Privacy no longer a citizen right, according to FBI’s Comey

"Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America," Comey said. "In appropriate circumstances, a judge can compel anyone of us to testify in court about those very private communications. “He went on to state that although Americans have a "reasonable expectation" of privacy in their homes, cars, and on their devices, the government can still "invade our private spaces.” “Even our memories aren’t private. Any of us can be compelled to say what we saw...,” Comey said.”

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“This Orwellian and absurd expansion was developed by spies and approved by judges on the FISA court. The NSA argued that it would be more efficient to spy on everyone in the United States than to isolate bad people, and the court bought that argument. “Hence, FISA warrants do not name particular people or places as their targets as the Constitution requires. Rather, they merely continue in place the previous warrants, which encompass everyone in the country. FISA warrants are general warrants, allowing intelligence agents to listen to whomever they wish and retain whatever they hear. General warrants are expressly prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, which requires that all warrants for all purposes be based on probable cause of crime and particularly describe the person or thing to be seized -- e.g., a conversation -- or the place to be searched. “Even though the NSA already has the legal, though unconstitutional, authority to capture any phone conversation or computer keystroke it wishes, its 60,000 agents lack the resources to listen to all conversations or read all electronic communications in real time. But it does capture the digital versions of all computer keystrokes made in or to the U.S. and all conversations had within the U.S. or involving someone in the U.S.; it has been doing so since 2005. And it can download any conversation or text or email at will. “That's why the recent argument that Obama ordered the NSA to obtain a FISA warrant for Trump's telephone calls and a judge issued a warrant for them is nonsense. The NSA already has a digital version of every call Trump has made or received since 2005. Because the NSA -- which now works for Trump -- is a part of the Defense Department, it is subject to the orders of the president in his capacity as commander in chief. So if the commander in chief wants something that a military custodian already has or can create -- such as a transcript of an opponent’s conversations with political strategists during a presidential campaign -- why would he bother getting a warrant? He wouldn’t. “All of this leads to information overload -- so much material that the communications of evil people are safely hidden in with the mountain of data from the rest of us. The NSA captures the digital equivalent -- if printed -- of 27 times the contents of the Library of Congress every year. “All of this also leads to the monstrous power of the NSA to manipulate, torment and control the president by selectively concealing and selectively revealing data to him. The Constitution does not entrust such power to anyone in government. But Congress has given it. “All of this also substantially impairs a fundamental personal liberty, the right to be left alone -- a right for which we seceded from Great Britain, a right guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment and a right for which we fought wars against tyrants who we feared would take it from us. Yet after we won those wars, we permitted our elected representatives to crush that right. Those faithless representatives have created a monster that has now turned on us.”

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