Government whistleblower: FBI has email archives of nearly all Americans, including members of Congress

Friday, December 07, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: email archives, FBI, surveillance

(NaturalNews) A government whistleblower has told a Russian news agency what tens of millions of Americans have suspected for years now - that most of us are under constant surveillance by our own federal law enforcement and spy agencies.

William Binney, a former top mathematician and code-breaker with the National Security Administration, told Russia Today in a recent interview that the FBI records the emails of nearly every U.S. citizen, to include members of Congress, adding that the government could in turn use the information against anyone.

Binney, who resigned from the NSA in 2001, said he could no longer associate himself with such regular violations of the Constitution, including how the FBI engages in extensive surveillance through powerful electronic analytical tools from contracting firms like Narus, a subsidiary of The Boeing Company, which "provides powerful cybersecurity and surveillance software, giving our customers unprecedented insight into their network through innovative big data analysis," according to the company's website.

'Even members of Congress are targeted'

The former NSA code breaker received this year's Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, an honor presented annually by the Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest. The award, which was established in 1990, "recognizes individuals who take a public stance to advance truth and justice, at some personal risk."

Here is a sample of the interview Russia Today conducted with Binney:

RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama, one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen - thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It's not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?

William Binney: Yes, that's what I've been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason - they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they've done for the last 10 years at least.

'They need more storage space'

Binney went on to say that no one is beyond surveillance, and that the government is collecting so much data, and at such an alarmingly fast rate, that more storage room is being built.

"That's why they're building Bluffdale [a massive Utah-based database facility], because they have to have more storage, because they can't figure out what's important, so they are just storing everything there," he said.

Natural News reported on that facility in March. Nestled in the heart of Mormon country in Utah, the NSA has an army of workers cleared all the way up to TOP SECRET presently constructing a facility that will be five times larger than the U.S. Capitol, for the purposes of capturing, storing, analyzing and breaking down amazing quantities of words and images that pass through the world's telecommunications networks - all very secretly, of course.

As the Salt Lake Tribune reported, the facility is so large that the closest town - Bluffdale - had to be enlarged by 500 acres.

'It's not a transparent government'

Binney told RT he thought that the data collection was being done indiscriminately, without regard to prioritization.

"I don't think they are filtering it. They are just storing it. I think it's just a matter of selecting when they want it," he said. "So, if they want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and pull out all your data."

Binney initially blew the whistle on the NSA's and FBI's data collection during the Bush Administration, but he says things have only gotten worse since President Obama came into office.

"They are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Bluffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it," he said.

"This government doesn't want things in the public. It's not a transparent government."

Sources:

http://rt.com/usa/news/surveillance-spying-e-mail-citizens-178/

https://www.naturalnews.com/035386_NSA_data_center_spying.html

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