The pressure of an all-powerful totalitarian state creates an emotional tension in its citizens that determines their acts. When people are divided into "loyalists" and "criminals" a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling; whereas among the "criminals" one finds a singularly high percentage of people who are direct, sincere, and true to themselves-Czesław Miłosz
Showing posts with label media minipulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media minipulation. Show all posts
"The
two parties have combined against us to nullify our power by a
'gentleman's agreement' of non-recognition, no matter how we vote ...
May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our
trust in either the Republican or the Democratic Parties." - W.E.B. DuBois
"The
feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the
capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs
fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to
revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war
upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another
and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords
and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell.
The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has
always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and
nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all
to lose-especially their lives." - Eugene Debs-http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29638.htm
by Zen Gardner
There’s no looking for crowd validation. There’s no waiting for outside redemption. There’s no collective bargaining to rely on.
The awakening is you. Only you.
That’s what all this ruckus is about. The battle for your spirit and
soul. And that’s the boat each of us is in. There is nothing more
important in this life for you, or me, than waking up. Once that’s
straightened out the rest will follow.
How we perceive the world around us creates and reinforces the world
around us. Once we become conscious and aware that this existing matrix
we’re witnessing is an arbitrary creation manipulated by power-crazed
puppeteers, however you perceive them, that is when the change happens.
And the Universe will tell you what to do from there.
That’s what to respond to. Nothing else. That’s your job. That’s my job. Don’t shirk it when it happens.
Enjoy Your Earthly Suit, But Rediscover Who You Truly Are
Like me, you are sitting inside, or somewhat near anyway, the body
you chose to be in. We’re looking through and freely operating these
amazing biological machines on a fabulous planet. And, “Wow, there
appears to be a whole lot of other beings like me walking around! Where
am I? What am I here for? And what am I supposed to do?”
I know, jumped off the deep end there, but that’s exactly our
predicament. And what immediately sets in once we arrive? As young
children we have this abandon as we experience this incredible place and
all its feelings, sights and sounds. We screech with delight, sing made
up songs, swing our arms around wildly, and run in place. We just
express!
Then what happens? We start to conform to what we’re seeing, as well
as what we’re being told. We become more regimented and are herded into
classrooms and categories. We start feeling social pressures and are
then handed this fundamental doctrine of insecurity where fear and
scarcity become our main drivers. Your purpose in life now is to “fit in
and get a job” so you won’t run out of money or food. Your internal,
conscious response? “This is strange. Everything’s a problem here. Sure
didn’t feel that way when I arrived.”
The Illusory Attachment Trap
The main trick of the illusory world around us is to make us think
we’re somehow attached to it, and therefore dependent, and that we need
to conform to this world we’re viewing. We tend to judge by the
standards we’re exposed to, and act accordingly. We base our lives and
actions around these perceived behavior patterns, which in turn
gradually dull the voice of conscious awareness.
You might have noticed how blind people, such as entertainers Ray
Charles and Stevie Wonder, gesticulate totally freely, rocking their
heads while singing or talking, and have wildly free facial expressions,
almost as if they’re handicapped.
Obviously they’re not. But it strikes you. They’re free from visual
conformity. They don’t know how everyone else acts. They’re free to
physically express their emotions without having to conform to the
suppressed, fearful conformist nature of our hung up society. They don’t
know you don’t rock back and forth, shake your head and smile so broad
your face almost cracks. How liberating!
And that principle can be applied across the board.
We judge so much by how we think it will measure up to the world
around us rather than just express what we’re thinking and feeling
openly. Whether with close friends and family, our peer group, or the
message we pick up in public or from the media, we’re being programmed.
Programmed to not respond to obvious needs, but to strange, shallow
self-serving impulses. Just like everyone else.
You can say that’s just natural, but it’s not. It’s induced behavior
from a manipulated and self-regulating created collective. Natural for
the matrix, but not for a conscious human being, especially when the
crowd is clearly going the wrong way. But who’s looking when you’re
sleep walking.
The Cost of Vicarious Living and Beyond
In the end most humans end up living a vicarious life, acting out the
projection they think they’re supposed to live up to. That’s bondage.
The yardstick is acceptance rather than truth or conscience. This is
heavily reinforced through education, the media and the existing
paradigm they’ve succeeded in creating. It appears to be the only option
out there…but only to the unawakened.
