Yes, Those Detention Camps Are REAL and for YOU!

Martial law: (def.) The law imposed upon citizens by a national military force when civil authority has broken down or during military operations.

"The loss of civil liberties by the American people is probably the biggest thing that's happened in this decade. Now, we no longer have habeas corpus. Any president can decide that you're an enemy combatant and put you in a military prison without trial, without lawyers, without access to your family...indefinitely. Whether you're a citizen of the United States or not. They now have active military battalions on duty - under the North American Command - ready to go and act as police in any city of the United States.

They have built detention centers throughout the country, $350 million that went to Halliburton, to expand detention centers and be prepared for martial law" - Peter Phillips, Former Director Of Project Censored, and now Direction of Media Freedom Foundation.

In the previous post I examined Chris Hedges' exposure of Ivy League institutions as seed beds for elite control of the country,  spanning the areas of business, economics and politics. At the end I also referenced Thomas Frank's quote of Obama to the effect that he was the "only thing" standing between investment bankers and "the pitchforks". The latter is the metaphor used for public or populist outrage at any given shenanigan or even national policy. At its extreme, if investment bankers or any other elites really had anything to fear, it would be mass insurrection or revolution - with the Right and Left finally coming together to oust all of them and who knows what else. Think of the Ukraine- Kiev  uprising back in March but magnified one million times.

The U.S. Neocons and their allies cheered while the "pitchforks" came out in the Ukraine and ousted the democratically elected leader, Viktor Yanukyovich , but don't think for a second they or the national security state would tolerate the same thing here. Say if millions across the nation got violently disaffected with economic conditions and acted out.  In this sense there's always been a measure of hypocrisy but Official Washington used to at least pretend to stand for “democracy,” rather than taking such obvious pleasure in destabilizing elected governments, encouraging riots, overturning constitutional systems and then praising violent putsches - while removing all possibility for such at home - including elimination of habeas corpus (via the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and setting up the COG and Main Core programs as well as expanding corporate -constructed detention camps.

Of course, mass popular insurrection directed at the elite corporate power structure is the corporate security state's worst nightmare. (As Chris Hedges notes, op. cit., p. 177: "The emergence of the corporate state always means the emergence of the security state.") And they have also harbored incessant fears of its realization since the 1960s, especially with probabilities increasing as economic conditions and inequality worsen. But mostly they've been able to keep the anger at bay via the use of the media - to create umpteen diversions to titillate the masses and anesthetize them, or ply them with so many choices they can't decide whether to shit or go blind, far less grab a pitchfork to take out an elite. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/media-and-human-attention-whos-to-blame.html

For a long time I admit that I dismissed the crazies on the Right - who endlessly yapped about "FEMA concentration camps" - as whackos, nuts and loony tunes. Their conspiracy theories - including of UN  black helicopters, gave all conspiracies (even legitimate ones like Watergate and the Kennedy assassination) a bad rap and rendered them easier to lampoon by the media cynics. However, after seeing the film "Project Censored the Movie" and extracting further documents based on it, including from  the Project Censored archives i.e.

http://www.projectcensored.org/14-homeland-security-contracts-kbr-to-build-detention-centers-in-the-us/

I became convinced the Righties were basically on to something. They just got the time line a bit wrong. As researcher Peter Dale Scott points out in an update to the Project Censored article (in the above link), it was actually under Reagan that: FEMA’s former plans ‘for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps’  had arisen.  The basis was to obviously prevent mass riots such as occurred in the 1960s in hundreds of American cities. The reasoning is that Reagan's planned "Reagonomics" supply side impositions would so badly extirpate the social support programs for many African-Americans that it would be intolerable.

But the Righties failed to go to the next level, which was the construction or expansion of existing detention facilities by KBR - an offshoot of Halliburton, soon after Bush Jr., Cheney and that lot revamped the COG (continuity of government) program to include a wide swatch of "domestic terrorists" and malcontents.  Indeed, in the movie, a map is shown of all the detention facilities expanded by KBR, stretching from California to New England. Clearly, the elites hatched out of the Ivies (see previous post) and controlling our nation's destiny aren't about to go quietly into that good night.


As I noted in a previous blog post:

 According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. But what measures were invoked remains unclear, though Giuffrida’s template was believed to be integrated into it and former Reaganites were in the WH at the time, who had shared earlier in the architecture (Rumsfeld, Cheney etc.)


 Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security’s strategic plan “Endgame”, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."


- Even worse, later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. (Now we know why the security state was so hot to trot to squelch all OWS protests, including beating the living shit out of them when they tried to approach Wall Street and the Stock Exchange!)

In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"


According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes Occupy Wall Streeters and anyone who protests the Keystone XL pipeline!

Most concern has been expressed at the Main Core program which one knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Those who think this is a joke or conspiracy theory nonsense are not paying attention, especially on how the hammer of the security state was brought down on Occupy Wall Street protestors two years ago.  See e.g. http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494

All of this, of course, facilitated by the NSA's mass surveillance programs - XKeyscore, MUSCULAR, PRISM etc.

The Elite power structure also knows these mass warrant, 4th amendment violating programs are essential, not for "terrorists" or to prevent terror attacks, but to get a handle on who all the potential domestic trouble makers are if a mass eruption does break out.  As Chris Hedges observes (p. 177):

"As the pressure mounts, as this despair and impoverishment reach larger and larger segments of the populace, the mechanisms of corporate and government control are being bolstered to prevent civil unrest and instability. ...This is why the Bush White House pushed through the Patriot Act (and its renewal) , the suspension of habeas corpus, the practice of 'extraordinary rendition', the practice of warrantless wiretapping on American citizens, and the refusal to ensure free and fair elections...

