Press TV has conducted an interview with James Fetzer, Professor Emeritus of the University of Minnesota Duluth (Madison) about the United States government spying on American citizens as well as eavesdropping on several world leaders.
The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: I’d like to get your thoughts on the recent US Senate Intelligence Committee’s measures that will allow the continuation of the government sweeping mass surveillance activities. Does this show the complete disregard of the United States for the aftermath of the revelations of its espionage activities?
Fetzer: Well, it has several dimensions. It is completely unconstitutional and it cannot be justified on the basis of domestic terrorism.
The very same Committee that is considering this legislation released a report on October 3, 2012 based upon its review of 680 fusion center reports or fusion centers’ merged Federal State and local anti-terrorism efforts gathered between 2009 and 2010 and in that 680 reports distributed all over the country they found not a single instance, — not one, zero, zilch, naught, none—of domestic terrorist activity.
So, this is clearly not directed at domestic terrorist activities; instead it is directed at opponents of the National Security State. Dianne Feinstein, I am sorry to say, is a stooge of Israel. She is one of many.
The problem here is that the NSA [the National Security Agency] has so much information on all of the members of Congress, all of the members of the Supreme Court, all of the members of the Executive up to including President Obama that they could extort them, they can subject them to pressure, they can threaten to embarrass them and in fact there is every reason to believe that Israel is behind all of this because there is an agreement between the NSA and Israel that all of our raw data should go directly into Tel Aviv. It is a terrible, shocking situation. And I am appalled that the Senate should be seeking some way to legalize it but I can assure you that is because they are under duress by the NSA.
Press TV: Professor Fetzer, revelations by Edward Snowden, week on out, reveal more shocking details about the espionage activities. There is spying on civilians inside the United States, spying on foreign countries, civilians of foreign countries, even leaders of other countries, foes and allies alike. Just how far does this rabbit hole go?
Fetzer: It is worldwide and massive. They are vacuuming up everyone’s electronic communications, are vacuuming up everyone’s email, cell phones, any form of communication, financial and medical.
Chancellor Merkel was well alarmed because she grew up and born in East Germany which was dominated by the Stasi, the most effective secret organization ever conceived by the mind of man and it turns out at last that our own Department of Homeland Security was modeled after the Stasi in combination with the NSA the HS is seeking to dominate the United States or try to disarm Americans so they cannot stand up and oppose the imposition of tyranny by this administration.
It is a very serious situation. I am very profoundly troubled and the whole world ought to be disturbed by what is going on here.
Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