But there’s a price to pay.
Everything. Waking up costs everything. So what? What are you saving
up for? Aren’t you paying that price anyway even if you’re not waking
up? Life always costs everything. You’ll leave here eventually, like me,
and the cost will be your life. How did you spend it? Consciously, or
trying to conform, and using that to hide behind to justify living as a
comfortable, selfish, lazy brain donor to the system you’re too afraid
to buck?
That’s the battlefield. You. Me. It goes no further. What we see
playing out in the world is a bunch of you’s and me’s deciding if
they’ll live consciously and truly respond to that still, small voice
within them, or not. The sad reality is almost every one of them has
been duped into being fixated on what all the other “me’s” are doing in
order to keep up with the projected reality. It’s like a school of fish
feverishly clinging together in response to a perceived predator.
The only thing is, for conscious, spiritual reality there is no
predator. That’s the secret. We are eternal consciousness having an
experience. The way to solve these problems is to re-create the
perceived reality through conscious awareness and conscious actions.
When You Get the Call, Take It!
We, individually, have to change first. We have to commit to
consciousness, get free of entanglements and live a conscious life. The
rest has little meaning until we get out of the matrix ourselves.
If each of us would get that message the phony world structure would
crumble in a minute. Every soldier would drop his weapon and go home.
Every politician would wake up as if out of a dream and go be with his
family. Every policeman would lay down his gun, take off his uniform,
and go help someone in need, smiling and greeting people on his way.
It’s you. It’s me. Your personal world and experience is the only one
you’ll ever know. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Just let
consciousness be your guide. But act on it.
And don’t fret too much about what it is you’re supposed to do.
You’ll know it when you see it. It comes in the form of little things,
little decisions, the rest follows. Learn to listen to that voice and
act accordingly and it gets louder and louder.
Just walk away from what you know to be wrong, and do what you know
to be right. It’s not that hard once you start. And again, once you get
your boat in motion, the rudder will take effect.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao Tzu
…Now go for it. I can’t wait to hear about it!
Love, Zen
P.S. I was honored to have the amazing Snordelhans of Heretic
Productions produce the following gorgeous piece. Be sure to give it a
look. It’s shortened with just selected excerpts but it’s beautifully
done. Enjoy. Go above or HERE
Suicide is epidemic for American Indian youth: : A
youth-suicide epidemic is sweeping Indian country, with Native
American teens and young adults killing themselves at more than triple
the rate of other young Americans, according to federal government
figures. http://is.gd/cl5jIn
The war drums keep beating Anti-Iran Hawks Maintain P.R. Offensive
By Jim Lobe
Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham said he is working on a new
Congressional resolution he hopes to pass in any lame-duck session
after the Nov. 6 elections that would promise Israel U.S. support,
including military assistance, if it attacks Iran. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32723.htm
NYPD Concern About 'Iran Terror' Should Put U.S. Security on Alert
If a burglar were to strip my home of its entire contents, it would
not reach a tenth in value of the money that is going to be taken from
me in taxation by government for the rest of my life to fund the bank
bailouts in which my cash was given to reckless and incompetent
bankers. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32725.htm
A Parasites' Paradise (Or the Best Criminal Sanctuary Money Can Buy)
By James Petras
A veritable crime wave[1] has invaded the City of London, where
millionaire investment bankers cook the books for billionaire clients
and bilk the Treasury to pay their fines and flout the Law. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32716.htm
Shale Gas Industry Brings PSYOPs and Spy Ops to Poland
By Steve Horn
Roughly a year ago in Houston, the shale gas industry was caught
red-handed discussing its use of military tactics and personnel on U.S.
