Thank you gentlemen, Willie, I’m not at all surprised that we’re pretty much on the same page but I am however a little confused by your statement which seems almost self contradictory.

 “What I wish to point out is the wheel began to squeak when congress and executive powers began to meddle in and request data collected…I was speaking of NSA and not the requests, legislation, executive orders…”  

 Furthermore I believe that the “dangling carrot” had always been there at least since 1978 for everyone knows that possessing the ability to harvest such vast amounts of personal data can easily be used to further personal ambitions either for good or ill. That’s why FISA was created in 1978, whose primary purpose was to ensure that the US government would be barred from ever monitoring the electronic communications of Americans as I stated in my post. The real problem begins with the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (FAA) when they legalized the Bush warrantless NSA program. That’s when Congress needed to step in and put a halt to the whole thing but instead it went almost unnoticed until the Snowden leaks opened their can of worms and exposed them for the treasonous traitors that they are. They are traitors because they’ve allowed FISA, FAA, the Executive branch and the NSA to defile and trample the very Constitution they have sworn to uphold when they first came into office and now threaten this nation’s civil liberties and they should be held accountable.

 I had been watching the Snowden leaks affair very carefully and wandering how the hell had the NSA amass such far reaching constitutionally questionable data gathering capabilities? Obviously some overruling body had to have bestowed those powers upon them. The NSA is but a top secret government investigative tool run under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense with broad support and resources. Its sole purpose of existence is as its name implies national security within the realm of code breaking, code making and signal intelligence. It is a tool that needs to be reined in for the sake of jurisprudence, the nation and the world as a whole.

 The other part of your statement I have a problem with and if I understand it to mean what I think you’re saying,

 “What has changed is the current agenda to exchange this country's banner of personal freedom for one of socialism at the expense of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.”

 I simply don’t see that happening at all. In fact if you are referring to the President as I think you are, then I’m sure many a socialist would take insult and issue with you. Since the philosophical definition of socialism I learned has no resemblance to what the current national economic numbers bear out or for that matter the recent military incursions which seem a bit more strident and many believe have ticked up from the prior administration…if I’m reading you correctly that is. Nevertheless, that would be a whole other and separate topic of discussion and would only serve to detour this post on the actions of the NSA in another direction.