{"id":9393,"date":"2015-05-28T16:18:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T20:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=9393"},"modified":"2015-05-28T16:19:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T20:19:06","slug":"the-nsas-technotyranny-one-nation-under-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/the-nsas-technotyranny-one-nation-under-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"The NSA\u2019s Technotyranny: One Nation Under Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The_NSAs_Technotyranny_Gadfly\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control<\/a>.\u201d\u2014William Binney, NSA whistleblower<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We now have a fourth branch of government.<\/p>\n

As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>, this fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

You might know this branch of government as Surveillance, but I prefer \u201ctechnotyranny<\/a>,\u201d a term coined by investigative journalist James Bamford to refer to an age of technological tyranny made possible by government secrets<\/a>, government lies, government spies and their corporate ties.<\/p>\n

Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government\u2019s choosing. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead.<\/p>\n

The police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state.<\/p>\n

Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are preparing to turn the nation\u2019s soldier cops into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.<\/p>\n

This is about to be the new face of policing in America.<\/p>\n

The National Security Agency (NSA) has been a perfect red herring, distracting us from the government\u2019s broader, technology-driven campaign to render us helpless in the face of its prying eyes. In fact, long before the NSA became the agency we loved to hate, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration were carrying out their own secret mass surveillance<\/a> on an unsuspecting populace.<\/p>\n

Just about every branch of the government\u2014from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between\u2014now has its own surveillance sector<\/a>, authorized to spy on the American people. Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spies\u2014the police, public health officials, transportation, etc.\u2014and make it accessible for all those in power. And of course that doesn\u2019t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine.<\/p>\n

The raging debate over the fate of the NSA\u2019s blatantly unconstitutional, illegal and ongoing domestic surveillance programs is just so much noise, what Shakespeare referred to as \u201csound and fury, signifying nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It means nothing: the legislation, the revelations, the task forces, and the filibusters.<\/p>\n

The government is not giving up, nor is it giving in. It has stopped listening to us. It has long since ceased to take orders from \u201cwe the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t figured it out yet, none of it\u2014the military drills, the surveillance, the militarized police, the strip searches, the random pat downs, the stop-and-frisks, even the police-worn body cameras\u2014is about fighting terrorism. It\u2019s about controlling the populace.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that its data snooping has been shown to be ineffective<\/a> at detecting, let alone stopping, any actual terror attacks, the NSA continues to operate largely in secret, carrying out warrantless mass surveillance<\/a> on hundreds of millions of Americans\u2019 phone calls, emails, text messages and the like, beyond the scrutiny of most of Congress and the taxpayers who are forced to fund its multi-billion dollar secret black ops budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Legislation such as the USA Patriot Act serves only to legitimize the actions of a secret agency run by a shadow government. Even the proposed and ultimately defeated USA Freedom Act<\/a>, which purported to restrict the reach of the NSA\u2019s phone surveillance program\u2014at least on paper\u2014by requiring the agency to secure a warrant before surveillance could be carried out on American citizens and prohibiting the agency from storing any data collected on Americans, amounted to little more than a paper tiger: threatening in appearance, but lacking any real bite.<\/p>\n

The question of how to deal with the NSA\u2014an agency that operates outside of the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution\u2014is a divisive issue that polarizes even those who have opposed the NSA\u2019s warrantless surveillance from the get-go, forcing all of us\u2014cynics, idealists, politicians and realists alike\u2014to grapple with a deeply unsatisfactory and dubious political \u201csolution\u201d to a problem that operates beyond the reach of voters and politicians: how do you trust a government that lies, cheats, steals, sidesteps the law, and then absolves itself of wrongdoing to actually obey the law?<\/p>\n

Since its official start in 1952, when President Harry S. Truman issued a secret executive order<\/a> establishing the NSA as the hub of the government\u2019s foreign intelligence activities, the agency\u2014nicknamed \u201cNo Such Agency\u201d\u2014has operated covertly, unaccountable to Congress all the while using taxpayer dollars to fund its secret operations. It was only when the agency ballooned to 90,000 employees in 1969, making it the largest intelligence agency<\/a> in the world with a significant footprint outside Washington, DC, that it became more difficult to deny its existence.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of Watergate in 1975, the Senate held meetings under the Church Committee in order to determine exactly what sorts of illicit activities the American intelligence apparatus was engaged in under the direction of President Nixon, and how future violations of the law could be stopped. It was the first time the NSA was exposed to public scrutiny since its creation.<\/p>\n

The investigation revealed a sophisticated operation whose surveillance programs paid little heed to such things as the Constitution. For instance, under Project SHAMROCK, the NSA spied on telegrams to and from the U.S., as well as the correspondence of American citizens. Moreover, as the Saturday Evening Post<\/em> reports<\/a>, \u201cUnder Project MINARET, the NSA monitored the communications of civil rights leaders and opponents of the Vietnam War, including targets such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohammed Ali, Jane Fonda, and two active U.S. Senators. The NSA had launched this program in 1967 to monitor suspected terrorists and drug traffickers, but successive presidents used it to track all manner of political dissidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the NSA, understood only too well the dangers inherent in allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security. Church recognized that such surveillance powers \u201cat any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn\u2019t matter. There would be no place to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting that the NSA could enable a dictator \u201cto impose total tyranny\u201d upon an utterly defenseless American public, Church declared that he did not \u201cwant to see this country ever go across the bridge\u201d of constitutional protection, congressional oversight and popular demand for privacy. He avowed that \u201cwe,\u201d implicating both Congress and its constituency in this duty, \u201cmust 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 over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result was the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act<\/a> (FISA), and the creation of the FISA Court, which was supposed to oversee and correct how intelligence information is collected and collated. The law requires that the NSA get clearance from the FISA Court, a secret surveillance court, before it can carry out surveillance on American citizens. Fast forward to the present day, and the so-called solution to the problem of government entities engaging in unjustified and illegal surveillance\u2014the FISA Court\u2014has unwittingly become the enabler of such activities, rubberstamping almost every warrant request submitted to it.<\/p>\n

