Why Would the NSA Want to Spy on Millions of Americans?

[rdubwiley]

[iemitsu]

1. Interesting and convincing argument by an Ed Snowden look alike.

Is this going to be the new "sexy" man image for 2013/14?
Nerdy, mud-blonde, boy with glasses and a tee shirt.
Not to deflect from a perfectly good argument that deserves attention.

[rdubwiley]

3. Lol

If I had a nickle for every time I was compared to Edward Snowden, I'd be a millionaire.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. I was gonna bring you up and there you are.

[iemitsu]

12. It that you in the film?

You did a fine job of articulating the problems exposed by Snowden and Wikileaks.
Good job of impersonating Snowden too.
By the way, it would not surprise me if the Snowden look caught on. Boyish, nerdy, intelligent, brave, can handle a pole-dancing girlfriend, and internationally famous. What's not sexy about all that?

[Coyotl]

5. No, not the sexy man of 2013 look

but expect a few networks to start using bedroom closet backdrops as their budgets decline.

[NCcoast]

2. This is a program designed for political blackmail

Last edited Sun Aug 18, 2013, 02:27 AM - Edit history (1)

Back in 2002 I put the logo for the Office of Total Information Awareness on my computer desktop. It stayed there for years. The logo looked like something right out of 'Get Smart' (for you young ones that was a television comedy spy show in the late 60's that was almost unbearably silly). The plan for 'Total Information Awareness' was to collect into one supercomputer all public and private databases in the United States, and of course from elsewhere, so that the data could be mined for suspicious activity. That is the genesis of this NSA program and I believe 'total information awareness' remains the operative goal.

But here's the thing. This NSA program is a perfect tool for suppression of political decent. Rupert Murdoch practically owned the the government in the UK and he had to tap less than 5000 phones to do it. That and owning a lot of newspapers to facilitate the character assassinations. Think about what the NSA has. They can sweep up everything, and keep it all until someone steps on the wrong toes and draws attention to themselves.

Let's say you're a bankster and some do-gooder decides to do their job and looks into your misdeeds. We'll call this do-gooder Elliot. You're a very powerful bankster with lots of powerful connections. So maybe you call a friend at the Carlyle Group and ask for a little help getting Elliot off your back. That person gives a call to someone at Boz Allen saying, 'I need all the dirt you can find on Elliot'. So Elliot gets a hard look and it turns out he's been having some illicit dalliances. It's not very hard from there to come up with a parallel story of how someone stumbled upon this information, as the DEA has been instructed to do when the NSA tips them on domestic drug activity as we now know is the case.

Or let's say you're trying to start a war. And you've got this disinformation campaign going that a nation you want to invade for its resources is bristling with WMD's. But there's a problem. There are UN weapons inspectors crawling all over that country and they can't find any WMD's. And one of them, we'll call him Scott this time, one of them is doing everything he can to draw attention to the fact that there are no WMD's. Same process. Someone takes a hard look at Scott and maybe he's had some inappropriate dalliances too.

Now this are of course hypotheticals... aren't they.

The thing is. Given all of our information, and all of the information of our friends and family, we are all vulnerable. That's why we can't let them stockpile this information and sift through it as needed.

There is no question in my mind that this capability will be abused. This supercomputer they're building in a remote Mormon polygamist community (another plot point worthy of 'Get Smart') must be dismantled.

Let's face it. This post will be going into my file. Along with all of your comments, which will all be going into your files. This is our government and we can not let it treat us as if we are its enemy.

[Coyotl]

6. Political blackmail, et.al., dirty tricks programs go back to the 50's, what is new is electronics

and ease of spying. TIA goes back to Reagan/Bush and Poindexter. Utah and The Enterprise go back a long ways too.

I expect the current data storage system has a political backdoor that is absolutely undetectable to oversight. And the Republicans who build and control the system have the keys to the kingdom forever and forever.

[wildbilln864]

8. exactly and....

they'll have the dirt on anybody that gets in their way or tries to obstuct their power!

[winetourdriver]

9. rising pressure

Very good post, and timely. The new digital age is making this problem much worse. I saw a book on amazon called "Rising Pressure" that went into some detail on this phenomenon.

[iemitsu]

13. Your clarifying examples are right on target.

And 100% agreement on the role of government. It is there to work for us not against us. The government has no right to tell citizens that there isn't enough revenue, to meet their basic needs, and then spend our money spying on us. It is so clear that the information being gathered is and will be used against us.

[MrMickeysMom]

16. Yes... it's all going into data storage and it all has a price.

I'll never argue against what you said very well. I do wonder why anyone who frequents here as a Democrat isn't as upset as I am about this. We cannot stand for this.We cannot let them put our information into storage for some future use. History should have taught us that this will come to no good. It already has.

I loved "Get Smart" and I love all those comedies which flirted with the blunders of "the man". They are too smart now for our own good.

[KurtNYC]

20. and the real goal of blackmail is on-going control

The photos that Lynndie England took at Gitmo were used in this way. They had nothing to use as blackmail on most of the prisoners so they created it (!)