It's all part of a package, It comes together. The motive behind these measures is not to fight terrorism or to bolster national security. It is to seize and maintain internal control."

Hedges notes that the real purpose for these programs leaked out in the course of a Senate Intelligence meeting in February and March, 2009.  That was when then Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified that the "deepening economic crisis posed the gravest threat to stability and national security".  It could "trigger" he said, "a return to the violent extremism of the 1920s and 1930s." The implication was that the immediate means and infrastructure needed to be brought up to speed to identify and detain those who might adversely affect corporate state security. The widespread NSA programs, as exposed by Snowden,  followed almost immediately in the wake.

Were Blair's worries justified?  Of course! Because no normal human or mass aggregation is prepared to be shat on their heads forever, exploited and ground under like so much dirt while the elites enjoy their weekend golf jaunts to St. Kitts, as their wives get costly rose wine wraps, e.g.
















Oh we also wouldn't want to deprive them of their special gold -lined bath tubs, and $25,000 apiece Frrrozen Haute Chocolate delicacies now (see below), would we?

 Oh wait, I mustn't do that! No, no and no! That's waging "class warfare" on the little turds!


But you get my point! Just presenting these class warfare images could easily entice the next President - god forbid Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan or that porker Chris Christie, to declare me an "enemy (of the rich) combatant" and have me dragged away to one of those KBR made detention centers.

But the sad fact is one guy raising hell on his blog is mostly going to elicit a big yawn from the elites. The truth is that most Americans are so hypnotized by their little consumer toys, Ipads, smart phones and Facebook that they're nowhere near to being discontented on a level to inspire a Kiev-like insurrection against the corporatists. And a large part of this is the zombie media saturation as well as the false statistics, such as the consumer price index, that Chris Hedges notes the power structure uses to keep people baffled with bullshit.

Want to know the sad truth in all this?  The people most likely to get riled up and take it out on all our hides, whether in domestic bombings (like Oklahoma City) or para-military standoffs (like Waco incident on Clinton's watch) will be the radical Right. As Hedges grimly observes (p. 183):

"As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by our ruling class; as the Democratic and Republican parties expose themselves as craven tools of our corporate state; as savings accounts, college funds, and retirement plans become worthless, as unemployment skyrockets and home values go up in smoke, we must prepare for the political re-emergence of the reinvigorated Right wing radicals."

In other words, we may well be put on a track analogous to that in 1932-33 leading Germans to the nightmare of the Third Reich. Only our version will be much worse, since a Right wing controlled NSA- say with a Ted Cruz at the helm as President- would be vastly more powerful than the Nazi Gestapo.

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/57092/the-spoils-of-class-warfare

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/57086/corporate-tax-deferral-inversions-and-the-destructive-result

and:
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/22/a_much_larger_and_more_dangerous_movement_right_wing_militias_thrive_post_bundy_and_the_media_wont_talk_about_it/

Will You Soon Be Classified as a “Terrorist”? Marianne Williamson’s Concerns – And Mine!

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

 

Marianne Williamson is absolutely spot -on correct when she was quoted in a recent Los Angeles Magazine (June, p. 110) as noting her major worries included “diminishing civil liberties, expanding corporate influence, political corruption and the rise of domestic surveillance.” All those were given as reasons she planned to run for congress in California. (Whether she wins or loses, her voice will have been heard and her concerns are legitimate.)

 

Ms. Williamson went on to note that – added together – “these threats constitute such a powerful force of darkness that it could put American democracy in a death spiral” from which we may never recover.  Indeed, it may already be too late. Especially when one beholds the sheer mass of lily-livered “citizens” railing against Ed Snowden – after his recent interview- one even calling it an “infomercial for traitors” - as some dumb shit yahoo did on the Denver Post site, while others insisted he must "come home and face the music”. Yeah, right! A Kangaroo court where as Snowden observed in his Brian Williams interview,  no exculpatory evidence would be permitted on the grounds it is “classified”. Gimme a break! As Pentagon Papers hero Daniel Ellsberg pointed out on 'Andrea Mitchell Reports': "Snowden isn't running from justice, he's fleeing from INJUSTICE!"

 Williamson’s fear is reasonable, but  while she named the U.S. government (“We’re cool as American people, but it’s the U.S. government that’s bringing us down”) she might also want to have a look at some of the goobers that pass for citizens who are ALSO bringing us down because they’re playing right into the security state’s shameless exploitation of terrorism to destroy civil liberties.

As Snowden, as well as his lawyer (featured on Steve Kornacki’s ‘UP’ on Sunday), pointed out, there isn’t one scintilla of evidence the gov’t has presented – despite all its histrionics (or should I say, John Kerry’s hysterics),  that any real harm has come to anyone from Snowden’s leaks.  Oh lots of embarrassment – of course! But let’s not conflate embarrassment with actual harm. (And if you're going to jump on this "harm" bandwagon, you better also have the decency and consistency to put the five Taliban commanders - just released from Gitmo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl - on the same radar.)

