The federal government's "totalitarian"-like surveillance of American citizens has been going on for more than a decade -- you're just now hearing about it, NSA whistleblower William Binney told Glenn Beck on his radio program Friday.
Binney, who was with the NSA for almost four decades, said it was "unfortunate" that he had been proven 100 percent correct on the spy agency's surveillance capability. He has been blowing the whistle for some time, however, his warnings had been dubbed "conspiracy theories" by some.
This photograph made Thursday, July 6, 2013 in Washington shows a copy of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order requiring Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis," to give the National Security Administration (NSA) information on all landline and mobile telephone calls of Verizon Business in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. Credit: AP
Binney said the feds' spying program began in mid-to-late October 2001. It started by pulling in phone records of various U.S. citizens across the country. He estimates the NSA is collecting data on 3 billion phone calls every single day.
And when the Obama administration says it is only collecting bare data, not the content of your phone calls or emails for example, that's an "outright lie," according to Binney.
"Their statement about, 'we don't have content' is an outright lie," he explained, adding that emails, videos and other type of content are also covered under NSA and FBI's secret "PRISM" program.
To those who argue they don't mind the government compiling all their data because they aren't doing anything wrong, Binney reminded Beck's audience that total surveillance is how "totalitarian states" have started throughout history. But no country has ever had the massive amount of surveillance capability that the U.S. is currently implementing.
"There wouldn't be a Jew alive on the planet today if they had this information," Beck said, referring to Nazi Germany.
Binney went on to say that the spy program could easily be used to target political opposition, just as the IRS targeted conservative groups.
"If you wanted to know who was involved in the Tea Party, this kind of activity would lay our their entire structure and everyone who is involved in it, no matter where they are inside the country," he said. "That information could then be passed to the IRS to target people."
Watch the segment via TheBlaze TV below:
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It was The Guardian's bombshell report that revealed the top secret court order that required Verizon to hand over all of its customers phone records to the NSA on an "ongoing daily basis."
Though Verizon is the only phone company that has been confirmed to be involved with the NSA's spy program, many fear other major U.S. telecommunications companies are involved as well. However, the court orders prohibit any one from revealing the existence of the secret program.
Another shocking report from The Washington Post exposed the FBI and NSA's secret "PRISM" program, which involves tapping into the servers of nine top Internet companies to collect tons of user data. This reportedly includes, emails, documents, photos, videos and more.