soil to intimidate and divide communities in order to continue its
fracking bonanza. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32718.htm
Israel Police to set up 'Jewish terror' unit in West Bank: Netanyahu decided to form a special police unit tasked with foiling attacks by Jewish extremists in the West Bank. http://is.gd/qH016G
Jimmy Carter Says U.S. Elections Corrupted: "We
have one of the worst election processes in the world right here in
the United States of America," he said, "and it's almost entirely
because of the excessive influx of money. http://americanfreepress.net/?p=6515
It's Been One Week Since The Debate. How Many Lies Has Romney Told Since?: Five. The answer is five in seven days. Impressive. http://is.gd/qrIqkS
Glenn Greenwald: US supreme court finalizes gift of immunity to the telecom giants: Yet
again, the Congress, courts, executive branch and the establishment
media work together to protect the nation's most powerful actors http://is.gd/HaSmDY
Germany 'risks entering recession' say think tanks: A group of leading think tanks in Germany have cut growth forecasts for the country and warned of recession. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19908664
Congressional Budget Office Can't Keep Up With US Debt Growth: George
Mason University has contended that the Congressional Budget Office,
even in the age of supercomputers, just cannot keep up with the national
debt. In other words, the growth of the national debt moves quicker
than does the technology used to measure it. http://is.gd/hwoHVZ
U.S. trade deficit widens as exports fall: The
U.S. trade deficit widened in August, as U.S. goods exports fell for
the fifth consecutive month, a government report showed on Thursday.
The monthly trade gap increased to $44.2-billion, from an upwardly
revised estimate of $42.5-billion in July, the Commerce Department
said. http://is.gd/u7mKZr
U.S. Sues Wells Fargo: Yet Another Bailed-Out Bank Accused of Fraud: Wells
Fargo got as much as $36 billion in federal aid after the crash and
got a massive push from the government to help it buy up the dying
crash-era megabank Wachovia for $12.7 billion, a shotgun wedding that
created the second-biggest bank in America http://is.gd/KN1PLB
Private Insurers Have Cost Medicare $282.6 Billion in Excess Payments : Researchers
say privately run Medicare Advantage plans have undermined traditional
Medicare's fiscal health and taken a heavy toll on taxpayers, seniors
and the U.S. economy. http://is.gd/59r4S8
........................................keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons.............
When good does evil in its struggle against evil, it becomes indistinguishable from its enemy." T.S. Elliot
"It
is part of the moral tragedy with which we are dealing that words like
"democracy," "freedom," "rights," "justice," which have so often
inspired heroism and have led men to give their lives for things which
make life worthwhile, can also become a trap, the means of destroying
the very things men desire to uphold." Sir Norman Angell (1874 - 1967), 1956.
"Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens" : Plato : Ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)
In an apparent case of an organizer of a major protest being targeted by
police, Kristen “Krissi” Jones, an organizer of the Ann Arbor, Michigan
March Against Monsanto, was arrested for using amplified sound in a public park on May 25, 2013.
Jones maintains that she did no such thing and says that fifteen other
people used a bullhorn in Hanover Park that day but were neither
harassed nor arrested.
The individuals organizing this particular March Against Monsanto protest – one of many across the country and the world – paid around $1,500 for a permit for the protest but were denied the night before it was scheduled.
Yet the arrest was not made due to the lack of a permit and the protest was not shut down by police.
An
on-going perpetual nightmare foisted by the Zionist state on the United
States and the international community as a mouthing of interest in
peace but with a silent intention that all Arabs must be removed from
"their" land.
How Edward Snowden Exposed a "Massive Surveillance Apparatus"
Video
"There is
this massive surveillance apparatus being gradually constructed in the
United States that already has extremely invasive capabilities to
monitor and store the communications and other forms of behavior not
just of tens of millions of Americans, but of hundreds of millions,
probably billions of people, around the globe," Greenwald says.
"Metadata":
Allows the government secretly to track who a target communicates with
and where he's physically located. That knowledge can be used to
unearth who's leaking to reporters, when and where political opponents
are meeting -- even who's sleeping with whom.
Germans
in the Third Reich and Soviet citizens in the Stalin era had a better
idea of their government's agendas than do "freedom and democracy"
Americans today.
A
petition to pardon Edward Snowden, who has acknowledged leaking secret
documents from the U.S. National Security Agency, attracted more than
22,000 electronic signatures by Monday afternoon, one day after it was
posted on the White House website.
US Lawmakers Call for Review of Patriot Act After NSA Surveillance Revelations
By Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington
The
legislation, which was introduced after the 9/11 attacks, has been
cited as the legal basis for the National Security Agency scouring
billions of ordinary US telephone records in an effort to combat
terrorism.
