By leaking classified intelligence documents, Edward Snowden transformed public awareness of the scale and scope of U.S. intelligence surveillance programs. But his actions are proving to be no less consequential for national security secrecy policy.
Mr. Litt made it clear that he did not approve of the Snowden leaks, which he said were unlawful and had “seriously damaged our national security.” Yet he stressed that the leaks have also prompted a reconsideration of previously accepted patterns of secrecy.
The President’s own task force concluded that NSA spying in the US hadn’t prevented a single act of terrorism (e.g.,Washington Post, 12/23/13).
The spying is really about gathering information on everybody. Innocent citizens.
But if citizens didn’t know the NSA was engaged in such a gargantuan program of snooping…they would, in blithe ignorance, just go about their business and live their lives.
The point is this: the most effective means of curtailing dissent and creating a cautious conforming population isn’t the spying itself. It’s letting people know the spying is happening all the time.
Recently I acquired a new car, the first in 14 years (I wrote about it here). It was a Chevrolet Volt, with cutting-edge hybrid technology and a Car of the Year award in 2012, but the agent who sold it to me seemed impressed most of all with its “smart key.” Since I misplace my car keys often, a smart key conjured up visions of something that would come running when called. Sadly, that was not what it was. It was interesting nonetheless: a tiny electronic gizmo that remotely spoke to the car.
This meant that things I had done for my whole life without complaint or even an inkling that they were burdensome were now eliminated. No more tiresome inserting-key-into-ignition-and-turning, for instance. I could simply push a button to start the car if the smart key was nearby. No more fishing around in my bags or unsightly pocket-patting to find the old key fob. Within three feet of the doors, the smart key automatically unlocked the car. “Neat,” I said.
Soon after, I went surfing. I usually take my key with me in my wetsuit. Belatedly it occurred to me: a smart key is not waterproof. What to do? Hide it on my car? That wasn’t feasible, as it meant the car would automatically unlock, even when the key stayed hidden. Call a locksmith to make a door key and hide the smart key inside the car? Nope. Still within three feet. Then I had an epiphany: metal would interrupt the transmitter! I searched at local hardware stores and on the internet, but the lockboxes and magnetic key holders were all plastic. I bought a thick, albeit plastic lockbox. The doors still opened.
I called my local Chevrolet dealer. I told them I wanted a key that wasn’t smart, that I could put in my wetsuit. They seemed puzzled, and told me they didn’t make a key like that anymore. “Please do,” I said, thinking that they were joking.
They weren’t.
I drove the car to them in person. In person, they shook their heads. “We’ve never heard of this problem before.”
So I asked them to disable the automatic door unlocking aspect of the smart key.
That couldn’t be done either.
“Hold it,” I said. “You have a technology that you can’t override?” I had read enough science fiction to know that this was where things went terribly, terribly wrong.
I've been hearing increasingly from multiple quarters that the root of our problems is psychopaths and sociopaths and other loosely defined but definitely different beings from ourselves. Rob Kall has produced a quite interesting series of articles and interviews on the subject.
I want to offer some words of caution if not respectful dissent. I don't think the “because chickenhawks” dissent found, for example, in John Horgan's “The End of War” is sufficient. That is to say, just because a politician doesn't want to do the killing himself or herself doesn't mean the decision to order killing in war, or in prison, or through poverty and lack of healthcare, or through climate change, isn't heartless and calculating. Psychopaths could be running our world from behind desks.
But are they?
When I look at national politicians in the United States — presidents and Congress members — I can't identify any meaningful place to draw a line such that sociopaths would be on one side and healthy people on the other. They all bow, to one degree or another, to corrupt influences. They all make bad compromises. There are differences in both policy positions and personal manners, but the differences are slight and spread along a continuum. They all fund the largest killing machine in history. The Progressive Caucus budget proposes slight increases in military spending, already at 57% of the discretionary budget. Some support wars on “humanitarian” and others on genocidal grounds, but the wars look the same from the receiving end either way.
This kind of report should engender outrage. We can not feed little children nor care properly for the poor and disabled. But welfare for corporations knows no bounds. It is absolutely mad, and it is destroying us. Most of us are aware that the government gives mountains of cash to powerful corporations in the form of tax breaks, grants, loans and subsidies–what some have called “corporate welfare.” However, little has been revealed about exactly how much money Washington is forking over to mega businesses. Until now.
A new venture called Open the Books, based in Illinois, was founded with a mission to bring transparency to how the federal budget is spent. And what they found is shocking: between 2000 and 2012, the top Fortune 100 companies received $1.2 trillion from the government. That doesn't include all the billions of dollars doled out to housing, auto and banking enterprises in 2008-2009, nor does it include ethanol subsidies to agribusiness or tax breaks for wind turbine makers.
What Open the Book's forthcoming report [3] does reveal is that the most valuable contracts between the government and private firms were for military procrument deals, including Lockheed Martin ($392 billion), General Dynamics ($170 billion), and United Technologies ($73 billion).
It is the story, according to former colleagues, of an apolitical, deeply disgruntled employee seeking an exit strategy from a job where, sources say, she was disciplined for unprofessional behavior and had been demoted. Wahl did not return several voice and text messages sent to her cell phone.
Co-Conspirators
At the center of the intrigue is a young neoconservative writer and activist who helped craft Wahl’s strategy and exploit her resignation to propel the agenda of a powerful pro-war lobby in Washington.
The story began at 5:07 PM on March 5.
PR from PNAC 2.0
It was a full 19 minutes before Wahl had resigned. Inside the offices of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a neoconservative think tank in Washington DC, a staffer logged on to the group’s Twitter account to https://twitter.com/ForeignPolicyI/status/441334090298437634>announce the following:
“#WordOnTheStreet says that something big might happen on RT in about 20-25 minutes.”
Then, at 5:16, exactly ten minutes before Wahl would quit on air, FPI tweeted:
“#WordOnTheStreet says you’re really going to want to tune in to RT: http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/ #SomethinBigMayBeGoingDown”
Up until two minutes before Wahl’s resignation, FPI took to Twitter again and again to urge its followers to tune in to RT.
And finally, at 5:26 PM, at the very moment Wahl quit, FPI’s Twitter account broke the news: “RT Anchor RESIGNS ON AIR. She ‘cannot be part of a network that whitewashes the actions of Putin.’ ”
The tweets from FPI suggested a direct level of coordination between Wahl and the neoconservative think tank. Several calls to FPI for this story were not answered.
