Police State

Spy agencies to spy on federal employees with security clearances, as if they weren't already, David Petraeus. Hopefully this will convince people not to work for the government.

One of the criticisms of NSA leaker Snowden was that he should have expressed his concern through proper channels at the agency. Snowden says he did.

"I had reported these clearly problematic programs to more than ten distinct officials, none of whom took any action to address them. As an employee of a private company rather than a direct employee of the US government, I was not protected by US whistleblower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about lawbreaking in accordance with the recommended process."

Bad news for critics.

"Obama pointed to Presidential Policy Directive 19 -- which set up a system for questioning classified government actions under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. However, as a contractor rather than an government employee or officer, Snowden was outside the protection of this system. "The result," Snowden said, "was that individuals like me were left with no proper channels.""

Obama lied again.

NSA defenders want us to believe that collecting meta-data - social connections - is not invasive, but this is the same technique used by the East German Stasi, although they used pencil and paper, not computers.