England reportedly said that she was "instructed by persons in higher ranks" to commit the acts of abuse for psyop reasons, and that she should keep doing it, because it worked as intended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England

The US government is full of blackmailable people, perhaps by design. When Larry Craig was busted in the airport bathroom he gave the arresting officer his business card as if to say 'I have a deal that covers this.' Craig served 10 years in the House and 18 in the Senate, was a vocal opponent of gay marriage and other rights. Seems like he played the game for 28 years.

Gary Condit was hounded out of office by allegations that filled Fox News airtime for 6 months but ultimately proved false and the murder of Sandra Levy was never solved.

Bill Clinton's friend and lawyer Vince Foster was found dead with a note torn to pieces which complained:

"The WSJ editors lie without consequence" and lamenting, "I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Foster

Jeff Gannon / Guckert used the internet to find men who love men in uniforms in Washington DC, a possible "honeypot" operation which used the website hotmilitarystud.com. He infiltrated the press corp as well and had signed in at the Bush Whitehouse numerous times.

Even CIA agents are not immune to this process apparently. Valerie Plame was outed in retaliation for failing to say that aluminum tubes in Iraq were to be used for nuclear proliferation. In this well known incident, Richard Armitage used Robert Novak to end he career.

But again, the real goal of blackmail is to control people, NOT to punish them after they do something they were warned against.

[NCcoast]

21. These were all great responses, thank you

And maintaining control is the object of all of this. And I'll just throw in one more thing. Who are the specific enemies of the state? That's easy to figure out from the actions of law enforcement. Whenever they 'infiltrate' a group they consider to be potentially dangerous, seditious or possibly terrorist, more often than not those are environmental or peace groups.

So a seditious person in America, in the eyes of the government and the corporation who fund our elections, is anyone who is for peace or who doesn't want the world they have to live in destroyed so that the widow of some old fart who's already rich can go to his funeral in a nicer car.

[Half-Century Man]

7. Some other considerations.

With the NSA contracting out it's work, the holders of the vast majority of our meta data (and specific data) is NOT the government but an artificial construct designed strictly to generate profit, a corporation. If we take into consideration that they manipulated the government to establish the NSA in it's current form; were willing, no eager, to violate the law by over reaching their imposed limitations. Why would anyone expect them to honor something like a contract with the government (whose agents they have built in blackmail material for) for exclusive rights to the illegally obtained data?
I don't remember a nation wide concussion......
Our information is already being sold to whoever needs it for whatever reason. As an example I remind everyone of the police and private security heading off a protest group (keystone pipe line) in Oklahoma. If it hasn't been noticed yet, they can search our specific data by keyword. And sell it.

Meta data is market data, plain and simple. Market data is actually how to talk to us. How to convince us to do things we might be reluctant to do otherwise. How to make us see things they way someone wants us to see them. It is going on right now. It is evolving right now. The message is changing to condition us to accept the explanation.
Granted, their grip on the situation is real bad (oh yeah, THANK YOU MR. SNOWDEN, watching them dance so frantically is amusing)and they are trying to keep us from getting any deeper. But that ship has sailed.
They are still collecting our meta data, and we are beginning to accept that as normal. Their manipulation of opinion via meta data is showing.

[fasttense]

10. I was thinking the exact same thing.

The speaker goes on and on about how different a corporation and the government are. But he fails to realize that this spying on Americans is being done by a corporation in collusion with a government agency. Talk about a program just ripe for abuse and blackmail. It's the worst of both worlds. A corporation that can't be controlled by political power and a government agency that has force on it's side.

It always amazed me that Snowden didn't use the info he had access to to get money out of a few well placed uber rich lucky sperm club winners. It would just be so easy to blackmail anyone with access to the kind of info the NSA has contracted out to corporations.

[Half-Century Man]

11. And the most convincing argument that what he say is completely true.

He wasn't after the money. That is something TPTB can't understand, the non-addiction to money.

They think the complete summation of value of any/all human beings is money, not integrity, bravery, courage, honesty, charity, warm heartedness, compassion, just a fucking bankroll.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

14. Rec

[iemitsu]

15. They do think that, and for many its true.

Money = value. A simple equation, and since it is difficult to live without money today, most accept it as an important measurement of value.
And money is a prime motivator of people's actions. So its fun to watch the uber-classes, who are used to getting their way using money, get befuddled when someone, unswayed by money, is identified as their adversary. They can't figure out the game. Its too foreign to them. The rules have been broken.
Of course, money has no real value. Paper or E-money are nothing but IOUs. And their supposed value fluctuates.
Specie has value (which also fluctuates) but most of us have none of it.
So for the, majority of us, who work hard and lead self-reflective lives, the things you list: integrity, courage, honesty, charity, compassion, carrying one's own weight, and membership in a community are the characteristics that measure real value.
When we spot these characteristics in others, we value them and when they spot them in us, we are valued.
Turns out the other stuff doesn't matter that much.
How much money someone has or doesn't, what ethnic heritage they hail from, how old, or fat, or fashionable they are just doesn't matter when they contribute to your well-being and that of your community.

[fasttense]

17. So True

A man who can not be bought is a very dangerous man in a corporate controlled world.

That is why they continue to go after Snowden. Their money has no control over him unlike so many in power today.

[Half-Century Man]

18. I like to think I would have the same level of integrity..

...but the truth is, I don't know.

[blkmusclmachine]

19. Welcome to 1984.

9/11 was the excuse.