Isn't this a fine slap in the face to Americans. Just one step removed from the totalitarian state. The current administration needs to be removed, now. The Patriot Act needs to be reversed, now. Domestic government snooping needs to be made illegal and a death penalty to those who persist. --- The journalist who broke the news that the government is monitoring vast quantities of American phone records is claiming the U.S. is building a âmassiveâ snooping apparatus committed to destroying privacy worldwide. âThere is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world,â charged Glenn Greenwald, a reporter for the British newspaper âThe Guardian,â speaking on CNN. âThat is not hyperbole. That is their objective.â Greenwald, speaking with CNNâs Piers Morgan, appeared during a week in which Americans learned that according to reports, the National Security Agency and other parts of the government have been monitoring the phone records of Verizon users and accessing Internet information as part of intelligence-gathering procedures. Some Republicans and Democrats have defended the phone records strategy, including the highest-ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee â Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). But Greenwald dismissed those arguments. âSo whatever the Justice Department wants to do, they can beat their chests all they want,â he said. âPeople like Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss can have press conferences threatening people for bringing ⦠light to what it is theyâre doing, but the only people who are going to be investigated are them. Itâs well past time that these threats start to be treated with the contempt that they deserve. Thatâs certainly how I intend to treat them moving forward, with more investigation and disclosures.â He also bashed the Obama administration for issuing âthreats.â âThe Obama administration has been very aggressive about bullying and threatening anybody who thinks about exposing it or writing it or even doing journalism about it, and itâs well past time that come to an end,â he said. Greenwald also told CNNâs Jake Tapper that the administration has taken a âwarped and distortedâ view of the PATRIOT Act, the legislation that authorized certain kinds of surveillance for security reasons in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. âWhat the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the PATRIOT Act is so warped and distorted and it vests themselves with such extremist surveillance powers over the United States and American citizens that Americans, in their words, would be stunned to learn what the Obama administration is doing,â he said on CNNâs âThe Lead.â Speaking with MSNBC host Lawrence OâDonnell, Greenwald dared lawmakers to investigate how information about the Verizon phone records leaked, as Feinstein has said should happen. âLet them go and investigate,â Greenwald said. He added, âThere is this massive surveillance state that the United States government has built up that has extraordinary implications for how we live as human beings on the earth and as Americans in our country, and we have the right to know what it is that that government and that agency is doing. I intend to continue to shine light on that, and Dianne Feinstein can beat her chest all she wants and call for investigations, and none of that is going to stop and none of it is going to change.â http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/glenn-greenwald-us-privacy-92400.html#ixzz2VYWMfqp7