‘US Constitution makes no exception for national security’

Warrantless monitoring of the internet traffic and phone calls of all Americans is a real problem and a blatant violation of the US Constitution, Ivan Eland, analyst and Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute policy group told RT.

Ivan Eland spoke with RT regarding the legal implications of the  recently uncovered vast and warrantless surveillance program  known as PRISM.

RT: Do you sleep more soundly at night as an American  citizen, knowing that all this data – your data – is being  captured and stored?

Ivan Eland: No I don’t. I think this is a real violation  of the US Constitution. Even the Democrats are saying this is  legal, it’s been checked out by Congress – but that doesn’t wash  when it violates the direct provisions of the US Constitution,  which states that any warrant cannot be a general warrant. In  other words, they can’t go mining for things, which is what they  are doing. And also, there has to be a probable cause that there  has been a crime committed – well, every citizen in America can’t  be suspected of being a criminal. Now, they say they’re not  listening into the conversations. But the Constitution does not  say anything about that, it just says if it is a search – and  this is a search, and it is clearly unconstitutional, even though  the Patriot Act, which has unconstitutional portions of it,  okay’s it. So I think it is a very bad thing, and there is  another program that actually does capture emails, the content of  emails, photos of people overseas – also captures Americans as  well.

RT: But why the fuss over this now? I mean as we heard  from our correspondent it’s been ongoing for the last seven  years, since 2006, why is this causing a rumpus now?

IE: Well, I don’t think they realized that this was so  widespread. There was some suspicion of it, and some senators had  been raising cryptic comments. But of course the problem is the  whole thing is classified, and we have to rely on these senators  and the bureaucracy itself, the National Security Agency, to tell  us everything is okay and it’s under wraps, but I’m telling you  if they’re taking, if they’re monitoring traffic of all Americans  that’s a real problem. It’s a blatant violation of the US  Constitution.

RT: Well, they say that one major terrorist plot has  been thwarted because of PRISM, surely that’s good enough to  carry it on, isn’t it?

IE: No, it’s not. And the US Constitution makes no  exception for national security, and terrorism specifically. By  the way, you’re chances if you’re an American of ever being  killed by a terrorist are about the same as getting killed by an  asteroid or lightning. Terrorism is a very rare event, the  government invests way too much effort in preventing terrorism.  And, therefore, I’m sorry but even if this is true  – and  I’m skeptical that this [PRISM[ really led to the arrest and  foiling of a terrorist plot – but even if it did, it’s  unconstitutional and they have to amend the constitution to do  it.