On The Front Lines
John Whitehead Appears on Wilkow! on Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV to Discuss the Ramifications of Obama’s Proposed Changes to NSA Surveillance
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, will appear on Wilkow! on Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV tonight, March 28, 2014, at 7 pm EST to discuss the ramifications of President Obama’s proposal to ostensibly end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of all U.S. phone data. Obama’s proposal comes in the wake of year-long revelations which have created turmoil at home and internationally regarding the scope of the government’s spying program. The Rutherford Institute recently weighed in before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking the court to enforce the historic purposes of the Fourth Amendment by reversing a district court ruling that the government’s broad monitoring of citizens’ telephone calls does not constitute an illegal search.
“As is the case so often with the government, we’re being treated to a masterful sleight-of-hand in that what you see and hear cannot always be believed,” said John W. Whitehead, author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, which not only catalogues the government’s long list of policies and programs, including its illicit spying campaigns, but also connects the dots on how these programs are being used to undermine the rights of law-abiding Americans. “While President Obama’s proposal to rein in the NSA may sound substantive, it amounts to little more than window dressing on an unconstitutional and unconscionable program of mass surveillance that spans all government agencies, from the federal to state and local branches. When all is said and done, we’re still no safer than we were before these spying programs began and our freedoms are in even greater peril.”
In the weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the NSA began a program of collecting telephone call records in bulk. After continuing the program without judicial authorization, in 2006, the government sought and obtained authorization from the FISC, a special court established to consider government applications for surveillance of foreign agents and which conducts its activities largely in secret. The 2006 order, which has been renewed several times since, allows the NSA to collect “telephony metadata,” which includes the telephone numbers placing and receiving the call, the date, time and duration of the call, and other session-identifying information, and applies to every call placed or received within the United States. The government retains this information and has the ability to conduct computer analysis to determine patterns of behavior that can reveal personal information about citizens.
The program remained secret until June 2013 when information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was made public. That same month, the American Civil Liberties Union and affiliated entities filed a lawsuit alleging that the program violated statutory restrictions imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment. In December 2013, a federal district court in New York rejected the legal challenge to the government’s surveillance and upheld the program, ruling that because telephone users “voluntarily” disclose information to telephone companies, the collection of information by the government does not constitute an illegal search. In weighing in on the case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, The Rutherford Institute argued that “the bulk metadata collection order is no different from the abusive general warrants colonies suffered under and which were intended to be outlawed with the adoption of the Bill of Rights.”
