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

[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.