"The Telephone": is a "Government Controlled Corporate Paid Tape Recorder"

The only things that ever kept us safe from Governments and Corporations using the recorded information against us is:

The Forth Amendment: which has all but been disregarded by the Patriot Acts and the recent rulings but the Supreme Court.

Technology To Use Data: Supercomputer Clustering, and Ranking algorithms makes processing you as easy as searching Google.

Distribution of Data For Exploitation: is no longer segregated due to the development of new Fusion Centers.

ECHELON is former code name used to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK-USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUSCANZUKUS). It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.

ECHELON was created under the illusion of the Cold War myth in the fear of 1960s, it searches for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence. ECHELON is capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks(which once carried .most Internet traffic) and microwave links

Bill Of Rights  4th Amendment

Search and arrest

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

NSA Spying

The U.S. government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.

News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans’ phone calls and Internet communications. Those news reports, plus a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of their telephone and other communications records. All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.

The evidence also shows that the government did not act alone. EFF has obtained whistleblower evidence from former AT&T technician Mark Klein showing that AT&T is cooperating with the illegal surveillance. The undisputed documents show that AT&T installed a fiberoptic splitter at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco that makes copies of all emails, web browsing, and other Internet traffic to and from AT&T customers, and provides those copies to the NSA. This copying includes both domestic and international Internet activities of AT&T customers. As one expert observed, “this isn’t a wiretap, it’s a country-tap.” Source:Electronic Freedom Foundation

RON PAUL OF TEXAS BEFORE THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 16, 2005 

Congress Erodes Privacy

The privacy issue has been around for a long time. The brutal abuse of privacy and property of early Americans played a big role in our revolt against the King. The 1^st, 4^th, and 5^th amendments represented attempts to protect private property and privacy from an overzealous federal government. Today those attempts appear to have failed.

There have been serious legal debates in recent decades about whether “privacy” is protected by the Constitution. Some argue that since the word does not appear in the text of that document, it is not protected. Others argue that privacy protection grants the federal government power to dictate to all states limits or leniency in enforcing certain laws. But the essence of liberty is privacy.

In recent years—especially since 9-11—Congress has been totally negligent in its duty to protect U.S. citizens from federal government encroachment on the rights of privacy. Even prior to 9-11, the Echelon worldwide surveillance system was well entrenched, monitoring telephones, faxes, and emails.

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

CLARKSBURG, W. Va. -- The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of Humans' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. Law enforcement authorities around the world will access to iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

The Department of Homeland Security has been using iris scans at some airports to verify the identity of travelers who have passed background checks and who want to move through lines quickly. The department is also looking to apply iris- and face-recognition techniques to other programs. The DHS already has a database of millions of sets of fingerprints, which includes records collected from U.S. and foreign travelers stopped at borders for criminal violations, from U.S. citizens adopting children overseas, and from visa applicants abroad. There could be multiple records of one person's prints.

"It's going to be an essential component of tracking," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society."

If successful, the system planned by the FBI, called Next Generation Identification, will collect a wide variety of biometric information in one place for identification and forensic purposes.

Secret DOJ Memo

The ACLU reports that the memo states the "Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations." after 9/11. In other words, the DOJ gave the White House a green light to effectively shelve Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures in the wake of the terror attacks.

The memo was written by then deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo, also the co-author of the PATRIOT Act and author of the now notorious torture memos.

Supreme Court Rules Against Fourth Amendment

As the Democrats in Congress methodically plot against the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court works in unison against the Fourth Amendment. On January 14, the Court ruled that evidence obtained through illegal searches may be used to prosecute criminal defendants.

Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program, warns that, “This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s handing out ‘goodies’ to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery"

More than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect and provide information on fellow Americans. In return, members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public, and at times before elected officials. “There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate Total Information Awareness program (TIPS), turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” according to an ACLU report titled “The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.”

InfraGard, with members from 350 companies of the Fortune 500, started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats. “Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.