WHAT is the ROLE OF THE CORPORATIONS behind the scenes as PUPPET-MASTERS of this data mining? All the security revelations in the past few days have been portrayed by the media as "ACTS OF THE GOVERNMENT." As we know, nothing has happened in the government, at least since 2000, without corporate planning and backing. The CORPORATE CONNECTION must be explored to understand the full picture of what is happening.
The following questions must be asked loud and clear:
1. What ACCESS do Corporations have to all the data that is being collected about ALL US Citizens?
2. HAVE the Corporations (Alec-like) WRITTEN THE LAWS AND STATUTES PERMITTING ALL THIS SURVEILLENCE, such as the terms of the Patriot Act, in order to position themselves as custodians to have unlimited access to all our data?
3. What ROLE do the corporations have in collecting all this data, other than just passively turning over our records to the NSA? Do Corporations SHARE our data among themselves?
4. How can Corporations BENEFIT from having all our data?
As we learn that BiG BROTHER is really watching us (are you really surprised?), with an increasing cascade of revelations, the real story that needs to be spoken about is what access and what role have corporations played in all aspects of this surveillence? Because I can't believe that the sole purpose of this data collection is to protect us from terroists......
Just a few minutes ago, I turned on my radio and heard that there is now another report of more spying, this time through credit card information:
Credit card transactions are among the activities that have been monitored by the National Security Agency as part of its effort to target possible terrorists, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday night.
The report does not identify the credit card companies involved and says it is unclear if the monitoring of transactions is ongoing.
The news about the credit card transactions follows reports from earlier in the day that the NSA has had access to the internet servers of large technology companies, giving the agency the ability, through a program nicknamed PRISM, to track e-mails and web searches.
.....
National Intelligence Director James Clapper defended that program late Thursday saying procedures are in place that are approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.”
Report: NSA targets credit card transactions/Politico
A few days ago, our personal DNA was handed over to the state and corporations (who will no doubt be doing the collecting and storing for the federal government.)
We miss the full horror of this story if we just allow the media to frame it as the "government is bad", "Big Brother is Watching," and not discover and uncover to the public the underlying role of the corporations here, who are watching along with Big Brother, and probably doing "Big Brother's" work for him. You know, 'privatizing our security apparatus.'
We saw the close coordination between our public servants and corporations during Occupy Wall Street as the various police departments around this country, served to protect and defend the interests of the 1% against the rebelling 99%. We saw the huge paramilitary force rise up and coordinate their tactics nationwide against the protestors who were effectively robbed of their 'freedom of speech,' LITERALLY at the behest and direction of the various corporate interests. Wall Street piped the tune and the police departments danced to it. And ordinary citizens were brutalized and terrorized for daring to expose and speak out, LAWFULLY, against the Wall Street Bankstas.
We must look behind this story and ask a lot of questions. Who is leaking these revelations and why? Why are these leaks happening now? 2014 ANYONE? The Republicans are busy building the meme in the public media that the government is corrupt with the huge lies and attacks they have stirred up relentlessly through Issa's McCarthy tactics and hearings. In my opinion, all of this anti-government attack is an attempt at a massive propaganda and brainwashing campaign of the public by the corporations and their Republican servants, to establish the Randian Republican position that government is bad and is your enemy, so the IRS is your enemy, the NSA is your enemy, etc. The corporations are furious to have lost the last election and are determined not to lose in the future. So they are 'softening up' the electorate, acclimating them to the idea that 'government is bad, can't be trusted, is spying on you!' Go buy more guns and ammo! This is a clear pre-marketing campaign to prepare for their new product: GOP 2014.
IF WE DON'T SEE THIS ASPECT TO THESE REVELATIONS WE ARE GOING TO LET OURSELVES BE MANIPULATED AND SUCCUMB TO THE PROPAGANDA BY BELIEVING THEIR FRAMING OF THE ISSUE.
