Ayoon wa Azan (The mother of all scandals)

After "the mother of all battles" in Iraq, and its well-known results, we are now seeing the "mother of all scandals," or "scandal of scandals." It emerged after the revelation that the National Security Agency has been spying on American citizens as well as allies and friends around the world. Every day, new information comes out. Meanwhile, this espionage is violating the Constitution and local laws of the United States. Section 215 of the Citizenship Law, which was enacted after the terror of September 11, 2001, says that the FBI can ask for information about individuals or firms after first obtaining a court order to pursue an ongoing investigation. The administrations of George W Bush and Barack Obama have violated the Constitution and the courts to directly obtain from internet and telecom companies billions of phone calls and electronic communications, to store and analyze them. Edward Snowden's revelations about the PRISM program, which was run by the NSA that employed the whistle-blower, show that the US spied on 38 European embassies and diplomatic missions in Washington and New York. Those under surveillance included allies and friends, such as France, Italy and Greece, as well as India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey. The NSA spied on Germany, inside Germany, and obtained billions of phone calls by German citizens. This led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to say that "The monitoring of friends - this is unacceptable. It can't be tolerated. We're no longer in the Cold War." The European Union is now threatening to halt cooperation with the US in the field of information-sharing. Would readers like to hear more? I read that the Health and Human Services Department in the US has also been spying on the phone calls of citizens, on the pretext that it wanted to reduce health care costs. All of this violates the US Constitution, and the letter and spirit of the law. Nonetheless, President Obama, who was once a constitutional law professor, believes that invading the privacy of citizens is only a trifling matter. "You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," he said. Some responded by saying that gathering information about the private lives of Americans enables security bodies to blackmail them, and offered examples such as homosexuals, who would like to keep their sexual orientation secret. There are also millions of Americans who used drugs every day, or still do. In fact, based on the admission of three former American presidents about drug use, Bill Clinton, Bush and Obama would not have been able to become presidential candidates. President Obama has been subjected to massive political campaigns since taking office. The Republican right and the neoconservative allies of Israel have worked, and are still working, to sabotage every attempt by Obama to end the economic crisis of the US and the world, which was caused by the wars that Bush started. They would prefer to see the economy continue in ruins, if this leads to the failure of the Obama administration. Apparently, Obama responded by adopting some of Bush's methods and policies. Today, Obama's political capital is diminishing as a price for continuing to engage in illegal spying that was begun by the Bush administration, which was dominated by neoconservatives. The US is not a third world country that arrests people over mere suspicions of wrongdoing, and sometimes tortures them to death in the basements of intelligence organizations. It is a leading country in the field of human rights and an example to be followed around the world. However, one consequence of neoconservative control over government at one time, and the management of the Israeli mafia of foreign policy, has led to the US becoming a state that spies on its citizens and allies. The only support for the spying scandal that I saw was from the pro-Israeli right-wing media. It alone accused Snowden of treason, instead of considering him a national hero who defended the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of citizens, based on the First and Fourth Amendments, as well as local laws. Snowden is accused of espionage, and he is certainly not a spy. Spying is for a foreign country or intelligence agency in return for personal benefit. But Snowden acted to protect citizens' rights, and in return gambled with his future, and his personal security. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.