Feinstein Meets Bullrun

Dear Senator Feinstein,

Received your three responses last night to my views on Manning, Syria and my continuing concerns about the NSA. As usual, we disagree on everything but I want to address your letter assuring me that the collection of phone call records is perfectly legal, and that the oversight provided by the FISA court and, presumably, the Senate Intelligence Committee, is adequate. You reiterate that you are proposing legislation that will “enhance transparency and privacy protections.” I read your attached July 30 Washington Post op-ed which outlines your proposals; they merely tweak around the edges and do nothing to rein in an out-of-control agency. The latest revelations about the NSA appear in the lead article on page 1 of today’s New York Times (“N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web”) and documents yet another program called “Bullrun” which violates privacy and the 4^th Amendment. Bullrun enabled them to dictate worldwide encryption standards through stealth and subterfuge and guarantee the ability to read any encrypted message by either stealing encryption keys or coercing/forcing companies through court orders to hand them over. They have also guaranteed that both software and hardware have a back door that gives them access to networks before encryption or after de-encryption. I realize that the NSA’s primary mission is to break encrypted messages in order to protect the U.S., but when the agency was created in 1952, the intent was to spy on our perceived enemies, not on U.S. citizens. There is no longer such a thing as privacy. Every email, phone call and internet click, encrypted or not, can be read and analyzed by the NSA; the scope and capability of their spying makes the East German Stasi look lackadaisical by comparison. When will you stop defending the NSA and start defending We the People and the Constitution? One final note. Our views on Snowden are diametrically opposed but consider this from today’s article: “Intelligence officials asked The Times and ProPublica not to publish this article…. The news organizations removed some specific facts but decided to publish the article because of the value of a public debate about government actions that weaken the most powerful privacy tools.” [italics mine] The Times is no fan of Edward Snowden but this is an implicit admission that his leaks are not acts of a traitor. Without Snowdens there would be no transparency, no information, no accountability and no democracy.