NSA And Your Phone Calls: The Finest of Ironies

What the individual thinks is irrelevant. Only what the government thinks and what their perspective that individual and what they are doing is relevant.

Just thirty years ago the United States was locked in one of the most epic pissing contests of all time with the United Soviet Socialist Republic. The US stood for the free world: freedom to do, work, and move about as one pleased. Russia was almost diametrically opposed in every way; there were gulags and central planning and the KGB, the most ruthless and effective spying organization on the planet, spent as much of its time snooping on its own citizens as it did the rest of the world.

NSA: The Collection and Storage of Data

Fast forward to 2014. The NSA, under the full knowledge and blessing of Congress and the President, is recording, analyzing, and storing 80% or more of all US citizens’ phone calls and intercepting and retaining hundreds of thousands of emails and instant messages, in addition to the so called ‘metadata’ that they’ve explicitly admitted to obtaining. 

Not only that, but starting next year, the NSA will be able to collect 966 exabytes of data per year. 

To put that in perspective, in 2012, it is estimated that the internet only produced around 372 exabytes.

This means that the NSA will be able to collect, analyze and store three global internets every year.

On the other hand, Russia has given political asylum to whistle blower Edward Snowden, protecting him from ‘answering for his crimes.’

In other words, in the short span of thirty years, Russia and the good old U.S. of A. have swapped positions almost entirely. 

All this information comes courtesy of the most recent whistle blower, William Binney. 

Well, the ‘most recent’ might not be the most accurate name for him. After all, Binney left the NSA back in 2001 when the NSA was just starting to ramp up the domestic spying factor and has been a vocal critic of the agency since then. Unlike Snowden, however, he didn’t have the foresight to take evidence with him when he left. 

That doesn’t make his statements any less credible, however, especially when you look at some of the facts, like how the NSA already has a million square foot building in Utah, a four hundred thousand square foot building in San Antonio, and a new six hundred thousand square foot facility that they started building in Fort Meade, all devoted to server space. Not only that but 80% of the world’s fibre optic traffic passes through the US, which, according to Binney, is no coincidence. 

If you need any more proof, the Washington Post recently published an article on how 9 out of 10 of the people that the NSA actively collects data on are neither targets nor are they even suspected of any wrongdoing. In fact, the only thing that those 9 people have done is have even casual contact with the person that the NSA is targeting. This includes simply having been in the same chat room as the person in question. 

If the NSA is willing to go to such lengths so that they’ll actively spy on people who have even casual contact with someone they are already tracking, it leaves little doubt that they are both capable and willing of doing everything else that Binney claims that they are planning. 

Of course, what possible use could the NSA have for all of this data? 

The answer is more than chilling. 

“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control,” says Binney.

Just let that sink in for a moment. An organization with almost limitless funding and a less than stellar track record on human rights and transparency is out for total population control, something that the KGB and the Soviet Union couldn’t do at the height of their power.

What’s more chilling? They’re probably capable of doing it.