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Troops ‘targeted by NSA for anti-Obama views’

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The NSA is systematically monitoring the Internet posts and telephone  conversations of U.S. military returning from Afghanistan, according to a  civil-liberties attorney.

“The FBI and the Secret Service are showing up to request an interview to  question specific Internet posts the veteran has placed on websites such as  Facebook,” explained attorney John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford  Institute.

Whitehead said the agencies are looking for “anti-Obama views that can be  interpreted to reflect psychological problems of sufficient seriousness to  disqualify the veteran from ever owning a firearm.”

Whitehead told WND credible sources within the National Security Agency have  told him the NSA is downloading 1 trillion communications on the Internet per  month, including posts to various websites, emails, instant message  communications and texting messages.

As WND  reported last week, Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute in a lawsuit  filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., are representing Marine  veteran Brandon Raub, 27, who was arrested by FBI and Secret Service agents for  comments he made on Facebook expressing dissatisfaction with the present  direction of the U.S. government.

Whitehead said his office has received numerous calls from U.S. military  returning from Afghanistan with reports they are being visited by the FBI and  Secret Service to ask questions about their Internet postings.

“We are advising veterans being visited by the FBI or the Secret Service to  take the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions that might end up with a  diagnosis of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which goes into the veteran’s  file and can be used in the future to prevent the veteran from purchasing a  firearm,” he said.

Whitehead said that in most of the cases, there isn’t enough information to  obtain a search warrant from a judge.

But if the veteran answers questions, he said, the Secret Service or the FBI  might get a psychiatrist to visit with the vet for 10 or 15 minutes in the jail  cell to acquire enough information to certify in front of a judge that the  person should be placed in a civil commitment because of a psychological  problem.

In February, Investors.com  reported a complaint by Michael Connelly, executive director of the United  States Justice Foundation, that veterans have been getting letters from the  Veterans Administration informing them they have been declared mentally  incompetent.

The vet must provide evidence to the contrary within 60 days. If the vet  desires a hearing, he or she must inform the Veterans Administration within 30  days.

According to the provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act any  person receiving a determination of incompetency can be prevented from  purchasing, receiving, owning, or transporting a firearm or ammunition.

Ronald S. Honberg, director of policy and legal affairs for the National  Alliance on Mental Illness, testified  before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government  Reform Committee on May 10, 2007, that the term “adjudicated as a mental  defective” is both stigmatizing and incompatible with modern terminology used in  the diagnosis and treatment of people with a mental illness.

“No state official charged with carrying out the requirements of the Brady  bill could possibly know what this means, as it is a term that has been obsolete  for close to 40 years,” Honberg explained to Congress. “We have received emails  and other communications in the past few weeks from people who are incredulous  that such a term would still be used in federal law.”

Whitehead explained the problem is intensifying as an increasing percentage  of the U.S. military serving in Afghanistan have become disillusioned with Obama  administration policy toward the war.

“I’ve had veterans returning from Afghanistan tell me that they passed by the  opium fields and it shocked me that the U.S. government was helping the Afghans  plant that stuff,” Whitehead said.

“There’s a lot of corruption in the Afghanistan government, passing around  bags of cash to top officials, and our troops are beginning to ask, ‘Why am I  here?’

He said of these veterans “enlisted wanting to be a great soldier, but they  are coming back disillusioned.”

“I’m getting a lot of reports that soldiers are getting pronounced PSTD and  there’s nothing they can do about it,” he said. “Then they come home and the  process continues. The NSA is targeting veterans, there’s no doubt about  it.”

Whitehead said “the technology is driving the show now” at the NSA, with  computer software identifying “problematic phrases” that target a person as a  potential troublemaker.

He said that with the NSA is doing a trillion downloads a month, “the  surveillance is pervasive.”

“Anything digital is subject to government investigation, typically without  the person having any knowledge it is happening,” he said. “If you want to go on  Google and be anti-war, you are going to end up in a file and you are going to  be subject to further investigation.”

Whitehead warned that the telephone call interviewing him for this article  was almost certainly being recorded by the NSA and that the contents would end  up in a file both for him and for WND.

“The United States is already in a police state, such that the only question  is how we are going to deal with it,” he stressed. “With Bush, the surveillance  state was beginning. Under Obama, the NSA has blossomed to a whole new level  unimaginable in an era only a few years ago before this computer technology  existed.”

Whitehead told WND he was convinced Operation Vigilant Eagle was still in  operation targeting military veterans as potentially dangerous “right-wing  extremists,” even though the DHS, the Department of Defense and the FBI have  dropped since 2009 any specific reference to the programs.

“When the drones get here, another Obama program, the drones are going to be  awesome,” he warned.

“The drones will have scanning devices that can fly over your home and grab  all the digital data in the place where you live. The drones are going to up the  ante, there’s no doubt about it. The only question is whether this is still the  United States of America. There’s nowhere to hide anymore

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/troops-targeted-by-nsa-for-anti-obama-views/#V8gOKFB3o2uBomDe.99