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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI Only Regret That I Have But One Life to Give for My Country: Yours
from TomDispatch:
I Only Regret That I Have But One Life to Give for My Country: Yours
The Crime of the Century
By Tom Engelhardt
Hey, lets talk spying! In Surveillance America, this land of spookery we all now inhabit, what else is there to talk about?
Was there anyone growing up like me in the 1950s who didnt know Revolutionary War hero and spy Nathan Hales last words before the British hanged him: I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country? I doubt it. Even today that line, whether historically accurate or not, gives me a chill. Of course, its harder these days to imagine a use for such a heroically solitary statement -- not in an America in which spying and surveillance are boom businesses, and our latest potential Nathan Hales are tens of thousands of corporately hired and trained private intelligence contractors, who often dont get closer to the enemy than a computer terminal.
What would Nathan Hale think if you could tell him that the CIA, the preeminent spy agency in the country, has an estimated 20,000 employees (it wont reveal the exact number, of course); or that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which monitors the nations spy satellites, has a cast of 16,000 housed in a post-9/11, almost $2 billion headquarters in Washingtons suburbs; or that our modern Nathan Hales, multiplying like so many jackrabbits, lack the equivalent of a Britain to spy on. In the old-fashioned sense, there really is no longer an enemy on the planet. The modern analog to the British of 1776 would assumedly be al-Qaeda?
Its true that powers friendly and less friendly still spy on the U.S. Who doesn't remember that ring of suburban-couples-cum-spies the Russians planted here? It was a sophisticated operation that only lacked access to state secrets of any sort and that the FBI rolled up in 2010. But generally speaking, in a single-superpower world, the U.S., with no obvious enemy, has been building its own system of global spying and surveillance on a scale never before seen in an effort to keep track of just about everyone on the planet (as recently released NSA documents show). In other words, Washington is now spy central. It surveils not just potential future enemies, but also its closest allies as if they were enemies. Increasingly, the structure built to do a significant part of that spying is aimed at Americans, too, and on a scale that is no less breathtaking. ...............................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175733/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_spying_for_us/#more
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I Only Regret That I Have But One Life to Give for My Country: Yours (Original Post)
marmar
Aug 2013
OP
chervilant
(8,267 posts)1. Ruh-roh!
Doncha know? Snowden! Greenwald! Traitor! Enemy of the State! Coward! Criminal!
I cannot believe how many citizens of this nation -- and members of this forum -- are so invested in vilifying Snowden that they cannot see the forest for the trees!
One of the worst (and scariest) justifications I've seen: "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about."
OMG! WTF!
B Calm
(28,762 posts)2. Snowden is not like Nathan Hale