 
Now, skip to the latest disclosed NSA outrage (one must wonder how many more are needed to get our consumers…..errrr citizens to sit up and take note).  That is that the National Security Agency is collecting “millions of images per day” from photos shared online for use in its advanced facial recognition programs. The New York Times reports that the agency culls millions of faces from “emails, text messages, social media, video conferences and other communications,” gaining “tremendous untapped potential” to track intelligence targets throughout the world. 

In other words, let me spell it out for you. They take your Facebook, instagram, and text message et al  photos and compile them into nefarious “facial recognition” programs for which you lack even clue one on the collateral uses (and abuses) that could metastasize.

What if they are putting them all into the COG template – then what? Recall COG (continuity of government) allows authorities to identify as “domestic terrorists” all those assembled under its provisos. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"“activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"


According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes Occupy Wall Streeters and anyone who protests the Keystone XL pipeline, GMO foods or any fracking well drilled near their home!

Think I’m exaggerating? According to one 2010 document, cited and quoted by the Times.

“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information that can help implement precision targeting,”

But you’re just a noble citizen ‘good guy’ so you got nothing to fear. Okay, fair enough, let's go with that myth. So let’s say for argument’s sake that a frack rig goes up near your home, e.g.

 The noise is ear splitting and the pollution god-awful. Half the night you’re choking on dust and your kids are getting rashes that won’t heal. Worse, your water can be lit on fire coming out of the tap and you dare not drink it. Finally pissed, you summon the backbone to take to the streets,  joining a protest on Main St. and lo and behold some scurvy little bum from a national or local security outfit is there taking photos of all protesting  n’er do wells. The photos are compiled and then compared to facial recognition captures made from FB, instagram, emails and so on.

Bingo! You’re ID’d and you, Mr. "Good Guy" , are a domestic terrorist! Now, you officially graduated to the Main Core database! According to investigator Christopher Ketcham who first exposed it:

"the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Meanwhile, the spooks are working overtime to assuage fears from skeptics and cynics - including those like me, and even Marianne Williamson. One NSA spokesperson told the Times:

“the N.S.A. would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans collected through its surveillance programs, just as it must to read their emails or eavesdrop on their phone conversations.”


But let’s bear in mind getting permission for such intrusions would be no biggie, not since the 1978 FISA law was “updated” to become basically a rubber stamping joke with nothing barred. So in reality, none of the new FISA courts will refuse anything. More than anything else, however, the revelations are a reminder of our increased vulnerability to being tracked online by any number of interested parties.  Snowden's lawyer appearing on Kornacki's  'UP' last Sunday, also noted how many clients of the NSA (seeking private information on citizens) are corporate sources. Of course, this is despicable.

I mean, Jeezus, trading on terror hysteria to sustain  and justify intrusive systems that raid citizen information for private, corporate consumption.  How low can  you go? See more from the Times:

Civil-liberties advocates and other critics are concerned that the power of the improving technology, used by government and industry, and they should be! According to Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher on facial recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University:

  “Facial recognition can be very invasive. There are still technical limitations on it, but the computational power keeps growing, and the databases keep growing, and the algorithms keep improving.”

As if that’s not enough, state and local law enforcement agencies are relying more and more on a wide range of databases of facial imagery, including driver’s licenses and Facebook, to identify suspects. The F.B.I. is developing what it calls its “next generation identification” project to combine its automated fingerprint identification system with facial imagery and other biometric data.


The State Department has what several outside experts say could be the largest facial imagery database in the federal government, storing hundreds of millions of photographs of American passport holders and foreign visa applicants. And the Department of Homeland Security is funding pilot projects at police departments around the country to match suspects against faces in a crowd.

The N.S.A., though, is unique in its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.  So why the continual dismissive tone and naïvete regarding NSA programs? Because people - too many -  have regressed into consumers as opposed to active, skeptical citizens who ought to be keeping government on a short leash. Back in the day, like ca. 1975, there still existed a majority of real citizens instead of pretend ones, and so a Senator like Frank Church could articulate genuine fears on the NSA's powers even then (see quote at the top). 

Today, too many have become poppets, simple-minded consumers, so accept everything the gov't tells them like they accept everything companies tell them about their illustrious products. This regression also explains how a useful tool like Bill Scher ("Liberal oasis") could actually believe these intrusive, mass dragnet NSA programs are beneficial and "doing good". (As he did on Kornacki's show on Sunday.) Is Scher THAT terrified of a bunch of ragtag idiots he'd prepared to sacrifice most civil liberties? Evidently he is, at least from the claptrap he spouted against Snowden last Sunday morning.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And whether you consider Marianne Williamson a ‘flake’ or not you ought to seriously consider her words when she describes such indiscriminate mass surveillance as a “lack of basic respect” for citizens and the addiction to doing it “sociopathic”.

Let's Not Get All 'Holier Than Thou' on the Ukraine - Lest We Ignore What Our Own Security State Would Do

To hear and see all the network talking heads bloviating on the violence and unrest in the Ukraine, you'd think they believe that if a similar situation erupted here in the U.S. - say with the same riots, rebellion in Washington, DC, NYC, LA  etc. our security forces would just sit back and watch. What the hell are they drinking.....or smoking?  It's got to be stronger stuff than what's legally available here in Colorado!

