Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is proposing a plan that would give the government complete access to the content of any international or domestic email, file transfer, or web search, without probable cause or any warrants — in direct opposition to the Fourth Amendment.

Follow this link to the original source: "Dancing Spychief Wants to Tap into Cyberspace"

Appearing only in the print version of the New Yorker magazine on January 13 is Lawrence Wright’s six-months-in-the-making, 15,000-word article profiling Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. Featured prominently in the article and catching the eye of several journalists is a description of McConnell’s development of a so-called cyber security policy. Basically, McConnell wants to funnel everything that happens online through the NSA, eviscerating online privacy and the Fourth Amendment in the process.

McConnell said that privacy will have to take a back seat in the name of security. He insists that he simply must have the ability to read all information crisscrossing the United States on the Internet in order to "protect" the United States from "abuse."

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To justify this unlimited, unrestrained, and extrajudicial invasive prying, with accompanying disregard for "probable cause" and "warrants" as required by the Constitution, he claims that in the past six years U.S. intelligence agencies have stopped "many, many" terrorist attacks. Proof of this claim is woefully lacking and, in any case, McConnell is not averse to exaggeration. As further justification for his snooping scheme, Wired points out that McConnell "regurgitates the hoary myth that computer crime costs America $100 billion a year." In September 2007, Kevin Poulsen, writing at Wired’s "Threat Level" blog did great work pointing out that that number was based on little more than unfounded rumor.

According to some reports, the snooping plan is set to be unveiled officially in the upcoming State of the Union address. How invasive will the new plan be? According to Lawrence Wright:

In order for cyberspace to be policed, Internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search. "Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation," he said. Giorgio warned me, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"
Apparently, Wright thinks extensive monitoring is already occurring, as he contacted and gives space to former AT&T technician and whistleblower Mark Klein who alleges that he personally installed data switching systems in the company’s exchange that copied all Internet traffic to the National Security Agency. (More on Klein here and here.)

Klein claims: "My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room. And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room — and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet. I know that whatever went across those cables was copied and the entire data stream was copied," he said. "We are talking about domestic as well as international traffic." Previous claims by the Bush administration that only international communications were being intercepted were not accurate, he said. "I know the physical equipment, and I know that statement is not true. It involves millions of communications, a lot of it domestic communications that they are copying wholesale."

The McConnell plan is another indication that the Bush administration has abandoned any pretense to supporting the idea of limited government under the law. They have instead embraced the idea of the total state in a move that is pregnant with frightful consequences. Already, the U.S. has been judged by two groups, in a lengthy report, to be an endemic surveillance state. Those findings were reviewed by author Wilton D. Alston in an online exclusive for The New American magazine. What he found was alarming: "Even with my background in researching and writing on the subject of privacy and surveillance, I was still taken aback," by the state of privacy in America, he wrote.

Astoundingly, McConnell would have the American people trust him and the government not to abuse the authority they 'must have" in order to "protect" U.S. networks. Are they kidding? This is another egregious example of total disregard for the Constitution and for the Fourth Amendment. Lest we forget, the Fourth Amendment is part of the legal framework that has secured liberty for all Americans since the founding era and officials of the government ought to be working to make sure that the freedoms that great charter guarantees remain secure. Instead, on the pretense of claiming to ensure the physical security of the people, the Bush administration has been deliberately undermining the security of their constitutional liberties.

This trend must be stopped. Please alert your Senators and Representatives in Congress of this looming threat to freedom and ask them to oppose any legislation that would empower the NSA or other intelligence agencies to begin conducting the type of systematic and invasive spying on Americans that the McConnell plan envisions. Also, please subscribe to our email alerts to be kept informed of pending legislative action on this and other subjects. And, please consider joining the John Birch Society and working with other Americans to keep this country free and independent — as this nation’s founders intended.