The 9\/11 attacks served as a watershed moment in our nation\u2019s history, ushering in an era in which immoral and\/or illegal government activities such as surveillance, torture, strip searches, SWAT team raids are sanctioned as part of the quest to keep us \u201csafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of the 9\/11 attacks, George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance<\/a> on Americans\u2019 phone calls and emails. That wireless wiretap program was reportedly ended in 2007<\/a> after the New York Times<\/em> reported on it, to mass indignation.<\/p>\n

Nothing changed under Barack Obama. In fact, the violations worsened<\/a>, with the NSA authorized to secretly collect internet and telephone data on millions of Americans, as well as on foreign governments.<\/p>\n

It was only after whistleblower Edward Snowden\u2019s revelations in 2013<\/a> that the American people fully understood the extent to which they had been betrayed once again.<\/p>\n

What this brief history of the NSA makes clear is that you cannot reform the NSA.<\/p>\n

As long as the government is allowed to make a mockery of the law\u2014be it the Constitution, the FISA Act or any other law intended to limit its reach and curtail its activities\u2014and is permitted to operate behind closed doors, relaying on secret courts, secret budgets and secret interpretations of the laws of the land, there will be no reform.<\/p>\n

Presidents, politicians, and court rulings have come and gone over the course of the NSA\u2019s 60-year history, but none of them have done much to put an end to the NSA\u2019s \u201ctechnotyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n

The beast has outgrown its chains. It will not be restrained.<\/p>\n

The growing tension seen and felt throughout the country is a tension between those who wield power on behalf of the government\u2014the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the militarized police, the technocrats, the faceless unelected bureaucrats who blindly obey and carry out government directives, no matter how immoral or unjust, and the corporations\u2014and those among the populace who are finally waking up to the mounting injustices, seething corruption and endless tyrannies that are transforming our country into a technocrized police state.<\/p>\n

At every turn, we have been handicapped in our quest for transparency, accountability and a representative democracy by an establishment culture of secrecy: secret agencies, secret experiments, secret military bases, secret surveillance, secret budgets, and secret court rulings, all of which exist beyond our reach, operate outside our knowledge, and do not answer to \u201cwe the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

What we have failed to truly comprehend is that the NSA is merely one small part of a shadowy permanent government comprised of unelected bureaucrats who march in lockstep with profit-driven corporations that actually runs Washington, DC, and works to keep us under surveillance and, thus, under control. For example, Google openly works with the NSA<\/a>, Amazon has built a massive $600 million intelligence database<\/a> for the CIA, and the telecommunications industry is making a fat profit by spying on us<\/a> for the government.<\/p>\n

In other words, Corporate America is making a hefty profit<\/a> by aiding and abetting the government in its domestic surveillance efforts. Conveniently, as the Intercept <\/em>recently revealed, many of the NSA\u2019s loudest defenders have financial ties to NSA contractors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thus, if this secret regime not only exists but thrives, it is because we have allowed it through our ignorance, apathy and na\u00efve trust in politicians who take their orders from Corporate America rather than the Constitution.<\/p>\n

If this shadow government persists, it is because we have yet to get outraged enough to push back against its power grabs and put an end to its high-handed tactics.<\/p>\n

And if this unelected bureaucracy succeeds in trampling underfoot our last vestiges of privacy and freedom, it will be because we let ourselves be fooled into believing that politics matters, that voting makes a difference, that politicians actually represent the citizenry, that the courts care about justice, and that everything that is being done is in our best interests.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as political scientist Michael J. Glennon warns, you can vote all you want, but the people you elect aren\u2019t actually the ones calling the shots<\/a>. \u201cThe American people are deluded \u2026 that the institutions that provide the public face actually set American national security policy,\u201d stated Glennon<\/a>. \u201cThey believe that when they vote for a president or member of Congress or succeed in bringing a case before the courts, that policy is going to change. But \u2026 policy by and large in the national security realm is made by the concealed institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, it doesn\u2019t matter who occupies the White House: the secret government with its secret agencies, secret budgets and secret programs won\u2019t change. It will simply continue to operate in secret until some whistleblower comes along to momentarily pull back the curtain and we dutifully\u2014and fleetingly\u2014play the part of the outraged public, demanding accountability and rattling our cages, all the while bringing about little real reform.<\/p>\n

Thus, the lesson of the NSA and its vast network of domestic spy partners is simply this: once you allow the government to start breaking the law, no matter how seemingly justifiable the reason, you relinquish the contract between you and the government which establishes that the government works for and obeys you, the citizen\u2014the employer\u2014the master.<\/p>\n

Once the government starts operating outside the law, answerable to no one but itself, there\u2019s no way to rein it back in, short of revolution. And by revolution, I mean doing away with the entire structure, because the corruption and lawlessness have become that pervasive.<\/p>\n

WC: 2257<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.\u201d\u2014William Binney, NSA whistleblower We now have a fourth branch of government. As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,214,226,212],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9395,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393\/revisions\/9395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}