Any nincompoop faintly aware of the past two years would KNOW that couldn't happen. The security state would land on them faster than you can say 'NSA'  Fusion centers would send out alerts, SWAT teams would be activated along with National Guard troops and heads would be battered, busted and left with brain damage. Many protestors would be shot- not just using rubber bullets-  and even tanks could be introduced to quell the unrest.....with bodies lying all over the streets and in makeshift clinics, with stretched staff trying to care for thousands of dismembered, bleeding citizens. Those with short memories need only go back to what transpired with the mostly peaceful Occupy Wall Street movement, in 2011, see e.g.  http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494

As David Lindorff notes,  the documents he obtained show that the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies “began a campaign of monitoring, spying and disrupting the Occupy Movement at least two months before the first occupation actions began in late September 2011.”

He goes on to write:

“As early as August, while acknowledging that the incipient Occupy Movement was “peaceful” in nature, federal, state and local officials from the FBI, the DHS and the many Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Force centers around the country were meeting with local financial institutions and their private security organizations to plot out a strategy for countering the Occupy Movement’s campaign.”

But what really ought to terrify the citizen who insists lamely "That Ukraine stuff would never happen here!" is what he or she might experience if the decision is made to join even a peaceful but vigorous protest. It may not be an Occupy protest but something environmental like marching against the Keystone pipeline or fracking in their neighborhood. In such a case it is instructive to see what one of Lindorff’s PCJ -obtained documents revealed. That is,  a perp -instigator (name conveniently blanked out in the released document) who actually proposed to assassinate leaders of the Occupy Movement in Houston with “suppressed” sniper rifles. As the released PCJ document puts it:

“One identified ------ as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified ----- had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. ---- planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest group and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”

This isn't bullshit or exaggeration! The basis for such actions inheres in the various mandates of the 'Continuity of Government' program that were insinuated into law after 9/11. Such mandates included later mutations of COG under the Bushites that  equated political dissent with treason.   In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes Occupy Wall Streeters and anyone who protests the Keystone XL pipeline!

If you think our own national security statists are simply looking at their TVs and wondering how or if they ought to intervene in the Ukraine, then you're not paying attention. In fact, they are shitting in their pants fearful of  a similar future scene erupting here in the US of A. They're also wondering  how fast they'll have to roll out the military, the EM vomit weapons, the heavy tanks, Stealth fighters and detention camps if similar events were to be triggered across the U.S. and start to spin out of control. (Remember the main directive is CONTROL! That's why the security state is so livid at Snowden - having used a cheap web crawler to gather all the NSA files.) . If you think they wouldn't do anything violent in retaliation to Ukraine-type riots,  and just allow civil violence of any type to spread,  you are dreaming.

"Oh, oh but Americans wouldn't resort to violence like that!"

Oh yeah? Imagine the scenario of a nail biting,  close election, similar to 2000, in which the Supreme Court disallows the popular vote  in a critical state (like FLA) and hence its electoral votes,  and enables a fascist thug like Ted Cruz to gain power, say with Sarah Palin as his running mate. Imagine protests spreading across the nation, and the newly "elected" Repuke team announcing martial law under the COG program.  Believe me, a scenario such as visible in the Ukraine is quite possible.

There are also any number of other scenarios one can imagine that could lead to imposition of extreme military, para-military force - or martial law- under the COG program. There are even ways the authorities can know of impending protests before they break out - and haul in all potential protestors under COG.  Don't believe it? Six years ago Christopher Ketcham disclosed the extent to which the  NSA spy state  has already been able to assemble a giant database (called Main Core) of "potential trouble makers". As he observes:

"There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Once more, anyone who densely believes a Ukraine scenario couldn't happen here needs to go back and look at what happened to Occupy Wall Street's peaceful protestors.

Think it can't happen here? Think AGAIN! Why do you think the NSA has been gathering so much vast data, just for the heck of it or because their technology is unable to discriminate? Oh no, not that. It's because they want to stay on top of every and any situation that could possibly erupt as the one in the Ukraine is now.  They are aware of the growing gulf of inequality in this country:  the 15.9 million children who already go to bed hungry each night, the continued loss of earning power as the rich get theirs - coupled with no increase in the minimum wage for most workers, plus cuts in food stamps and unemployment benefits. They know from the history of mass civil uprisings and rebellion  that  there may well be a critical tipping point or threshold, a  'straw that breaks the camel's back'. A point at which generally passive Americans won't sit back and take it any more.

In other words, their warp and woof is to stamp out any manifestation of a potential Ukraine - type violent protest, if and when Americans get too tired of being entertained in their social media world of Twitter and Facebook, or their TV fantasies (like the Kardashians,  'Duck Dynasty' etc.) and actually take to the streets.

God forbid they ever take to the streets in the manner of the Ukrainians.

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/54357/sinister-illusions-masking-tragedy-in-ukraine

Obama & Bill Maher: Mental Captives of the NSA - Security State

"Obama’s remarks about the importance of privacy obscured that he has not closed any door on the world’s most powerful surveillance agency." - Spencer Ackerman, UK Guardian, today

Well, the feedback is now in, after Obama's  NSA speech yesterday, and as Anthony Romero of the ACLU put it:

Today the president proposed a handful of incremental reforms, but unfortunately he missed this opportunity to stop all forms of bulk collection of innocent Americans’ data.

Obama's incremental reforms include: 1) NSA will no longer  hold Americans' phone records - though it will take months or years to accomplish (oh, and the gov't can still access your records if it needs to);  2) there will be "new restrictions" on spying on our allies, although a loophole is allowed (i.e. dependent on the definition of "close ally" and also the electronic spying can be done if a higher authority approves it); 3) there will be a "privacy advocate" or panel to appear before the "special" court in cases where a mass surveillance order are pending. The advocate/s would presumably argue robustly to "lay off" bulk collection in certain cases.  It's a bit of an advance considering that previously no public input was permitted as to who would be included in NSA  bulk surveillance.

