Government Surveillance Of American Citizens Goes Far Beyond What You Are Being ToldMichael Snyder For those that do not know, the Fourth Amendment says the following: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Unfortunately, our leaders have totally abandoned the Constitution. They seem to believe that they have the right to look through our electronic communications any time they want and that we should not complain about it. As you will see below, workers at the NSA have even eavesdropped on very intimate conversations between soldiers serving in Iraq and their female loved ones back home. What kind of sick person would do such a thing? Sadly, the truth is that we have allowed ourselves to become a Big Brother society, and we are an utter disgrace to the millions of brave men and women who have died to defend our freedoms. There was an explosion of outrage on Thursday when the Guardian reported on a leaked document that shows that the Obama administration is collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers every single day So obviously the Obama administration sees nothing wrong with this at all. Will some of our other leaders step forward and condemn this blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution? Sadly, so far most of our politicians are rigorously defending the program. Just check out how some prominent members of Congress responded to this story Senator Dianne Feinstein: There is nothing new in this program. The fact of the matter is, that this was a routine three-month approval under seal that was leaked. Senator Lindsey Graham: If we didnt do it, wed be crazy. Senator Saxby Chambliss: This is nothing particularly new. This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) authority and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Everyone should just calm down and understand this isnt anything that is brand new. Its been going on for some seven years. And weve tried often to try to make it better, and well continue to do that. But the collection of phone call metadata is just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is that government surveillance of Americans citizens goes far beyond what you are being told. In fact,the Washington Post has just come out with an article about a highly classified program known as PRISM that involves the federal government tapping directly into the central servers of nine top Internet companies So what Internet companies are involved? Most of the names will be extremely familiar to you The capabilities of this system are apparently awesome. Fortunately, one career intelligence officer was so disgusted with how our privacy rights were being violated that he decided to leak information about PRISM to the Washington Post Another whistleblower, former NSA code breaker William Binney, has come forward with some astounding details about what is actually happening over at the NSA. The following is from a recentBusiness Insider article So exactly how much information are we talking about? Overall, Binney claims that the NSA has gathered approximately 20 trillion transactions involving U.S. citizens. And other NSA whistleblowers claim that the agency has the capability to do individualized searches, similar to Google, for particular electronic communications in real time through such criteria as target addresses, locations, countries and phone numbers, as well as watch-listed names, keywords, and phrases in email. But this is not supposed to be happening. The NSA is not supposed to be spying on U.S. citizens and it is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution. But they are doing it. In fact, they are gathering so much information on all of us that they needed to build a brand new data storage center out in Utah. According toFox News, it will have the capability of storing 5 zettabytes of data Why do they need so much storage space? Well, after you start putting the pieces together, it becomes very clear. They are illegally spying on all of us, and the American people need to be told the truth. But of course there are always numbskulls out there that say things like this I dont have anything to hide so I dont care if they watch everything that I do. Really? If you think that way, perhaps you will change your mind after you read what some NSA employees have been doing. The following is from an article posted on theatlanticwire.com We live during a time when government agencies are massively abusing their powers. We have seen this recently with the IRS, the Justice Department and now with the NSA. But so far, most Americans dont seem too upset by all of this abuse of power. Most Americans are so apathetic that they seem content to let the government get away with almost anything. In the end, America will get the government that it deserves. If Americans do not stand up now and speak out, it will be a signal to the government that this kind of behavior is okay and we will see even more of it. So what do you think about all of the government corruption that has been exposed lately? Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 