http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tirm ... 69316.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tirman/nsa-deep-state_b_3569316.html)
QuoteThe revelations about spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on American citizens, foreign governments, and just about everyone in between have been aptly treated as a scandal, although the objects of scorn vary. Edward Snowden, the whistleblower or traitor, depending on your predilections, and Glenn Greenwald, the columnist for The Guardian to whomSnowden revealed most of his information, have shaken the complacent status quo in Washington by revealing the massive, years-long programs to gather data in the name of national security. It's very doubtful that such spying is necessary to protect U.S. security, but that's a topic for another day. So is the media attention to the actions of Snowden and Greenwald (which I believe are brave and necessary).
What is vastly more important is how the spying has been conducted and justified. It comprises nothing less than a coup d'etat.
It's not the kind of coup we are accustomed to, where the CIA prompts thugs to murder a democratically elected president (Chile, 1973), or oust a democratically elected prime minister for challenging oil interests (Iran, 1953) or other U.S. corporate interests (Guatemala, 1954), or gives the green light to a military for security interests (Turkey, 1980; Egypt, 2013?). The generals aren't marching into the presidential palace; the president doesn't have an airplane waiting to fly him to exile in the south of France. No, this coup d'etat has been accomplished by an accretion of power unchecked by any institutions that are empowered by the Constitution. It is not just a coup d'etat (a "blow to the state"), but a blow to the tradition and authority of constitutional government, the sine qua non of the American political experience.
How so? The revelations and subsequent reporting, what press critic Jay Rosen calls the "Snowden Effect," expose a parallel state, one dedicated to massive surveillance and covert operations, with an untouchable judicial structure that approves the spying. Enabled by the USA Patriot Act that President George W. Bush pushed through Congress in the shadow of 9/11, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court operates by its own rules and procedures, ones not subject to anything resembling constitutionality. The Supreme Court, the Fourth Amendment, citizen petitioning -- none of what we have taken for granted as comprising the legal, national state has the power to stop it.
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Now we know: the United States of America is partially governed by a deep state, undemocratic, secret, aligned with intelligence agencies, spying on friend and foe, lawless in almost every respect.
If this doesn't constitute a coup d'etat, it's hard to imagine what would. People we barely know of -- the director of NSA, the eleven judges on FISC, who knows who else -- are running the deep state. The actual president seems just fine with everything it's doing, or is so weak-kneed he can't see fit to put an end to it. I'm not sure which is worse.
Here we go again..conspiracy and all that. This is still nothing new. It's been an open secret long before Snowden was even born. Remember a guy by the name of J Edgar?
You just had to watch "24". :-D
Well.. I just hope the NSA is listening in when I call COTA for bus schedules. Maybe they'll send one of those black helecopters out next time my bus is late.
You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide - Senator Lindsay Graham
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - Joseph Goebbels
Quote from: "Nonsensei"You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide - Senator Lindsay Graham
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - Joseph Goebbels
Really? Just ask Martin Niemöller. I don't think he'd agree.
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "Nonsensei"You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide - Senator Lindsay Graham
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - Joseph Goebbels
Really? Just ask Martin Niemöller. I don't think he'd agree.
I think you missed my point.