Oh, last but not least, Obama is promising privacy protection for foreign citizens of Europe etc., who can now expect their emails will no longer be logged, or their Twitter messages, Facebook pages.  Excuse me, let me back up: There won't be any such spying "unless there is a compelling national security purpose for the United States."

While these give a nod to civil libertarians, the 8 ton "elephant" in the room (concealed by a lot of fulsome privacy rhetoric)  remains bulk collection of metadata, which represents the most grievous violation of the 4th amendment. (See my previous post) Thus, Obama punted on what would have been the most significant advance and the real indicator that he respects the 4th.  Meanwhile, he has continued his dismissive tone toward Snowden, noting that the whistleblower's (Obama obviously doesn't believe he's one) disclosures have harmed U.S national security. This despite the fact Obama wouldn't have even had to present a nominal appearance of civil liberties defense had Snowden not done what he did.

Indeed, mounting a full-throated defense of the NSA, Obama actually said:

"They're not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls, or read your emails. We cannot unilaterally disarm out intelligence agencies."

Of course, no one is asking him to do that. What we are insisting on is that we revert back to the original surveillance standards under the 1978 FISA law, which required specific warrants issued and out in the open, vetted by open courts, not secret rubber-stampers. From this, it's clear either Obama doesn't get it or he doesn't want to, or he's a mental -psychological captive of the security statists. 

To reinforce my point,  Obama did not once mention that even  judges on the FISA-"Redux" courts (redone after a pitiful congress made legal Bush's original warrantless wiretaps) have found the NSA has consistently and repeatedly overstepped its bounds. Hell, even the original authors of the Patriot Act  (Sens. Jim Sensenbrenner and Patrick Leahy) have said so! 

However, as I noted in my last blog post, Obama can perhaps be forgiven, certainly if he's an unwilling mental captive. He surely knows how the security state thwarted the administrations of Eisenhower and Kennedy using nefarious tricks. In the case of Ike it was the 1960 Big Four Summit, blown up by the U-2 incident contrived by Richard Bissell and the CIA. In Kennedy's case, it was the S. Vietnam coup and overthrow of the Diems, engineered by the CIA (unknown to JFK) cutting off all funds from the Commodity Import Aid Program. (For much more on this, see James Douglass': JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.)

In effect, Obama knows he only has three years of his 2nd term left. He wants to leave with some kind of a legacy, especially if the Affordable Care Act meets expectations. What he doesn't need, and certainly fears, is the security state undermining him - possibly by launching a bogus terror attack, along the lines of the 'Operation Northwoods" template. If you don't know what Northwoods is, you need to google it!

So therefore giving them what they want is in his own best interests, to at least have a good chance of his presidency ending on a solid upbeat note.

As for Bill Maher, after his HBO show ('REAL TIME') last night - namely the interview with Glenn Greenwood (who published a series of articles on Edward Snowden's released files in the UK Guardian)  I must include him as a mental captive of the security state as well.  I refer to his reactions to specific Snowden statements as "bat shit crazy" - even after Greenwald corrected him and noted that HIS reactions to Snowden's statements as "bat shit crazy" were what was bat shit crazy.

But then, what can we expect of a guy who, in his Nov. 22 show, claimed that any conspiracy thinking was in the same category as god belief. Now, THAT is bat shit crazy! (In my Nov. 23rd blog post : 'What Have We Learned This Past Week',  I skewered Bill's take, as well as that of his guest, Katty Kay.)

Bill at one point asked Glenn Greenwald:

"Wouldn't you agree that every time Edward Snowden opens his mouth he says something completely bat shit nuts. He reminds me a lot of Ron Paul. I agree with what he says, I nod along, then he says something totally batshit."


When Greenwald pressed for specific examples, Maher replied that Snowden said:

"These programs were never about terrorism they were about social control and diplomatic manipulation."

Maher adding: "That's crazy. They were about stopping terrorists."

He also gave another Snowden quote:

"They can use this material to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made and find every friend you've ever discussed something with."

Then asked Greenwald, 'This is nuts, right?'

To which Greenwald replied:

"No, Bill, what's nuts is the fact that you think that's nuts. Let me explain why. A lot of the stories we've reported have nothing to do with terrorism. They're about spying on economic summits in Latin America, oil companies in Brazil, democratically elected leaders of our closest allies who have nothing to do with terrorism. His point is that, of course, some of this is directed at terrorism, but this massive system that's been built, the huge bulk of it, has nothing to do with national security. It has to to do with the reasons why the people in political power always want to surveil various populations because it does give them greater power.

As for slowing down the internet, that comes right from documents that we've published, because the NSA collects everything and then stores it for a long enough time so that in their words, it 'slows down the internet' so they can go back at any time and see your entire history. Where you browsed, what kind of search terms you entered, to whom you've been speaking or emailing, I mean look, he's a 29-year old who's not a trained politician. He doesn't have aides whispering in his ear- what he should say, he's not adept at that. That's what makes him so impressive. It was an act of conscience that he just stepped forward as an ordinary person."

Maher still couldn't get the implications into his head, retorting that Snowden's claim that they know every friend you've ever discussed anything with is 'fucking nuts' and "we'll just have to agree to disagree on what's fucking nuts." Yeah, right. Bill,  you need to wake up and smell the coffee. That means stepping out of your Denial domain.

