not making me feel safer as an American. In fact, it makes me feel just the opposite, that we are all being spied upon by the Government.

President Obama continues leading the way with lame excuses that just keep defending this entire invasion of our privacy and the relentless pursuit of brave whistle blowers. Mr. Obama, you "don't get it", you are such a disappointment, a weasel and phony, lying crook politician, just like all your previous and current colleagues. You scan, not as you promised, "Yes We Can" to the American people about fixing the ugliness that America was and still is.

Here's whats happening: The email provider that NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden reportedly used came under intense pressure from the US Government to make available to them all information related to its 350,000 users and to turn over the private e-mail record logs of their customers. 

But instead of caving, the owner of the Lavabit Internet service provider company stood his ethical ground. The thing that should bother you the most though, is the fact that we may never get to hear his whole side of the story. 

This is a video below that explains it. 

When word circulated that Edward Snowden was using Lavabit, an email service that purports to provide better privacy and security for users than popular web-based free services like Gmail, the U.S. "justice system" of injustice filed a Court order to force the owner of Lavabit to comply with giving them these logs.

Lavabit's courageous patriotic American owner has refused, abruptly shut down the service, and posted a message on the Lavabit.com home page today about wanting to avoid "being complicit in crimes against the American people."

According to the statement, it appears he rejected a U.S. court order to cooperate with the government in spying on users.

The email service offered various security features to a claimed user base of 350,000, and is the first such firm to have publicly and transparently closed down, rather than cooperate with state surveillance programs. 

The email address Snowden (or someone sending emails on his behalf) is reported to have used to send invites to a press conference at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in mid-July was a Lavabit account.

Below, the full message from Lavabit's founder and operator Ladar Levison:

"My Fellow Users,

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States. 

Sincerely,
Ladar Levison Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC"

They also note that "Defending the constitution is expensive!" And they're totally right. So if the right to privacy and free speech matters to you, then maybe consider donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund.  

CLICK HERE-Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian has more-

There are few Internet and telecommunications companies known to have refused compliance with the NSA for its bulk surveillance efforts, which the NSA and the Obama administration assert are vital to protect Americans.

"Without the companies' participation," former NSA codebreaker William Binney recently told the Guardian, "it would reduce the collection capability of the NSA significantly."

Several technology companies that participate in the National Security Agency's surveillance dragnets have filed legal requests to lift the secrecy restrictions that prevent them from explaining to their customers precisely what it is that they provide to the powerful intelligence service, either wittingly or due to a court order. Yahoo has sued for the disclosure of some of those court orders.

The presiding judge of the secret court that issues such orders, known as the FISA court, has indicated to the Justice Department that he expects declassification in the Yahoo case. The department agreed last week to a review that will last into September about the issues surrounding the release of that information.

Oh you never knew there is a secret Court operating within the U.S. Government.? Guess what, the FISA Court is real.

It's full name is The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and was established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978-CLICK HERE.

The FISC court has jurisdiction to "hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance" and "physical search[es]" for the "purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information" on foreign nationals within the United States. 

Procedures at the FISC are secretive and are also widely considered to be non-adversarial, since the target of the order is not given an opportunity to appear at the hearing or informed of the presence of the order.

Sounds like something that would exist in a "totalitarian country" such as Russia, or North Korea, but here it is operating in a "free country" such as the U.S.A., a so called democracy with a Constitution supposedly to protect our rights of freedom.

It even operates under the same bull shit propaganda premises of protecting "the people against it's enemies".

The U.S. criminally violates the privacy and freedoms of Americans, then attempts to hunt down whistle blower Edward Snowden charging him as a traitor, aiding and abetting the enemy, and telling the truth about our lying government.

Then Russia grants Snowden temporary asylum (such an irony that Putin the pig is looking good in this against Obama the liar). 

Does Barack Obama think we’re stupid?

That’s the only conclusion possible after watching his  press conference performance yesterday where the President announced a set of proposals meant to bring more transparency to the NSA and claimed he would have done it anyway, even if Edward Snowden, had never decided to leak thousands of highly sensitive documents to the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald.


But even as he grudgingly admitted that the timing, at least, of his suggestions was a consequence of Snowden’s actions, the president declared, “I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot.” When you look at what has changed over the last two months, though, it’s hard not to wonder, “What could be more patriotic than what Snowden did?”


First, the results: More than a dozen bills have already been introduced to put a stop to the NSA’s mass phone collection program and to overhaul the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has re-interpreted the Fourth Amendment in secret, creating a body of privacy law that the public has never read, A half-dozen new privacy lawsuits have been filed against the NSA. The Pentagon is undergoing an unprecedented secrecy audit. U.S. officials have been caught deceiving or lying to Congress. The list goes on.


A Quinnipiac poll conducted this month found people agreed, 55 percent to 34 percent, that Snowden was a whistle blower, a large margin that crossed party, gender, and age lines. 

A recent Reuters poll showed only 31 percent of the public thought he should be prosecuted.
 
Obama claimed in his press conference that Snowden stole his thunder, that he was one that tried to initiate a surveillance debate prior to Snowden’s leaks. But, he complained, “rather than an orderly and lawful process to debate these issues and come up with appropriate reforms, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate but not always fully informed way.” That argument just doesn’t equate with reality.

Can you hear me now, go ahead, read my blog, my e-mails, listen to my phone calls? 

Should we expect visits from the Government agency task force storm troopers when voicing disagreement with your policies, or exposing you for treason in turning America into a fake democracy?

Going to pay me a visit also to "protect" me as a citizen from who?

Or is it simply enough for me to mention the words (CLICK HERE)-pressure cooker and back packing in today's post, right here, for your computer spying software to pick me out as a potential enemy of the State, worthy of a raid on my home?