State Department Memo Reveals Possible Cover-ups, Halted Investigations
By CBS News
The
memo obtained by CBS News cited eight specific examples: A State
Department security official in Beirut "engaged in sexual assaults" on
foreign nationals. The memo also reveals details about an "underground
drug ring" was operating near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and supplied
State Department security contractors with drugs.
60 Shiites killed in Syria as West seeks solution:
Despite
Tuesday's attacks, Bashar al-Assad's regime, dominated by his Alawite
sect of Shiite Islam, appears to have gained the upper hand against
mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, buoyed by military support from its Shiite
allies, Hezbollah and Iran.
At
least 14 people were killed and 31 injured in twin blasts caused by
explosive devices planted in central Damascus on Tuesday, Syrian state
television reported.
Renewed
clashes between Syrian insurgents and Kurdish groups have erupted in
the province of Aleppo and quickly spread to other cities in northern
Syria. Several combatants have been killed in fights between Liwa
al-Tawhid and its allies and the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG)
since May 25 in the countryside of northern Aleppo
Syria's
army launched multiple attacks on rebel positions on Tuesday in the
northern province of Aleppo, including insurgent-held areas of a key
airbase.
Obama to decide whether U.S. will send Syrian rebels air power this week:
Moved
by the Assad regime's rapid advance, the Obama administration could
decide this week to approve lethal aid for the beleaguered Syrian
rebels and will weigh the merits of a less likely move to send in U.S.
airpower to enforce a no-fly zone over the civil war-wracked nation,
Aleppo: Syrian rebels execute teenager Mohammad Kattaa in front of his parents, say reports :
"An
unidentified Islamist rebel group shot dead a 15-year-old child who
worked as a coffee seller in Aleppo, after they accused him of
blasphemy," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami
Abdel Rahman.
Saudi Arabia, France agree Qusayr scenario can't be repeated in Aleppo:
The
Hezbollah-backed Syrian troops, which defeated the rebels in the
strategic town of Qusayr, should not be allowed to repeat the same
scenario in province of Aleppo. The two countries expressed their
stance after Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, and the
kingdom's intelligence head, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, met with French
officials.
The
Syrian conflict is at a "turning point" with regime forces gaining
ground, France said Tuesday, adding that it was time to review whether
to arm the opposition.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that foreign intervention in the
Syrian civil war is unacceptable because it would result in a new
source of terror in the region.
Asked
to pick a response to stop the killing of civilians in Syria, just 15
percent in the poll say they favor U.S. military action, and only 11
percent want to provide arms to the opposition.
Retribution
against Hezbollah for helping the Syrian government fight rebels
intensified on Tuesday, as the United States blacklisted four
fund-raising operatives and warned of further steps to choke the
group's financing.
Eight Rockets from Syria Hit Hermel, One Lebanese Killed:
Rocket
attack on HermelEight rockets launched by Syrian militants have fallen
in Hermel in eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, the National News Agency
reported.
Putin says Assad could have avoided war, criticizes West:
Pointing
to violence in Iraq, Libya, Syria and other states, Putin said: "Why
is this happening? Because certain people from outside think that if
you shape the whole region
Austria begins withdrawing peacekeepers from Golan:
Austria
has begun withdrawing peacekeepers from the Golan Heights, winding
down a four-decade mission due to spillover fighting from the Syrian
civil war, the defence ministry said.
70 killed in relentless Iraq attacks in single day:
Monday's
deadliest violence struck the main northern city of Mosul, with a
series of five car bombings mostly targeting security forces leaving at
least 29 dead and 80 others wounded, officials said.
Al-Qaeda Gunmen Kidnap over 20 People North of Baghdad, 7 People Executed:
The
extremists planted a false checkpoint on the road, stopping for an
alleged check the vehicles, where their victims were going. Later the
kidnappers took the hostages, which are the natives of the local tribe
Zarkush, in the unknown direction.
Iraqi
authorities should immediately investigate evidence that federal
police executed four men and a 15-year-old boy on May 3, 2013, south of
Mosul. Witnesses last saw the victims in the custody of the federal
police 3rd Division, commanded by Gen. Mehdi Gharawi
More
than 1,000 Kurdish career soldiers in the Iraqi army have deserted and
want to be integrated into the Kurdish former rebel peshmerga militia,
officials said on Tuesday.
