Obama, Sanders and the Shadow Government

I just watched an interesting interview of NSA whistleblower Russ Tice. His name is not well known, but he was one of the very first whistleblowers to reveal that the NSA was illegally spying on everyone, including politicians, media outlets and private citizens. He brought this to the public’s attention back in 2005, but was literally ignored by everyone because he had no verification of his allegations. It was only after Snowden’s documented revelations about the NSA that Tice’s claims were substantiated.

Now one of the most interesting parts of the interview was when Tice said that the NSA had been tracking and watching Barack Obama since as far back as 2004, before he took office as a senator from Illinois. He had given a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention, and this was apparently the incident that caught the eye of the NSA.

To me, this information is a very important piece of the puzzle that is Barack Obama. Why has so little been done to rein in the illegal and unconstitutional activities of the American Surveillance State? Why have the President and Congress failed to take any meaningful measures to assure our privacy, but have instead defended the NSA and CIA at every opportunity? Why did Obama campaign so passionately about change, but then leave in place almost every security measure Bush and Cheney created?

To me, the answer becomes more and more apparent. Our spy agencies know everything there is to know about Obama, his administration and members of Congress. You pick a fight with the spy masters at your peril, because if you do, you might find your past indiscretions suddenly becoming media headlines if you’re lucky, and if you’re not, you may end up having an unfortunate car or plane accident.

There is a shadow government in America, and it is run by unelected officials at the highest levels of the security, military and industrial complex. They set policies and priorities and they tell Congress and the President what to do. I have been hard on Obama over the years, but I also understand that there have probably been many things that he wanted to do, but was prevented from doing them by his secret overlords. 

The criminal Bush family and Dick Cheney helped create this nightmare scenario, and now it controls everyone who comes into contact with it. My greatest fear right now is for Bernie Sanders. He is the one candidate that is actually a threat to the shadow government, and I worry because I am certain they will never let him enter the White House. It will all go away if he loses the primary to Hillary, but should he win the Democratic nomination, the Eye of Sauron will quickly be focused on him and every effort will be made to stop him from becoming President.

The American Government’s Pathetic Snowden Petition Response

Two years later, the White House finally addressed a “We the People” online petition to grant Edward Snowden a pardon with a lame and predictable response: No. There was more to the response than that, but I won’t waste your time with a rehash of the baseless accusations and fear mongering we’ve heard before. The argument from a Homeland Security official regarding Snowden is as convincing as hearing the DEA’s BS for keeping marijuana a schedule 1 drug in the same class as Heroin and meth.

For all of the passing grades Obama gets in a variety of areas, he deserves a big, fat F for national security. He’s done virtually nothing to undo Bush’s most egregious attacks on the Constitution and due process, and seems to be letting the national security state run itself. Big mistake. Snowden is one of the twenty-first century’s genuine heroes, and deserves a ticker tape parade in Manhattan, not a jail cell in Leavenworth.

Our government still loves to taunt Snowden with the “come back and take the consequences like a man” canard, as if he would be enticed by such schoolyard nonsense. Snowden is a smart person. He knows that he would not be treated fairly or justly if he returned to America and it’s more of an indictment of this country that he’s right than any black mark on Snowden’s record. What angers our government more than any other aspect of the Snowden revelations is that he is a free man and not rotting in a dungeon somewhere as an example to other would be whistleblowers.

In a just and true democracy, Snowden would be pardoned. America is neither.

Snowden’s a wuss according to our esteemed Secretary of State

Secretary of State John Kerry thinks Edward Snowden is a traitor who should, “Man up and come back to the United States.” Oh, the irony. In the 2004 presidential campaign, candidate Kerry was the victim of a Swift Boat smear campaign that attacked his conduct during the Vietnam War, his anti-war activities and his patriotism. Ten years later this same man is using ad homonym attacks, name-calling and schoolyard taunts to try and discredit Edward Snowden. Actually, it’s even weirder than that as the name calling is a direct challenge to Snowden’s manhood. Snowden’s a wussy, Snowden’s a wussy.

What this childish tirade is supposed to accomplish is beyond me. If we’ve learned anything about Snowden since the first NSA documents were released a year ago it’s that he is a very smart guy. Does Kerry think Snowden is going to become so enraged by his insults that he’ll hop on a plane and meet the Secretary of State behind the White House for a fist fight? Kerry’s juvenile comments will only help reinforce Snowden’s decision to never return to the U.S.

Shouldn’t the Secretary of State use a bit more tact in a situation like this? No one on the planet believes that Snowden would be treated fairly if he returned home. If Kerry is simply releasing some pent up frustration over the situation, he should probably keep that among a few close friends and not make an ass of himself by airing it publicly.

