EDWARD SNOWDEN'S LATEST REVELATIONS...JUST SIMPLY ABSURD

After the shocking revelations of spying by the US National Security Agency leaked by former employee Edward Snowden, and the international fury caused by the fact that they were spying on their allies such as Angela Merkel, we thought we had seen the end of that whole mess. Then came the revelation that the NSA was collecting 5 billion cell phone location records everyday everyday, and many more revelations, we thought that could possibly have been it.

Not untill the Washington Post obtained the latest bombshell from the rogue NSA contractor. In their article concxerning the latest Snowden revelations (gotten from documents they obtained from Snowden himself), they give a view of NSA spying that seems to have gone out of control. Included in the data was information about America's secret overseas nuclear project, double-dealing by one of America's allies, a military setback that was faced by one of America's unfriendly counterparts and the identities of aggressive intruders into U.S. computer networks. At the request of The CIA, the Washington Post is not revealing any more details for the sake of not interfering or comprimising 'un-going investigations'.

 Apparently (according to the documents), the NSA now collects data for ordinary people, American and non-American. This is not the worrying part of the revelations, the worrying parts being the fact that 9 out of 10 of the victims of this out-of-control data collection were not the targets of whatever the NSA was after.
Also worrying is the nature of the data being collected by the NSA. Here's an extract from the Washington Post:

“None of the hits that were received were relevant,” two Navy cryptologic technicians write in one of many summaries of nonproductive surveillance. “No additional information,” writes a civilian analyst. Another makes fun of a suspected kidnapper, newly arrived in Syria before the current civil war, who begs for employment as a janitor and makes wide-eyed observations about the state of undress displayed by women on local beaches.
By law, the NSA may “target” only foreign nationals located overseas unless it obtains a warrant based on probable cause from a special surveillance court. For collection under PRISM and Upstream rules, analysts must state a reasonable belief that the target has information of value about a foreign government, a terrorist organization or the spread of nonconventional weapons.
Most of the people caught up in those programs are not the targets and would not lawfully qualify as such. “Incidental collection” of third-party communications is inevitable in many forms of surveillance, but in other contexts the U.S. government works harder to limit and discard irrelevant data. In criminal wiretaps, for example, the FBI is supposed to stop listening to a call if a suspect’s wife or child is using the phone.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Among the information gathered, the article describes, were highly private and sensitive details of people's lives.
 The article goes on to describe the nature of these privacy violations. Take for example the love story between an Australian woman and her muslim lover who leaves her to go fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“Im putting all my pride aside just to say that i will miss you dearly and your the only person that i really allowed myself to get close to after losing my ex husband, my dad and my brother.. Im glad it was so easy for you to move on and put what we had aside and for me well Im just soo happy i met you. You will always remain in my heart. I know you left for a purpose it hurts like hell sometimes not because Im needy but because i wish i could have been with you.”

 Also included in their 'file' is a recount of an 'unorthodox' sexual encounter between them, and the man's unscrupulous demand onher, like asking to have control over her Facebook profile.

Also collected were other very private data.

"medical records sent from one family member to another, résumés from job hunters and academic transcripts of schoolchildren. In one photo, a young girl in religious dress beams at a camera outside a mosque. Scores of pictures show infants and toddlers in bathtubs, on swings, sprawled on their backs and kissed by their mothers. In some photos, men show off their physiques. In others, women model lingerie, leaning suggestively into a webcam ..." 

According to the article, the daily lives of more than 10,000 ordinary people who were in no way strategic to the nationary security protection duties of the NSA are unscrupulously collected.

In one case, a woman who's private details were collected was actually contacted by a Wahington Post reporter.

Now here's my take: I was actually a believer in the fact that the NSA needed to massively collect data for the sake of keeping Americans safe. I even wrote an article on this blog that tended to be in support of them. But the most recent revelations have made me begin to rethink my stance on the issue. For example, this same article recounts information "described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained" when in fact, such information should have been destroyed immediately. And what is this information about? They "tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless."

In my humble opinion, the NSA has taken it too far and needs to be stopped.   

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