Top UN Official Richard Falk Calls for Removing UN Watch:
In a scathing attack on a UN-accredited NGO, top UN Human Rights Council official
Richard Falk is publicly calling on the 47-nation body to investigate
and potentially expel a watchdog organization after it mobilized world
leaders-including his own boss, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon-to
condemn his comments blaming the Boston Marathon bombings on "the
American global domination project" and "Tel Aviv."
US ally Kuwait gives 11 year jail sentence to woman for tweets against emir:
She
was convicted of insulting Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, calling for
the overthrow of the regime and misusing her mobile phone, according
to a copy of the lower court ruling obtained by the AFP news agency.
Rafsanjani endorses moderate Rowhani for Iran presidency:
"I
consider him to be more suitable (than other candidates) to steer the
executive branch," he said referring to the slate of five other
hopefuls, most of whom are conservatives.
A
home-made bomb was found Tuesday under a car belong to the Italian
embassy in Tripoli, capital of unrest-hit Libya, no one was injured,
local security and embassy officials told Xinhua, APA reports.
Suicide blast in Kabul kills 14 near U.S. Embassy:
A
suicide car bomber struck outside the Afghan Supreme Court in Kabul on
Tuesday, killing at least eight people and wounding 20, police and
health officials said.
Seven
Taliban fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns
launched a rare assault on Nato's operational headquarters at the
military section of Kabul's international airport on Monday. All seven
militants were killed.
Five
"militants" including, three Pakistani nationals were killed, when the
Afghan security forces launched a series of counterinsurgents
operations in the southern province of Nangarhar, an official said
Tuesday
Polish occupation force soldier killed by mine in Afghanistan:
Platoon
leader Jan Kiepura, a Polish soldier serving in Afghanistan, was
killed on Monday when a land mine exploded beneath the car he was in
while on patrol near Ghazni, the capital of Ghanzi province.
Taliban attacks show Afghan insurgents' resilience:
Taliban
suicide bombers carried out a brazen attack in the Afghan capital on
Monday, the second in less than a week and a sign that insurgents are
determined to keep fighting despite recent overtures of peace from the
U.S. and Afghan government.
Istanbul warzone: Thousands of protesters try to reclaim Taksim Square:
Riot
police have fired volleys of tear gas as thousands of protesters are
trying to reclaim Taksim after being forced out in fierce clashes with
law enforcement. Thick smoke blankets the square.
Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald says 'dozens of stories' in the works : Video -
You
ain't seen nothing yet. That's the message from the Glenn Greenwald,
the journalist who exposed classified US surveillance programs for
Britain's Guardian newspaper, who has said much more is to come
Leaker's Employer Is Paid to Maintain Government Secrets:
Edward
J. Snowden's employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has become one of the
largest and most profitable corporations in the United States almost
exclusively by serving a single client: the government of the United
States.
Guantánamo: A Betrayal of Our Values, a Human Rights Crisis:
In
Guantánamo, 104 men are on hunger strike to protest their indefinite
detention. Forty-one are being force-fed through tubes, and four have
been hospitalized. and Expensive as Hell: ACLU :
Elliott
Adams, a longtime activist and well-known anti-war protestor is 26
days into a hunger strike he hopes will help shut down the United
States' military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And his fast couldn't
be more timely-or maybe people are just starting to listen:
The
recent whistleblower revelations have caught Obama administration's
Director of National Intelligence in a flat-out lie. But watch how
James Clapper tries to weasel out of it. What we would call a lie he
calls it 'the least untruthful' answer.
Snowden
said that "I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to
wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to
even the President [of the United States] if I had a personal email."
NSA Leak Highlights Key Role Of Private Contractors:
The
U.S. government monitors threats to national security with the help of
nearly 500,000 people like Edward Snowden - employees of private firms
who have access to the government's most sensitive secrets.
The
weekend's big revelations about the NSA's biggest revealer prompt a
natural question: How many Snowden-type spies with top secret security
clearance are there?
Former
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas praised NSA leaker Edward Snowden for his part
in exposing how much information the government has been collecting
from private citizens.
Glenn Greenwald Gets 'Testy' With 'Morning Joe's' Mika Brzezinski: Video -
Brzezinski
repeatedly challenged Greenwald on whether the programs his reporting
has detailed - including NSA data-mining and phone surveillance
programs - were really "shocking."