Privacy is a thing of the past

Snowden’s documents have made us aware of the most glaring intelligence abuses of the NSA, but as someone who follows numerous alternative news sites, even I was amazed and deeply disturbed by how many devious avenues our government has in place right now to spy on its citizen. The Bloomberg Business Week article here presents a detailed graphic of the myriad ways in which your private data can be intercepted and stored by the government.

The U.S. surveillance monster has tentacles reaching into every aspect of our daily lives, seeing, hearing and monitoring everything we do. As prescient as Orwell was about the future, even he could not have imagined a scenario like the one in which we find ourselves today. Unless you go completely off the grid to a cave in the Yukon, privacy is a thing of the past.

We have completely lost control of our government.

Spy agencies turning to Snowden as convenient scapegoat

In something of a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the failure of our intelligence agencies to foresee Russia’s plan to invade Crimea, there’s this: It’s Edward Snowden’s fault.

According to an article in today’s BuzzFeed, hints and whispers coming out of the surveillance community are about trying to pin our Crimea intelligence failure on leaked Snowden documents. They somehow gave Russia a leg up on our spooks. Sorry, I just snorted coffee out of my nose. I’ve also heard that climate change and the Washington landslide are being pinned on Mr. Snowden.

There seems to be a large group within the intelligence community who really, really hate Edward Snowden, and it’s clear they will stoop to anything to try and discredit him. As is apparent, they’re not above shifting blame for their own failures to the fugitive hacker. The charges are ludicrous, but even if they weren’t, our spy agencies know that Snowden is not in a position where he can defend himself, so they can make up pretty much anything about him and toss it to the media. Glenn Greenwald does a pretty good job of batting back the insane claims of the agencies, but it’s a large task to take on.

We need to take anything and everything Washington, D.C. says about Edward Snowden with a huge grain of salt.

The U.S. and U.K. equate journalism with terrorism

Last August, Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda was held and questioned for nine hours at Heathrow Airport by British security agents. The hazy justification for the detention revolved around the Snowden leaks, and Miranda challenged this rationale in British courts. Today, a lower UK court released its judgment that the action was justified because the release of the Snowden documents was tantamount to “terrorism,” and anybody even remotely connected to the event was fair game for government scrutiny.

Greenwald argues, and I agree with him, that this mindset basically equates journalism with terrorism. If, as a journalist, you expose anything that the government finds displeasing or embarrassing, you can be labeled a terrorist and the courts will uphold this absurdity. At the same time that Snowden is being nominated for a Nobel Prize, the U.S. and UK governments are treating him, and anyone associated with him, as a terrorist.

If you’re old enough to remember the Cold War, you’ll recall horror stories about the USSR and East European governments eavesdropping on dissidents and journalists, steaming open letters, and bugging embassies. This was child’s play compared to the surveillance tactics and technologies of the 21^st century. The real horror story today is that these sophisticated technologies are being employed relentlessly by the world’s most advanced democracies, ostensibly to fight terrorism, but in reality for a variety of nefarious purposes.

We have become that which we demonized less than a generation ago. When you think about it, the only real justification for our current lawless surveillance tactics is that whatever we do is okay because, America. Just remember, you or I could be the next David Miranda.

U.S. spies eager to kill the messenger

Today’s Buzzfeed has an article titled, America’s Spies Want Snowden Dead. The article is packed with inflammatory comments like, “I’d love to put a bullet in his head,” from a Pentagon official, and “Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him,” from a defense contractor. What’s problematic about the article is that the quotes all come from “Unnamed sources.” On the one hand it makes sense. Spooks can’t be spooks if they hand out business cards. But in today’s world of manipulated media, it raises suspicions about the authenticity of the quotes.

If these sentiments are accurate, however, the article reveals that many people employed by the surveillance state live in an impenetrable bubble of self-importance. Despite the fact that during the past ten years only one or two terrorist plots have been exposed as the result of mass electronic surveillance, they deem Snowden a traitor who has seriously damaged their efforts to stop the bad guys.

The fact is that the NSA has very little to show for its intrusive and costly intelligence gathering operations. Even setting aside the many constitutional issues involved here, there simply hasn’t been much return on the taxpayers’ investment of billions of dollars. Snowden’s revelations have less to do with disrupting America’s spying capabilities and more to do with pulling back the curtain on the ineffective and unconstitutional NSA/CIA programs. 

Obama is making a speech today regarding proposed NSA reforms. Many believe it will be too little too late, and will not sufficiently reign in the intrusive spying tactics already in place. Regardless, if it weren’t for Snowden, we wouldn’t even be having this debate, as we’d still be in the dark about who was listening to our phone calls and reading our texts. If accurate, the ugly quotes about killing Snowden demonstrate an attitude among security officials that lawlessness in the pursuit of one’s objectives is acceptable. Not much of a surprise there.