Three former NSA employees expose in court mass illegal surveillance programMadison Ruppert, Contributor The case, which was reinstated by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in late 2011, is challenging the NSAs now well known massive warrantless surveillance program. This case is more important than ever with the NSA pouring a whopping $2 billion into a heavily fortified data center which will almost certainly be used to monitor the communications of Americans. The National Counterterrorism Centers new guidelines allowing extended data retention make matters even worse, if you can imagine such a thing. Three former employees of the NSA, William E. Binney, Thomas A. Drake, and J. Kirk Wiebe, have come forward with evidence to back up a case being valiantly fought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In a motion filed in the 9th Circuit on July 2, the three whistleblowers, all former intelligence analysts, confirmed the fact that, the NSA has, or is in the process of obtaining, the capability to seize and store most electronic communications passing through its U.S. intercept centers, such as the secret room at the ATT facility in San Francisco first disclosed by retired ATT technician Mark Klein in early 2006, according to the EFF. For years, government lawyers have been arguing that our case is too secret for the courts to consider, despite the mounting confirmation of widespread mass illegal surveillance of ordinary people, explained Cindy Cohn, the EFFs Legal Director. Now we have three former NSA officials confirming the basic facts. Neither the Constitution nor federal law allow the government to collect massive amounts of communications and data of innocent Americans and fish around in it in case it might find something interesting. This kind of power is too easily abused, said Cohn. Were extremely pleased that more whistleblowers have come forward to help end this massive spying program. All three former NSA employees have made quite an effort to expose the wholly unacceptable surveillance program, including bringing the program to the attention of the New York Times. The leak quickly made them the targets of a federal investigation due to the fact that the New York Times coverage quickly ignited controversy in the media and public sphere over the gigantic warrantless wiretapping program. Thankfully, both Binney and Wiebe were formally cleared of all the charges against them, while Drake had the charges dropped. In the EFFs motion for partial summary judgment they requested that the court move to no longer accept the governments attempts to shut down the case without even addressing the facts by invoking the claim that it is too secret to even address. This is the same weak argument that government lawyers have used time and time again when challenged on matters of secrecy and the disturbing drone assassination program. Instead of allowing the government lawyers to fall back on this tactic, the EFF is seeking to apply the processes under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which require the court to actually rule if the electronic surveillance was conducted in a legal manner. However, I believe it is worth pointing out that FISA leaves a lot to be desired, as well as the court which sign off on FISA warrants. This is because the courts authorized every single request from the government in 2011, according to the governments own report, which makes the entire process farcical. The NSA warrantless surveillance programs have been the subject of widespread reporting and debate for more than six years now. They are just not a secret, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien rightly pointed out. Yet the government keeps making the same state secrets claims again and again, Tien said. Its time for Americans to have their day in court and for a judge to rule on the legality of this massive surveillance. Well said, Tien. Lets just hope that the American people do get their day in courtand that this unimaginably expansive surveillance program is shut down before we descend even deeper into a complete surveillance state. Did I forget anything or miss any errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to contact me at admin@EndtheLie.com with your concerns, tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may strike your fancy. Please support our work and help us start to pay contributors by doing your shopping through our Amazon link or check out some must-have products at our store. This article first appeared at End the Lie. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 