So, these revelations about spying, which shock only liberals and progressives who haven't been watching, are also being used in the political chess match in preparation for the 2014 elections. I am not defending NSA spying. All I am saying is that it is also being used in a massive attempt to poison people's minds against the government and to make them afraid of government. Did any Republican criticize Bush for all his Big Brother tactics, including torture. Hell no! They celebrated it with swagger, because it served the interests of corporations. Do you remember how Iraq was divided up by oil companies?
Until we find out the role of corporations in the data collection, we will be allowing ourselves to be manipulated with half truths. We must not let the media and the Radical Reich succeed in this obvious propaganda effort.
The SPYING IS THE SYMPTOM. WHAT IS THE CAUSE? WHO IS BEHIND IT? WHAT ARE THEIR GOALS? This is not just about protection of our country. To find the answers, look to those who invented "The War on Terrorism".... your friendly global corporation.
7:22 AM PT: UPDATE ONE:
I am not the only one concerned and asking this question. Others on this site have been writing about this as well. I do not have the answer to the questions I pose. My main concern is that we get some serious investigative journalism going to unearth what is really going on behind the scenes. And once we know who is doing what, then we can go about securing our freedoms more effectively. If we just deal with the 'symptom' that the media presents, we will have been misdirected by 'half-truths' and miss the main problem, in my opinion.
8:36 AM PT: UPDATE TWO:
Here is a link to an extensive article done in 2012 describing the building in the aptly named Utah town of "Bluffdale" (you can't make this stuff up...) of the "Country's biggest spy center."
http://www.wired.com/...
Reading the article is an quick education on what has been happening and what is planned to happen. Clearly what has been disclosed is the tip of the iceberg.
8:47 AM PT: UPDATE THREE:
This is an article from 2007 which describes the building of the spying system during the Bush Administration and it discloses some of the corporations involved.
"Domestic Spying, Inc." by Tim Shorrock , Special to CorpWatch
November 27th, 2007
http://www.corpwatch.org/...
Note this :
"From the start, the study group was heavily weighted toward companies with a stake in both foreign and domestic intelligence. Not surprisingly, its contractor-advisers called for a major expansion in the domestic use of the spy satellites that they sell to the government. Since the end of the Cold War and particularly since the September 11, 2001 attacks, they said, the “threats to the nation have changed and there is a growing interest in making available the special capabilities of the intelligence community to all parts of the government, to include homeland security and law enforcement entities and on a higher priority basis.”
Contractors are not new to the U.S. spy world. Since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the modern intelligence system in 1947, the private sector has been tapped to design and build the technology that facilitates electronic surveillance. Lockheed, for example, built the U-2, the famous surveillance plane that flew scores of spy missions over the Soviet Union and Cuba. During the 1960s, Lockheed was a prime contractor for the Corona system of spy satellites that greatly expanded the CIA’s abilities to photograph secret military installations from space. IBM, Cray Computers and other companies built the super-computers that allowed the NSA to sift through data from millions of telephone calls, and analyze them for intelligence that was passed on to national leaders.
Spending on contracts has increased exponentially in recent years along with intelligence budgets, and the NSA, the NGA and other agencies have turned to the private sector for the latest computer and communications technologies and for intelligence analysts. For example, today about half of staff at the NSA and NGA are private contractors. At the DIA, 35 percent of the workers are contractors. But the most privatized agency of all is the NRO, where a whopping 90 percent of the workforce receive paychecks from corporations. All told the U.S. intelligence agencies spend some 70 percent of their estimated $60 billion annual budget on contracts with private companies, according to documents this reporter obtained in June 2007 from the ODNI.
The plans to increase domestic spying are estimated to be worth billions of dollars in new business for the intelligence contractors. The market potential was on display in October at GEOINT 2007, the annual conference sponsored by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a non-profit organization funded by the largest contractors for the NGA. During the conference, which took place in October at the spacious Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, many companies were displaying spying and surveillance tools that had been used in Afghanistan and Iraq and were now being re-branded for potential domestic use."
The corporate connection as we all know, has long been there.