Proof that NSA Spying Is Not Very Focused On Terrorism

Posted on October 24, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog

Power, Money and Crushing Dissent Are Real Motives

The NSA not only spied on the leaders of Germany, Brazil and Mexico, but  on at least 35 world leaders.
The Guardian reports:

One unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately “tasked” for monitoring by the NSA.

That’s just one incident we know about.   The NSA also spies on the European Union, the European Parliament,  the G20 summit and other allies.
The NSA asked government agencies to share their Rolodexes, so the NSA would have phone numbers for top foreign political and military leaders.
A confidential government memo admits that the spying didn’t help prevent terrorism:

The memo acknowledges that eavesdropping on the numbers had produced “little reportable intelligence”.

Because the leaders of allies such as Germany, Brazil, Mexico, the EU and G-20 have no ties to Al Qaeda terrorists, the spying was obviously done for other purposes.
The NSA conducts widespread industrial espionage on our allies. That has nothing to do with terrorism, either.
Indeed, there is no evidence that mass surveillance has prevented a single terrorist attack. On the contrary, top counter-terror experts say that mass spying actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts (more here and here).
If NSA spying were really focused on terrorism, our allies and companies wouldn’t be fighting back so hard against it.
And even the argument that 9/11 changed everything holds no water.  Spying started before 9/11 … and various excuses have been used to spy on Americans over the years.   Even NSA’s industrial espionage has been going on for many decades. And the NSA was already spying on American Senators more than 40 years ago.

Governments who spy on their own population always do it to crush dissent. (Why do you think that the NSA is doing exactly the same thing which King George did to the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War?)
Of course, if even half of what a NSA whistleblower Russel Tice says – that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top American government officials and military officers (and see this) – then things are really out of whack.