The main point missed by Bill is that Snowden's statements are entirely consistent with the NSA bulk collection of  data, including one's email address books (which we now know the NSA has, globally) and its long term storage - as well as the long term phone records and their storage. If they have the records of those, then they fucking A- DO know who all your friends are, in terms of which names on their email, phone lists match those with whom you've communicated the most. This isn't relativity or rocket science.

The fact that Maher didn't appreciate or get this, discloses he's either lost a step, or has not done enough homework on exactly how far reaching the NSA programs are.

I still have faith in Bill and am hoping that in some future show he retracts his BS, admits he was talking out of his ass regarding his opinions of Snowden, and rejoins the "good guy" branch of  libertarians. In the meantime, along with Obama, I will have to classify him as a mental captive of the security state.

See also:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/17/obama-nsa-speech-surveillance-reforms-fight

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/17/obamas_nsa_reforms_the_devil_in_the_details/

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mary-shaw/53710/amnesty-says-nsa-revisions-fall-short

Will Obama Rein in the NSA - Or Wimp Out?

Not very long from now President Barack Obama will give a speech and let us know to what extent he plans to rein in the excesses of the out-of-control,' stomp on the Constitution' NSA.  This comes one day after the latest revelations, namely of the NSA scarfing up 200 million text messages every day, in untargeted global sweeps. See, e.g.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/16/nsa-collects-millions-text-messages-daily-untargeted-global-sweep

 This means they aren't particularly concerned whether you're a terrorist or not they just want the collected data and have it filed away. Maybe because you might be found to be an "enemy of the state" - later, i.e. after protesting a fracking well, or contaminated water from one.

 

The issue is how far Obama will go to rope in these snoops  given they've already violated the 4th amendment almost every way one can conceive. Just google: PRISM, Xkeyscore, and MUSCULAR.

 

Recall what brought us to this point. After Edward Snowden released files exposing the extent of NSA overreach, Obama appointed a commission of security experts to look into the  NSA excesses and propose solutions.  The commission issued a nearly 300-page report in December, making 46 recommendations to rein in the most excessive and offensive  programs, including PRISM and Xkeyscore. In addition, the panel advised that the NSA be banned from attempting to undermine the security of the internet – concerns pounded by tech companies (Google, Facebook, Yahoo) when their top executives met with Obama on the first Monday last month. All the executives expressed the fear that their respective business models and market shares were being undermined by the NSA dragnet surveillance,  which meant fewer buyers and customers for their systems.

Regarding Edward Snowden, NSA honcho James Clapper called his brave act ‘treason’ but it then came out that Clapper had lied before a Senate Intelligence Committee months before Snowden's first document release. When asked if the NSA did mass surveillance, Clapper responded in the negative then tried to "cute it up" by saying it was the "least untruthful  answer" he was able to provide.  This is what prompted Patriot Act co-author Jim Sensenbrenner  to say:

 

Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr. Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution.     

Meanwhile, the Neoliberal media and politicos, the ones cozy with the security state, condemned him as a “traitor” – which is nonsense. As Article IV of the Nuremberg laws makes clear, the citizen has a much higher duty to his conscience than following orders  or oaths that violate a Constitution or basic morality.  And there’s no issue that Snowden did the right thing when one reads the timeless words of the fourth amendment to the Bill of Rights:

 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

 

If one reads it slowly and carefully, especially the underscored sections, the magnitude of Snowden’s heroic deed becomes clear. Clearly the NSA’s mass vacuuming up of data violates the amendment.  “Secure in one’s person” can obviously only mean as pertains to an individual. You cannot have a collective or whole population that is secure in its person!  If the inherent right to privacy enshrined in this amendment was purely a “myth” – such as those like Dick Cheney and Dianne Feinstein have implied by their actions- then security as to particular papers, persons, effects wouldn’t matter. The state can then claim de facto ownership of whatever a person has – nothing could be claimed apart from the state – and so the person emerges as merely an appendage. In this proto-fascist world, security trumps liberty at every juncture and the state uses the bogey of fear (e.g. terror attacks)  to reinforce and expand that control.

 

Thus, the documents leaked by Snowden compelled attention because they revealed to Americans a history they did not know they had. They revealed that the state had vastly more power than the citizen because it could – based on a claim of “terror” – usurp the citizen's  rights to his own privacy, i.e.  in his papers and effects, and do so secretly. They showed the NSA could collect with impunity all the email address books on the planet, as well as cell phone location records, the cell phone messages of other leaders, and domestic call logs and browsing histories.

 

 

In addition, more and more politicos and even media began to back off after more of the disclosures revealed the pernicious extent of the NSA's overstepping.  Most of that data, by definition and intent, belonged to ordinary people suspected of nothing. But vast new storage capacity and processing tools enabled the NSA to indiscriminately snatch the information to map human relationships on a planetary scale. Only in this way, its leadership believed, could the NSA reach beyond its universe of known intelligence targets.  In other words, by analogy, it was similar to a home owner using a machine gun to get rid of a wasp’s nest.

 

Meanwhile, the only words Obama had spoken had been in defense of  NSA and the entrenched security state and against Snowden, expressing in one cabinet meeting that he felt Snowden acted out of "narcissism" and averring in a news conference, that “Mr. Snowden is not really a patriot.”    The sad thing is that this issued from the mouth of a former constitutional law professor!  It also made the objective observer wonder if the guy that once openly spoke against such secrecy and  Patriot Act excesses (as a U.S. senator) had since become a captive to the system. 