Just Curious ... Why Is Everyone Totally Okay With The Government Spying On 'Foreigners?':
Americans
seem to be fine about any kind of U.S. government spying as long as
it's focused on "foreigners." They just go crazy when the same tactics
are used on Americans.
The
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), already embroiled in a high-profile
scandal over its operations, is looking to acquire surveillance
equipment that includes cameras concealed in plants, coffee trays and
clock radios.
Eurozone: three countries have debt-to-income ratios of more than 300%:
Ireland,
Greece and Portugal are labouring under debt-to-income ratios of more
than 300%, according to figures that expose the indebtedness of
eurozone governments in relation to their government revenues.
New York lays out $20 billion plan to adapt to climate change:
New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday announced a $20 billion plan
to prepare for rising sea levels and hotter summers expected as a
result of climate change in the coming decades.
Citigroup Facing $7 Billion Hit on Dollar Gain, Peabody Says:
Citigroup
Inc. (C) could lose as much as $7 billion on currency swings if
Charles Peabody is right, putting the analyst at odds with peers who
say the stock will be the best performer among big U.S. banks in the
year ahead.
Seniors in 48 states face serious income shortage:
Only
seniors in Nevada and Hawaii have median annual incomes that meet the
savings benchmark commonly recommended by financial planners.
Typically, planners recommend that retirees save enough to replace at
least 70% of their pre-retirement income.
- On a massive scale, Geoengineering will likely result in democide if not stopped completely.
Democide is the murder of any
person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and
mass murder. Democide does not include soldiers killed in battle. During
the 20th Century (1900s) alone, it has been calculated that government
power was used to murder approximately 262,000,000 people. It appears
that history is repeating itself with improved technology.
Secondary purposes of Geoengineering include controlling the
climate/weather for warfare and profits, and destroying the natural
world while furthering the transhumanist/synthetic biology agenda.
The evidence indicates that Geoengineering is an essential element of
the elite’s Endgame move to depopulate the planet. The pubic must be
educated and the stratospheric spraying stopped immediately.
The NSA Black Hole: 5 Basic Things We Still Don’t Know About the Agency’s Snooping
A lot is still unclear.
June 11, 2013 |
Last week saw revelations that
the FBI and the National Security Agency have been collecting
Americans’ phone records en masse and that the agencies have access to
data from nine tech companies.
But secrecy around the programs has meant even basic questions are still unanswered. Here’s what we still don’t know:
1. Has the NSA been collecting all Americans’ phone records, and for how long?
It’s not entirely clear.
The Guardian published a court order that
directed a Verizon subsidiary to turn over phone metadata -- the time
and duration of calls, as well as phone numbers and location data -- to
the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis” for a three-month period. Citing
unnamed sources, the Wall Street Journal reported the
program also covers AT&T and Sprint and that it covers the majority
of Americans. And Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
himself acknowledged that the “collection” is “broad in scope.”
2. How long has the dragnet has existed? At least seven years, and maybe going back to 2001.
Senate
Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and vice chair
Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said last week that the NSA has been collecting
the records going back to 2006. That’s the same year that USA Today revealed a
similar-sounding mass collection of metadata, which the paper said had
been taking place since 2001. The relationship between the program we
got a glimpse of in the Verizon order and the one revealed by USA Today
in 2006 is still not clear: USA Today described a program not authorized
by warrants. The program detailed last week does have court approval. 3. What surveillance powers does the government believe it has under the Patriot Act?
That’s classified.
The Verizon court order relies on Section 215 of the Patriot Act. That provision allows
the FBI to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a secret
order requiring companies, like Verizon, to produce records – “any
tangible things” – as part of a “foreign intelligence” or terrorism
investigation. As with any law, exactly what the wording means is a
matter for courts to decide. But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court’s interpretation of Section 215 is secret.
As Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman recently wrote,
the details of that interpretation matter a lot: “Read narrowly, this
language might require that information requested be shown to be
important or necessary to the investigation. Read widely, it would
include essentially anything even slightly relevant — which is to say,
everything.”
In the case of the Verizon order -- signed
by a judge who sits on the secret court and requiring the company to
hand over “all call detail records" -- it appears that the court is
allowing a broad interpretation of the Patriot Act. But we still don’t
know the specifics.
