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Introductory Statement
I would like to thank the European Parliament for the invitation to provide testimony for
your inquiry into the Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens. The suspicionless
surveillance programs of the NSA, GCHQ, and so many...
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1
Introductory Statement
I would like to thank the European Parliament for the invitation to provide testimony for
your inquiry into the Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens. The suspicionless
surveillance programs of the NSA, GCHQ, and so many others that we learned about over the
last year endanger a number of basic rights which, in aggregate, constitute the foundation of
liberal societies.
The first principle any inquiry must take into account is that despite extraordinary political
pressure to do so, no western government has been able to present evidence showing that such
programs are necessary. In the United States, the heads of our spying services once claimed that
54 terrorist attacks had been stopped by mass surveillance, but two independent White House
reviews with access to the classified evidence on which this claim was founded concluded it was
untrue, as did a Federal Court.
Looking at the US government's reports here is valuable. The most recent of these
investigat
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