The White House Goes Rogue: Secret Surveillance Program Breaks All the Laws

The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.

It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.

For instance, it was recently revealed that the White House, relying on a set of privacy loopholes, has been sidestepping the Fourth Amendment by paying AT&T to allow federal, state, and local law enforcement to access—without a warrant—the phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.

Operated during the Obama, Trump and now the Biden presidencies, this secret dragnet surveillance program (formerly known as Hemisphere and now dubbed Data Analytical Services) uses its association with the White House to sidestep a vast array of privacy and transparency laws.

According to Senator Ron Wyden, Hemisphere has been operating without any oversight for more than a decade under the guise of cracking down on drug traffickers.

This is how the government routinely breaks the law and gets away with it: in the so-called name of national security.

Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people—weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands—haven’t made America any safer, and they certainly aren’t helping to preserve our freedoms.

Indeed, America will never be safe as long as the U.S. government is allowed to shred the Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment was intended to serve as a protective forcefield around our persons, our property, our activities, our communications and our movements. It keeps the government out of our private business except in certain, extenuating circumstances.

Those extenuating circumstances are spelled out clearly: government officials must have probable cause that criminal activity is afoot (a higher legal standard than “reasonable suspicion”), which is required by the Constitution before any government official can search an individual or his property.

Unfortunately, all three branches of government—the legislatures, courts and executive offices—have given the police state all kinds of leeway when it comes to sidestepping the Fourth Amendment.

As a result, on a daily basis, Americans are already being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are now guilty until proven innocent.

Warrantless, dragnet surveillance is the manifestation of a lawless government that has gone rogue in its determination to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, the Constitution be damned.

Dragnet surveillance. Geofencing. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps.

What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted every second of every day—has been made possible by a global army of techno-tyrants, electronic eavesdroppers, robotic snoops and digital Peeping Toms.

The government has a veritable arsenal of surveillance tools to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

Rounding out the list of ways in which the Techno-Corporate State and the U.S. government are colluding to nullify the privacy rights of the individual is the Biden Administration’s latest drive to harness the power of artificial intelligence technologies while claiming to protect the citizenry from harm.

In his executive order on artificial intelligence, President Biden is calling for guidelines on how the government will use AI while simultaneously insisting that corporations protect consumer privacy.

Talk about ironic that the very government that has been covertly invading our privacy rights wants to appoint itself the guardian of those rights.

Tell me this: how do you trust a government that continuously sidesteps the Constitution and undermines our rights? You can’t.

A government that repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn can’t be trusted.

At a minimum, you shouldn’t trust the government with your privacy, property or freedoms.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests.

Remember the purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

Unfortunately, what we have been saddled with is, in almost every regard, the exact opposite of an institution dedicated to protecting the lives and liberties of its people.

Indeed, the government has a history of shamelessly exploiting national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes.

Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, civil unrest, economic instability, pandemics, natural disasters: the government has been taking advantage of such crises for years now in order to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

That’s exactly where we find ourselves now: caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state.

All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.

This is the grim reality of life in the American police state: our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs.

While surveillance may span a broad spectrum of methods and scenarios, the common denominator remains the same: a complete disregard for the rights of the citizenry.

With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which the Constitution means nothing.

Any attempt by the government to encroach upon the citizenry’s privacy rights or establish a system by which the populace can be targeted, tracked, monitored and singled out must be met with extreme caution.

Dragnet surveillance in an age of pre-crime policing and overcriminalization is basically a fishing expedition carried out without a warrant, a blatant attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

What we need is a digital “No Trespassing” sign that protects our privacy rights and affirms our right to be left alone.

Putting It Together – The Forced Metadata Demand Inside the Jack Smith Court Order – They Are Showing Us the Govt Battlespace for 2024 and What We Will Face

November 30, 2023 | Sundance | 593 Comments

Yesterday, we noted the warrant demand from Special Counsel Jack Smith to Twitter, that included the demand for all information on Donald Trump’s account that relates to his followers and supporters. {LINK} However, the element for this focus is the granular demand for user metadata, and the bigger picture for 2024.

Within the warrant:

The U.S. government requested and received the metadata for accounts connected to, and in alignment with, President Donald J. Trump.

That’s billions of billions of datapoints on millions of American citizens, their locations, their devices, their ip addresses and ultimately their real identities and connected activity as attributed to -and connected with- their connected social media accounts. Essentially, turning Donald J. Trump into the center of a surveillance virus.

People then say – how could the Jack Smith special counsel possibly comb through all of those users and all of that connected metadata? The answer is Artificial Intelligence; but the serious concern comes when you combine the metadata, AI organization and the previous announcements from DHS.

If you have followed my outlines on this issue [Category Here], you will note exactly where this latest Jack Smith development falls on the continuum. The 2024 election is right around the corner. Previously, I stated the artificial intelligence (AI) component to the internet surveillance system was going to launch toward the end of this year. Then DHS announced exactly that [SEE HERE].

I find it very interesting the DHS memo was issued on August 8th, but only published for the general public September 14th. July and August were when I first identified a new set of AI spider crawls underway as launched by Google. Pay very, very close attention to the two underlined words in the following paragraph:

[SOURCE pdf, Page 3]

Take out the word “improper” and the admission is, DHS uses AI to profile, target and discriminate. In the second sentence, DHS currently participates in systemic, indiscriminate and/or large-scale monitoring, surveillance, or tracking of individuals.

The only thing those sentences in the paragraph say, is that DHS will not allow AI to create improper outcomes within a system they outline that already exists.

Stop and reread that last sentence as much as needed. Inasmuch as this DHS guidance is telling us the rules for Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as they use AI, they are also outlining what current processes of surveillance would be enhanced by it.