4. Has the NSA’s massive collection of metadata thwarted any terrorist attacks?
It depends which senator you ask. And evidence that would help settle the matter is, yes, classified.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., told CNN
on Sunday, “It's unclear to me that we've developed any intelligence
through the metadata program that's led to the disruption of plots that
we could [not] have developed through other data and other
intelligence.”
He said he could not elaborate on his case “without further declassification.”
Sen. Feinstein told ABC
that the collection of phone records described in the Verizon order had
been “used” in the case of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi.
Later in the interview, Feinstein said she couldn’t disclose more
because the information is classified. (It’s worth noting that there’s
also evidence that old-fashioned police work helped solve the Zazi case — and that other reports suggest the Prism program, not the phone records, helped solve the case.)
How much information, and from whom, is the government sweeping up through Prism?
It’s not clear.
Intelligence director Clapper said in his declassified description that
the government can’t get information using Prism unless there is an
“appropriate, and documented, foreign intelligence purpose for the
acquisition (such as for the prevention of terrorism, hostile cyber
activities, or nuclear proliferation) and the foreign target is
reasonably believed to be outside the United States.”
One thing we don’t know is how the government determines who is a “foreign target.” The Washington Post reported that
NSA analysts use “search terms” to try to achieve “51 percent
confidence” in a target’s “foreignness.” How do they do that? Unclear.
We’ve also never seen a court order related to Prism -- they are secret -- so we don’t know how broad they are. The Post reported that the court orders can be sweeping, and apply for up to a year. Though Google has maintained it has not "received blanket orders of the kind being discussed in the media."
5. So, how does Prism work?
In his statement Saturday,
Clapper described Prism as a computer system that allows the government
to collect “foreign intelligence information from electronic
communication service providers under court supervision.”
That much seems clear. But the exact role of the tech companies is still murky.
Relying on a leaked PowerPoint presentation, the Washington Post originally described
Prism as an FBI and NSA program to tap “directly into the central
servers” of nine tech companies including Google and Facebook. Some of
the companies denied giving the government “direct access” to their servers. In a later story,
published Saturday, the newspaper cited unnamed intelligence sources
saying that the description from the PowerPoint was technically
inaccurate.
The Post quotes a classified NSA report saying that
Prism allows “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions
directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” not
the company servers themselves. So what does any of that mean? We don't
know.
Informing public of government spying 'self-indulgent' and 'grandiose'
6/11/13
Journalism
attracts whistleblowers. In fact, some reporters need whistleblowers
in order to do their jobs. But there are plenty of people working in
the media who don't have much use for whistleblowers--and they've been
having a field day going after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Washington Post columnist Matt Miller (6/11/13)
explained that "what Snowden exposed was not some rogue
government-inside-the-government conspiracy. It's a program that’s
legal, reviewed by Congress and subject to court oversight."
Or to put it another way, it's a program that's secret, that the nation's top spylies to Congress about, and the Supreme Courtrefuses to review--because, being secret, no one can prove they're affected by it.
Miller went on:
Daniel
Ellsberg says Snowden is a "hero." Let me suggest a different prism
through which to view that term. Somewhere in the intelligence community
is another 29-year-old computer whiz whose name we'll never know. That
person joined the government after 9/11 because they felt inspired to
serve the nation in its hour of need. For years they’ve sweated to
perfect programs that can sort through epic reams of data to identify
potential threats. Some Americans are alive today because of her work.
As
one security analyst put it this week, to find a needle in a haystack,
you need the haystack. If we're going to romanticize a young nerd in
the intelligence world, my Unknown Coder trumps the celebrity waiting
in Hong Kong for Diane Sawyer’s call any day.
It's
hard to imagine seeing Snowden sitting down with Sawyer anytime soon,
but Miller's certainly not alone in speculating about Snowden's motives
or psyche.
New York Times columnist David Brooks (6/11/13)
writes that Snowden "could not successfully work his way through the
institution of high school. Then he failed to navigate his way through
community college." And he "has not been a regular presence around his
mother's house for years." But it's bigger than that; like Miller,
Brooks sees a real threat from people who don't respect authority:
For
society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and
cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common
procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret NSA documents,
Snowden has betrayed all of these things.
He elaborated:
He
betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there is a leak like
this, the powers that be close the circle of trust a little tighter.
They limit debate a little more.
