(Photo: Joe Brusky)ELLIOT D. COHEN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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The infrastructure for mass warrantless surveillance is now in place for cyber racial profiling by a government administration with the will to carry it out. The latter is the systematic use of a spy technology network for purposes of targeting a specific race/s. As disclosed in the National Security Agency (NSA) slides leaked in 2013 by Edward Snowden, the present system of surveillance technology is of global proportions with the capacity to capture, store, and inspect virtually every electronic message (email, phone conversation, internet search, chat, etc.) sent and received by millions of U.S. citizens each day. The selection of racially motivated cabinet members at the highest level of the Trump administration is a clear warning sign that we may be about to witness a firestorm of cyber racial oppression that could end the experiment in democracy our forefathers began more than two hundred years ago.

The NSA presently conducts warrantless searches that have captured and stored millions of communications of U.S. citizens. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FIS) Court has allowed this activity to continue unabated rather than to insist that the technology be equipped with content filtering technologies that block government access to personal information of U.S. Citizens. While, pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, federal agencies conducting terrorism investigations need a court warrant to target U.S. citizens, they do not need such a warrant when their target is a non-U.S. citizen. However, the 2008 amendments to the 1978 FISA law now allow the feds to gather information containing the personal information of U.S. persons when this information is collected tangential to collecting foreign intelligence that targets non-U.S. persons. All that is necessary is that a "significant purpose" of the search is to gather foreign intelligence. Previous FISA law required that "the [only] purpose" of the investigation be to gather foreign intelligence. So, if the feds are conducting a terrorist investigation and they "just happen" to gather information about a U.S. citizen who is engaged in an allegedly illegal activity, this information is admissible for purposes of charging the person with a crime.

Further, the FIS Court does not require the feds to get approval of the particular search criteria they employ to conduct mass surveillance activities. It only requires that they "minimize" the acquisition, retention, and use of information concerning non-consenting U.S. persons consistent with the U.S. need to obtain foreign intelligence information. Unfortunately, this is consistent with using racial categories (ethnic names and other racially identifying information) to capture and analyze data flowing past tap points both nationally and internationally. Further, the aforementioned minimization standards permit the Justice Department to police itself. This means that the FIS Court has entrusted federal agencies such as the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to carry out their electronic searches without judicial oversight. In lieu of judicial oversight, the Attorney General, as head of the Justice Department, holds the authority to sign off on the lawfulness of such investigations. So, given this broad area of discretion afforded the Attorney General, would this chief law enforcement officer permit systematic cyber profiling to occur on his watch? Moreover, would other top national security officers, and the president himself, condone such palpably unconstitutional activities?

Here is where the plot thickens. So far, Trump appointees have had racially questionable backgrounds. Stephen Bannon, who has been named as Trump’s chief advisor was the editor of Breitbart News Network, a news organization alleged to have leanings toward the Alt Right, a white nationalist movement, as well as anti-Muslim leanings. Trump’s National Security Adviser is slated to be Michael Flynn, who has made blatantly racist comments about Islam, which he proclaimed to be a "political ideology. "It definitely hides behind this notion of it being a religion," he stated. "It’s like cancer. … And it’s a like a malignant cancer, though, in this case. It has metastasized." He has also recently tweeted a link to an anti-Semitic message, ">Cnn implicated. 'The USSR is to blame!'...Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore." Trump’s pick for Attorney General, the office that oversees the legality of federal spying activities, is Jeff Sessions, who was turned down by a Republican-controlled Senate for a federal judgeship in 1986 because of racist comments he allegedly made. He also once called the 1965 Voting Rights Act a "piece of intrusive legislation." So, if confirmed by the current Republican-controlled congress, Sessions will be the person with the authority to sign off on the legality of potentially racially motivated NSA searches of U.S. persons. Bannon will be the one in charge of shaping U.S. policy stances toward racial and religious groups. And National Security Advisor Flynn will have the authority to implement such policies in the name of "national security." Meanwhile, as Trump conducts further interviews for his administration, Kris Kobach, one of his top considerations for head of Homeland Security, would allegedly question "high-risk" immigrants over support for Sharia law and the U.S. Constitution if he is selected. No doubt, cyber racial profiling would be a core component of such investigations.

So here is an exclusive group of white men with seemingly racist predilections who are about to take control of a colossal mass surveillance spy network that has the potential to systematically profile Muslims, Jews, blacks, and other potential minority groups in the name of "national security." Add to this that the Trump administration is presently entertaining the possibility of starting a "Muslim registry." Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, now Trump’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, said that the Trump team is not presently "ruling it out." Earlier, Carl Higbie, a spokesperson for the Pro-Trump Great American PAC pointed to Japanese internment camps as a precedent for such a registry. Such picks for top offices in the Trump administration should not be shocking inasmuch as Trump himself proposed using religious profiling to screen Muslims attempting to enter the country.

What, then, can we expect from a Trump administration in charge of a spy network and legal framework that is grist for the mill of great religious and racial oppression? George Santayana, the famous Spanish American philosopher is known for admonishing that history is prone to be repeated if it is ignored. In this light, it may be edifying to note that shortly after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, the New York Times proclaimed, "There is at least one official voice in Europe that expresses understanding of the methods and motives of President Roosevelt -- the voice of Germany, as represented by Chancellor Adolf Hitler"; and an article in the Christian Monitor said that Nazism had a "capacity for organization unequaled in our times by any except the Bolshevik leaders." As history shows, normalizing the embers that are insidiously smoking and potentially about to explode may be the wrong approach. However, the Nazi party did not have a powerful mass, warrantless surveillance network at its disposal. But a Trump administration does!