DHS’ AI task force is coordinating with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on how the department can partner with critical infrastructure organizations “on safeguarding their uses of AI and strengthening their cybersecurity practices writ large to defend against evolving threats.”

What are those critical infrastructure organizations? They include voting systems. Who or what are those evolving threats? You!

Federal News Network – […] The report also recommends DHS encourage pursing off-the-shelf commercial solutions instead of “building everything in-house.”
Mayorkas emphasized the need for DHS to adopt AI quickly, regardless of whether it’s commercially acquired or internally developed technology.
“We have got to change the procurement capabilities of a government agency to actually move quickly and nimbly, so that when we’re dealing in a very dynamic environment, we can actually move with dynamism,” Mayorkas said. “I’m not suggesting moving to a sole source model, but we just have to be quick.”
He also stressed the need for DHS to prioritize where it will use AI, rather than attempting to adopt it across every mission and use case. The report points to combatting both fentanyl and human trafficking as use cases that could be “accelerated and championed” across DHS. But it also suggests DHS “integrate AI/ML into as many areas of the DHS mission as possible.”
“We’re going to need to prioritize what aspect of our mission should we really double down on to harness AI because I worry about diluting our focus too much,” Mayorkas said. “And I really do want to demonstrate, as quickly as is responsible, how this could really be a game changer for us in advancing our mission . . . we have to pick our spots here, in my view, somewhat surgically.” (more)

Notice the emphasis on speed. Get this AI system launched into DHS surveillance, tracking and monitoring systems as quickly as possible.

Now do you see my point about how radical and fast everything is going to change? It’s the 2024 election targeting.

Remember, the Dept of Defense (DoD) will now conduct online monitoring operations, using enhanced AI to protect the U.S. internet from “disinformation” under the auspices of national security. {link}

I share this information with you so that you understand what is being constructed and what is about to be deployed on a large scale.

Folks, I’m not crazy or a conspiracy theorist. We can all sense something is happening, just like we sensed it in the background of the 2016 election but didn’t know at the time how vast the DHS/Intel Community operation against Trump, the “six ways to Sunday,” was.

Put all of that metadata gathered by the DOJ together, with the AI operation from DHS, and then overlay the parameters and definitions. What you get is the targeting system to control the outcome of the 2024 election.

DHS’ AI task force is coordinating with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on how the department can partner with critical infrastructure organizations “on safeguarding their uses of AI and strengthening their cybersecurity practices writ large to defend against evolving threats.”

Remember, in addition to these groups assembling, the Dept of Defense (DoD) will now conduct online monitoring operations, using enhanced AI to protect the U.S. internet from “disinformation” under the auspices of national security. {link} So, the question becomes, what was Chuck Schumer’s primary AI reference:

(FED NEWS) […] Schumer said that tackling issues around AI-generated content that is fake or deceptive that can lead to widespread misinformation and disinformation was the most time-sensitive problem to solve due to the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
[…] The top Democrat in the Senate said there was much discussion during the meeting about the creation of a new AI agency and that there was also debate about how to use some of the existing federal agencies to regulate AI.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, Schumer’s Republican counterpart in leading the bipartisan AI forums, said: “We’ve got to have the ability to provide good information to regulators. And it doesn’t mean that every single agency has to have all of the top-end, high-quality of professionals but we need that group of professionals who can be shared across the different agencies when it comes to AI.”
Although there were no significant voluntary commitments made during the first AI insight forum, tech leaders who participated in the forum said there was much debate around how open and transparent AI developers and those using AI in the federal government will be required to be. (read more)

This is the team now that will define for DHS how to focus their 2024 targeting efforts.

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) Ken Wainstein, and Counterterrorism Coordinator Nicholas Rasmussen announced the establishment of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group (Experts Group). The group is comprised of private sector experts who will provide their unique perspectives on the federal government’s intelligence enterprise to DHS’s I&A and the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator.
“The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “I express my deep gratitude to these distinguished individuals for dedicating their exceptional expertise, experience, and vision to our critical mission.”
“The Homeland Intelligence Experts Group is being formed at a time of unprecedented challenge, with the U.S. intelligence enterprise facing threats from a range of malign actors, to include foreign nation-state adversaries, domestic violent extremists, cyber criminals, drug-trafficking cartels and other transnational criminal organizations,” said Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Ken Wainstein. “The Experts Group will be an invaluable asset as we navigate through this evolving threat and operating environment and continue to strengthen our efforts to protect the Homeland.”
“The homeland threat environment is more diverse, dynamic, and challenging than at any point in our post 9/11 history, with threats tied to an array of different terrorist and violent extremist ideologies and narratives,” said Counterterrorism Coordinator Nicholas Rasmussen. “The experience, expertise, and perspective offered by Experts Group members will undoubtedly put the Department in a strong position to confront this threat landscape, and we are grateful for the willingness of the Experts Group members to serve in this important capacity.”
The Experts Group will provide DHS with a wide range of views and perspectives, with a membership that includes former senior intelligence officials, journalists, and prominent human rights and civil liberties advocates. (read more)

Now, does this search warrant look different?

Now, does Elon Musk’s commentary make sense? He is trying to extricate himself from the downstream culpability he carries as an outcome of his platform ownership. Musk even said Twitter may collapse.

Prior to his statement yesterday, Elon Musk talked to Joe Rogan about the scale and scope of U.S. government involvement in the operation of Twitter as an information and opinion platform. Musk said,

“The degree to which Twitter was an arm of the government was not well understood by the public.” {link}

Twitter was being used as an intelligence gathering operation, and with that in mind, the recently disclosed metadata demand to Musk just made all the prior metadata capture legal.

WE THE PEOPLE are the threat they need to control.

The need for control is a reaction to fear.

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