They're just making the criminal justice system more efficient
by digby
For some reason this NSA piece by Barton Gellman seems to be bothering people more than most of the Snowden revelations. Perhaps it's the fact that we are all carrying tracking devices (aka cell phones) with us these days and that the NSA, without any probable cause, is collecting all the data our phones generate about where we've been and who we've come in contact with. The good news is supposed to be that they promise not to look at that information unless they suspect us of doing something wrong, so if you haven't done anything, you have nothing at all to worry about.
But I suspect that many people instinctively understand that what this adds up to is the fact that the government is storing reams of information about everyone just in case they might need to make a "case" against them someday. We know for a fact that one of the government's most annoying problems of late is that there are people they just "know" are dangerous, but they've tainted the evidence with torture or some such or otherwise can't prove it. So they're having to do some unpleasant things like indefinitely imprison them without trial and assassinate them in foreign countries. It's a real PR mess. But if they can amass a huge data base filled with "evidence" against everyone, it should be easy peasy for them to simply throw something together to create the illusion of a crime when they run into these little legal roadblocks to keeping us safe from the boogeymen --- whoever they might be. (After all, terrorists aren't the only people governments find dangerous are they?)
The one thing we be sure of is that the government, much like Santa Claus, always knows who's really guilty and since the authorities are never corrupt we can feel very comfortable allowing them to have easy access to information that will allow them to create a criminal case whenever they believe they need to take a "dangerous" person out. This is just making government more efficient and relieving them of the expensive burden of having to make cases on the merits. What could be wrong with that?
Also too, since this "criminal case" business only applies to Americans the millions of people they're tracking around the world should probably hope they don't find themselves inadvertently crossing paths with someone the NSA considers dangerous. It could get sticky.
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