 

On the other hand, it's possible Obama was played by the security statists after his 2008 election. According to a NY Times piece yesterday, Obama was told before his inauguration of a supposed plot by Somali extremists to attack the ceremony.. David Axelrod, his long time adviser, called this "a welcome to the NBA moment before the big game". As it turned out the report proved unfounded but it did have the intended effect of  reinforcing in Obama the "need to detect threats before they materialized".  This, of course, makes it even more suspicious- especially to a person familiar with deep politics (see also Peter Dale Scott's 'The War Conspiracy').

 

Obviously, the card played by the security statists made a deep impression on Obama, which civil libertarians learned when they confronted him last month about the NSA overreach. Obama simply replied he was now "Commander-in -chief" and he had a "different role to play, to protect the American people". This despite the fact the odds of any given American being killed in a terror attack are actually less than 1 in 346,000 or about the same as being killed by a monster asteroid. (See Gideon Rachman's Financial Times  analysis in my May 4, 2011 blog post).

 

Let's also grasp that decades earlier both Ike and JFK had been played by the national security state,  as I previously described in my November 4th blog post.  Both responded strongly after they'd been played by trying to reel in the CIA via limits and investigative actions, and both paid dearly. Ike saw his upcoming 1960 summit sabotaged by the Gary Powers U-2 incident, engineered by CIA head Richard Bissell, while JFK saw a coup and assassination (of the Diems) in Vietnam after the CIA pulled the plug on the Commodity Import Aid Program - assuring a coup. Of course, by then (Nov. 2, 1963) Kennedy was already in the sights of the CIA and its allies, given he'd "exceeded his mandate to wield power".

 

 

Obama now has the chance to negate all those perceptions by a stout defense of the fourth amendment and citizens' rights, based on how many of his commission's 46 recommendations are accepted.   This is not merely a matter of respecting citizens' rights in the present but acting in a precautionary manner to preserve them in the future.

 

As Richard A. Clarke, a member of Obama's commission and former White House counter terrorism adviser put it:

 

"We’re not really concerned about you, Barack, but God forbid some other guy’s in the office five years from now and there’s another 9/11,’ ”

 

 

This is germane and important. Just because Obama isn't tempted to 'go the whole hog' and use the in- place NSA files, programs to round up citizens under quaint "sedition" laws, or as domestic terrorists (say for protesting fracking wells) doesn't mean a future Reepig Prez wouldn't do it, say like a Ted Cruz, or a Chris Christiie (who's already shown his vindictive side by shutting down 3 lanes of 4 on the George Washington Bridge for a Dem-governed township (Fort Lee)  in NJ - despite the fact only Rachel Maddow has been able to figure out he's a lying slimeball).

 

Anyway, we await Obama's speech on the NSA issues, and hope like hell he isn't too timid in laying them out, and isn't tempted to split too many differences - translating into cosmetic changes only.

See also:  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/marjorie-cohn/53677/nsa-metadata-collection-fourth-amendment-violation

 

Neolib Hack Samuelson Defends NSA Invasion Of Privacy

"In every interview Snowden has relied on the simple notion that informed the founders of our nation regarding the primacy of truth in public discourse.   His commitment to that ideal cannot be comprehended by a mass media culture of careerism informed by public relations that trivializes all differences of truth and logic into incomprehensible mulch. His is instead the simple veracity of the once honored slogan that the truth shall set us free and that it is overwhelming government power that is most threatening to that freedom." - Robert Scheer, on  smirkingchimp.com

I figured that eventually the WaPo Neoliberal hack Robert Samuelson would chirp up in a column to praise the NSA, and diss Edward Snowden - while again seeking to confuse his readers in conflating truths and jabberwocky.   Before even getting to his nonsense, it really ought not be a stretch to grasp that arch-Neoliberals would be wholesale salivating for the national security state, just as they drool for the military.

As Thomas Frank observes in his remarkable expose of the market worshippers, One Market Under God, the Neoliberal basic imperative is "let them eat stocks" (or mutual funds). This despite the fact that since the investment trusts of the 1920s (precursor to today's mutual funds) the traders and brokers have regarded the ordinary public as a "dumb herd" (p. 109) and sheep to be shorn. After the 1960s the message softened  - in order to lure more proles into the market - but the subtext has been the same: popularize the "Street", make people believe they're big shots too, and wait for the crash to suck up their assets.

The main message of the Neoliberal imperative: People must not depend on the government for their security, including for Social Security, veterans' benefits, Medicare or Medicaid.  If they are to sustain themselves they must be cajoled to do it by investment in the market where all factors are "democratized"  - and no one suffers, i.e. by having to pay more taxes so some old fart can get his prostate cancer treatments, or pay his monthly heating bills.

And to ensure this imperative is met, the Neoliberal pushes the political matrix to allocate ever more resources to military and national security interests, thereby leaving little for domestic social insurance programs. This, in fact, is what we beheld last month, when in a "bipartisan" deal, the Dems allowed the Reepos an extra $23b to use for military spending, while their side sucked up the loss in compensating domestic cuts - mainly by disallowing the extension of unemployment insurance.