He
betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security agencies can’t do
vast data sweeps, they will inevitably revert to the older, more
intrusive eavesdropping methods.
He
betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United
States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions
about what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited
the democratic structures of accountability, putting his own
preferences above everything else.
By
that logic, it's hard to see how anyone could possibly ever divulge
anything that the government claims to be secret--which might suit
Brooks just fine.
In the Washington Post (6/11/13),
Richard Cohen managed to insult both Snowden and columnist Glenn
Greenwald, referring to "a remarkably overwrought interview conducted by
the vainglorious Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian."
In response to Greenwald writing that Snowden wears a red hood when he
types passwords into his computer, Cohen inventively sneers that
Snowden will "go down as a cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood."
Cohen doesn't understand the fuss anyway, since private companies like Google have all sorts of intelligence on him. He concludes:
Everything
about Edward Snowden is ridiculously cinematic. He is not paranoiac;
he is merely narcissistic. He jettisoned a girlfriend, a career and,
undoubtedly, his personal freedom to expose programs that were known to
our elected officials and could have been deduced by anyone who has
ever googled anything. History will not record him as "one of America's
most consequential whistleblowers." History is more likely to forget
him. Soon, you can google that.
And the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin (6/10/13) wrote that Snowden is "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison," and that
any
marginally attentive citizen, much less NSA employee or contractor,
knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic
communications.
If
you know that an agency intercepts communications, why wouldn't you
assume that it intercepts every communication, Toobin seems to be
arguing.
Appearing on CNN (6/10/13)
, Toobin explained that there's a proper way to blow the whistle, and
this sure isn't it: "There are channels for whistleblowers inside
agencies, through Congress, through the courts, not through Glenn
Greenwald of the Guardian. That's not what you're supposed to do."
What's the right way to inform the public, then? Toobin says:
Well,
the public has a right to know, but the way to bring it to public
attention is not to commit crimes. And, yes, it is possible he wouldn't
get as much attention if he simply went to the senators, like Jeff
Merkley, like Senator Udall, who cared deeply about this issue and are
doing it the right way. Instead, he just threw this stuff out to
newspaper reporters at the Washington Post and the Guardian, who were more responsible than he was, who actually didn't publish everything they get.
Sure--go to a couple of senators who havelong warned
that they aren't allowed to say what they know about government
surveillance programs, and tell them that you want to share top secret
NSA documents about those programs. That would have worked--if Snowden's
goal was to be arrested immediately.
There were others, like Time's Joe Klein, who didn't go after Snowden like this--he merely argued (6/10/13) that this was all old news: "First of all, we pretty much knew everything that has 'broken' in the past week."
And in the Washington Post, Walter Pincus (6/11/13) sounded the same notes. He ran through the history: USA Today reported a very similar NSA story in 2006 (5/11/06),
the Bush administration responded, public opinion polls seemed to
support government policies. In 2008, Congress passed amendments to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and last year there were solid
reports by veteran reporter James Bamford (Wired, 3/15/12) about the massive NSA storage facility being built in Utah. So, Pincus writes:
Was
there any follow-up in the mainstream media to Bamford's disclosure,
or anything close to the concerns voiced on Capitol Hill this past
week? No.
That’s because the American public at large is more accepting of the government’s involvement in their lives — along with Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple--than
is Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old who leaked the highly classified
NSA documents. He appears to believe the public is unaware, and, as he
told the Guardian, knowing "what's happening, you [meaning the public] should decide whether we should be doing this."
So
if media don't pursue a given story, it's because the public has
decided it's not interested, or tacitly approves of a government policy
of indeterminate scope? It's a surprising revelation that this is how
the media decide what stories to report.
As Gawker's Hamilton Nolan writes (6/11/13),
journalists "have to acknowledge that Edward Snowden did something
quite admirable." He notes, "Without Snowden's act, the public's
knowledge of what is being done to them in their own name would be much poorer."
That's true, unless you think the public either already knows all of this--or that they shouldn't.
- On a massive scale, Geoengineering will likely result in democide if not stopped completely.
Journalism
attracts whistleblowers. In fact, some reporters need whistleblowers
in order to do their jobs. But there are plenty of people working in
the media who don't have much use for whistleblowers--and they've been
having a field day going after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.