Government Has Created Massive Spy Apparatus: 6 Chilling Examples
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/government-has-created-massive-spy-apparatus-6-chilling-examples
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1. Phone metadata. By now, Edward Snowden has become a household name, and thats largely because of his major first disclosure: the National Security Agencys mass collection of phone metadata. On June 6, 2013, Glenn Greenwald, then of the Guardian, reported that documents given to him by whistleblower Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting all phone records of Verizon users.
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2. Internet data. NSA surveillance also sweeps up Internet data, keeping with the agencys mission to collect it all, as one NSA official put it to the Washington Post. They collect Internet metadata and other forms of communications through a variety of programs.
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3. NSA spying on individuals. The NSAs collection of Internet and phone data is indiscriminate. It sweeps up the data of millions of people in what it claims is a search for clues to disrupt terrorist attacks.
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4. Blanket law enforcement spying on Muslims. The NSA is not alone in targeting individuals who are seemingly spied on only because they are Muslim. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York Police Department also engage in spying on whole Muslim communities.