For the same reason, a hack like Samuelson would plump for the NSA and the overall national security budget (now at $71b /year) increasing - again to put more pressure on domestic spending programs, including food stamps, Medicare etc. Samuelson actually has the nerve to spout this disingenuous tripe:


"There is more than a little hypocrisy to the outcry that the government, through the National Security Agency (NSA), is systematically destroying Americans’ right to privacy. Edward Snowden’s revelations have been stripped of their social, technological and historical context. Unless you’ve camped in the Alaskan wilderness for two decades, you know — or should — that millions upon millions of Americans have consciously and, probably in most cases, eagerly surrendered much of their privacy by embracing the Internet and social media."


Let's back up so that casual readers aren't lured into buying this bollocks. As I noted before, people willingly putting out their information in the expectation of social communication or comity- say on a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter, is NOT the same as having their social intent perverted by some impersonal spook technology to vacuum up every word for filing and cross-referencing.  In the latter case,  collecting every fucking thing surreptitiously then compiling it into a database for which criminal intent or terrorism might later be associated (including domestic terrorism for protesting against a fracking operation, or demonstrating against Wall Street shysters.)  Recall that investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham learned that  NSA's Main Core:

"Can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”


Thus it  ought to be a no brainer that Samuelson's efforts to assuage doubts are not to be trusted. Apart from which, the casual blog poster, or FB poster doesn't expect his words to be collected by these disreputable sneaks and assembled in a program called "Main Core" - because those words were interpreted by some snotty eggheads as being indicative of "an enemy of the state".

None of that downside is noted by Samuelson, but we know this sort of 'dodge and hide' template is his forte.   Indeed, after his initial codswallop Samuelson seeks to further justify it by writing:

"The Internet is a vehicle for self-promotion, personal advertising and the pursuit of celebrity"

Again, even if it is, it doesn't mean people ALSO welcome having all their ruminations, images, beliefs, philosophies compiled by spooks into some nefarious hidden database that regards these as evidence for being an "enemy of the state".  No, people expect that IF that is done - and indeed it is using the NSA's MUSCULAR, PRISM and Xkeyscore programs - they want the fourth amendment followed and that means an individualized warrant brought before a proper FISA court - not the rubber stampers we have now.

Oh, and then we have Samuelson's brilliant  "solution":

"If Americans think their privacy is dangerously diminished, there are remedies. They can turn off their PCs, toss their smartphones and smash their tablets"


Yes, seriously, these are the very words of this character. If you are humbugged by the notion of the spooks vacuuming up all your words, beliefs, pictures and filing them into a Main Core program for "enemy of the state" profiling - you can always disconnect! Toss that Ipad or notebook down the chute and let not your hearts be troubled!

Oh, and then there's the "commercial scare" routine again:


"To these conscious sacrifices of privacy must be added murkier, collateral losses that are orchestrated by the world’s Googles, Facebooks, service providers and “data brokers,” writes Alice Marwick of Fordham University in the New York Review of Books. They scan users’ digital decisions (sites visited, products and services purchased, habits and hobbies favored) to create databases, often merged with other socio-economic information"


But again, Google, Facebook, ISPs etc don't have the power to take away your freedom, like the government does (say by invocation of its 'Continuity of Government' program - with all the data they've gathered on you being an "enemy of the state")

And then the hack strikes again:


"The NSA’s damage to privacy is dwarfed by the impact of market activity...... Suddenly, Big Brother looms. In our mind’s eye, we see the NSA’s computers scouring our every phone call. We’re exposed to constant snooping and the possibility that the government will misuse the information it finds.

The reality is far more limited. The NSA is governed by legal restrictions. It does not examine the full database. It searches individual numbers only after it has determined there’s a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that a number might be linked to terrorist groups"  


Puh-leeze! All of this amounts to disinformation. The same sort of twisted nonsense Samuelson delivered earlier regarding "deficits" being created by JFK, during his administration, which I have already skewered. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/thats-right-now-blame-60s-jfk-for.html

The reality is that Samuelson's cited "legal restrictions"  governing the NSA are little better than the merest figleaf. Those (original) restrictions ceased to exist when the FISA law was changed after the Bushistas' illegal wiretapping over 2005-08. Instead of prosecuting the Bushistas, a compliant congress and the courts excused the transgressions and actually made them lawful!  Hence, whatever protections people think they have disappeared when the illegal variant of the FISA law was extended back in 2011.

We also know that it isn't necessary for NSA programs "to search the whole database" and that the Main Core will assemble suspicious words whether a human person searches or not.  This is also why the Occupy Wall Street protestors literally came under the gun.  Finally, even one of the original authors of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, insisted he never intended it to go as far as it has, and as Snowden revealed.  As he was quoted in a UK Guardian piece two months ago"


 "Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

Sensenbrenner was referring to NSA honcho James Clapper lying before a Senate hearing  months earlier, when asked if the NSA did mass surveillance. So if Clapper was lying, it is obvious that Samuelson must be too by his specious defense of the NSA - and that those poor little souls aren't doing anything beyond the limits of Sec. 215 at all.  Oh no, so just rest your little heads! All is well!

Is Samuelson calling Sensenbrenner a liar?  If the original author of the Patriot Act believes the NSA overstepped the bounds of the law who the fuck is Samuelson to claim anything different?

Oh wait, he's a Neoliberal hack!

Next time you see anything from Robert Samuelson and wonder if it has some veracity, consider the source. Would you drink water from a sewer ditch? Of course not, so why take anything from Samuelson as useful information you can trust?

See also (from someone you can trust):

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/53531/exposing-public-wickedness-is-more-american-than-apple-pie