George Orwell’s classics, “Animal Farm” and “1984” used to be required reading for high school students. “Big Brother” came from “1984,” and if you don’t understand the cultural reference, you should either read the book, or watch the movie (the book is better).  Basically, planet Earth devolves into three countries which maintain a continuous state of war with each other, and are run by totalitarian governments that control every aspect of people’s lives.

While the Orwellian police state gives us the Big Brother archetype to struggle against, the more subtle control of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is the more likely scenario.  Again, either read the book or watch the movie.

The Verizon scandal of 2013 broke the day before the PRISM and Boundless Informant scandals.  CIA Whistleblower Ed Snowden reveals massive NSA intelligence gathering on every American, including through the PRISM and Boundless Informant programs, among others.  Updates:

• First video interview of Edward Snowden
• Second video interview of Edward Snowden
• The court order forcing Verizon to hand over telephone records
• Edward Snowden answers reader questions via secure internet chat
• How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
• Statement from Edward Snowden on revocation of his passport and interference with his applications for political asylum

PRISM is a secret NSA spying program revealed to be collecting your data from almost everything you do online. What’s most troubling about PRISM isn’t that it collects data. It’s the type of data it collects. According to the Washington Post report, that includes: …audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs…. [Skype] can be monitored for audio when one end of the call is a conventional telephone, and for any combination of “audio, video, chat, and file transfers” when Skype users connect by computer alone. Google’s offerings include Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms. Similar depth of access applies to Facebook, Microsoft, and the rest. Just to be clear: this covers practically anything you’ve ever done online.

More on PRISM:  Guardian ~ Gizmodo ~ News.com.au ~ SOFREP.com ~ lifehacker

Diagram of when various companies began “cooperation” with PRISM:

Boundless Informant is the NSA’s secret tool to track global surveillance data.  Here is a three-page NSA document explaining the program.  This map is color-coded from red for the most-spied-on countries, to dark orange, light orange, light green, medium green, and dark green.  The NSA is collecting more info in America than in Russia.

This Onion-style satire news show poking fun at Facebook is revealed as all too true.

NSA Whistleblower William Binney worked for the NSA for almost four decades, on the technical side of electronic intelligence gathering.  He reports that massive domestic data collection on all Americans began after 9/11, in violation of many laws and regulations, not to mention the 4th Amendment.  Binney resigned shortly after 9/11 over implementation of the unlawful Stellar Wind program, warrantless wiretapping, and other programs.

William Binney ~ There is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state.

Where is all this data going? 
The NSA has a data storage facility the size of a small city in Bluffdale, Utah.  These buildings go deep underground, and are full of room after room with racks and racks of hard drives, storing all that data that William Binney was talking about.

From an NSA Website:  If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Nothing to Fear
This page has a detailed list of the types of data they collect.

NSA Whistleblower William Binney Keynote Speech at HOPE Number Nine
This has a bit of techie talk, because the audience is hackers.

The Patriot Act Was Already Written Prior to the 9/11 False Flag Attacks

The USA PATRIOT Act Was Planned Before 9/11 ~ by Jennifer van Bergen

Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig:  “After 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.  The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.”

Lawrence Lessig was having dinner with (former Counter Terrorism Czar) Richard Clarke and asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works.  [Clarke] said “of course there is.”  Various versions of internet surveillance, censorship and control legislation have surfaced in the forms of SOPA, PIPA, CISPA and ACTA.

The 1996 Antiterrorism Act was pushed through congress following the Oklahoma City bombing.  That restrictive legislation was also written prior to the event which ushered it through congress.

Court OKs Warrantless Use of Hidden Surveillance Cameras

Police are allowed in some circumstances to install hidden surveillance cameras on private property without obtaining a search warrant, a federal judge ruled.  The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance.

Secret US Court Confirms NSA Surveillance Powers

A US federal court confirmed the NSA’s authority for bulk collection of phone metadata.