Monday, January 13, 2014

The futility of the Surveillance State

Quit throwing 9/11 in our faces:
This letter makes me sick at heart. The very people who were supposed to defend our country, who even now parade onto talk shows and give interviews about the NSA scandal like people of authority, stand revealed as corrupt and depraved.

They failed to prevent 9/11. Perhaps even then the volume of data was so great that they simply didn’t notice, or were unable to integrate, the information they had. But they should have been able to learn from their failure, and instead, they covered it up, and their cover-ups and their lies have cost many thousands more lives.

Michael Hayden, Dick Cheney, Robert Mueller, and all the people who have made it so easy for the NSA to lie to us for so long, shame on all of you.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
It's a damning indictment, if it's true.  Even without this, it's clear from the NSA's own admissions that they have not stopped any terror attacks (let alone the 56 they originally claimed).  They knew about Maj. Hassan emailing with Jihadi imams in Yemen, and did nothing.  The Russians told us that the soon-to-be Boston bombers were going to Jihadi summer camp in Chechnya, and the NSA did nothing.

Other than to collect all the data they could on you, I mean.

If this is true, it shows the entire bankruptcy of the "we need you to give up freedoms so we can protect you".  Is it true?  I don't know.  But I'm not inclined to put much store in denials from Ft. Meade these days.

5 comments:

Old NFO said...

Excellent post and on point... Too much of the 'data' and 'reporting' never left the SCIF side of the world so that the operators actually going out and doing the work had access to it...

Divemedic said...

Until you remember that the system is not DESIGNED to stop terrorism or even crime, for that matter.

No, the purpose of the system is to give more power to the people who run the show. The more terror and the more crime, the more people who demand that the powers that be "do something."

That power is then used to crush the opponents of the people in power, and secure that power. That is why there is so little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. They have divvied up the spoils and rigged the game so that no third party candidate will ever gain enough power to matter.

The candidates for office are selected by the powers that be long before the election, so that the voters can only choose between approved candidate R or approved candidate D, and that is why nothing ever changes.

Charles Lee Scudder said...

Just skimmed that letter...
I will be reading it more completely when I haven't done a 12 hour shift.

Thus far from what I did read, NSA now means New Stasi America. I don't think that's an exaggeration.

If that is even half true, then those responsible should never see daylight again.

Eagle said...

It doesn't matter how much information you have and whether you have properly vetted and sifted it ad infinitum and to the point of exhaustion in a search for absolute proof about who means to cause the U.S. harm. If you don't have the intestinal fortitude - GUTS - to act on it, then it's all for naught.

Not to cast blame - well, ok, I AM casting blame - but Clinton knew about OBL and had very good intel about who attacked the USS Cole. We also knew about Mohamad Atta - he had been reported to the FBI by the Mossad for g'd sakes! Instead, Clinton decided to pursue legitimate and deadly threats to the US through "legal means", and "political correctness" prevented the arrest of Atta (foreign nationals are apparently treated with kid gloves, unlike American citizens). We all know how THAT went.

That part of the world sees "legal means" as a fatal weakness: you KILL your enemies, not let them go about and plan your demise.

I spent a year homeported in Bahrain when stationed aboard the USS La Salle. I remember speaking with some locals, and how they told me that the US was "as weak as a woman".

So, instead of spying on - and killing - our enemies overseas, the administration is turning its eyes on US and is spying on its "enemies" here at home.

Yeah... that's gonna protect us. Right.

Anonymous said...

It is increasingly clear that the US govt has gathered more than enough information to have the names and home addresses of all outstanding fugitives, all illegal aliens, and all members of organized crime plus all the evidence they need to put them all away or deport them.

So what are they waiting for? If all that gathering isn't going to be used to benefit the people of the USA, then why are we paying for it?

--Hale