I understand this topic is very sensitive, and because of it I'm going to do my level best to present as many confirmed facts as possible as supporting evidence of my conclusion: There is some sort of (permanent) shadowy command structure within the intelligence community that uses a number of tools at its disposal to influence, intimidate, or control people who have been subjected to total information awareness surveillance, including government officials.
Below, I'm going to present three examples which I believe support my conclusion(s).
In 2011, now-deceased journalist Michael Hastings published the following article in RollingStone: Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators
The opening paragraph goes straight to the heart of the matter:
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
Some people may tend to dismiss this type of
techniques as just run-of-the-mill spin, but it seems to me that there's more to it, including highly sophisticated methods of psychological manipulation.
...According to the Defense Department’s own definition, psy-ops – the use of propaganda and psychological tactics to influence emotions and behaviors – are supposed to be used exclusively on "hostile foreign groups." Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It’s what you learn on day one."
Since my focus here is on the danger of an rogued intelligence apparatus capable of building detailed dossiers on every American, I'll share this last reference from
the article:
According to experts on intelligence policy, asking a psy-ops team to direct its expertise against visiting dignitaries would be like the president asking the CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents. Holmes was even expected to sit in on Caldwell’s meetings with the senators and take notes, without divulging his background. "Putting your propaganda people in a room with senators doesn’t look good," says John Pike, a leading military analyst. "It doesn’t pass the smell test. Any decent propaganda operator would tell you that."
The emphasis is mine
Now, it seems to me that putting this kind of power in the hands of what are essentially for profit, corporate-controlled intelligence agencies fits the definition of a clear and present danger, especially when it comes to the National Security Agency. I argue that although the article refers to the military, it is very likely that other agencies (like the NSA) also have similar Psy-Ops techniques.
And if so, wouldn't these techniques be much more effective now that very detailed dossiers can be built on every single government official?
Also, there are many confirmed historical accounts of government security agencies engaging in illegal surveillance of government officials and "persons of interest," (i.e. Martin Luther King, Jr.) in order to dig out dirt that could be used to blackmail or intimidate them.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has been in the news recently in what appears to be a bizarre and abrupt about-face regarding her thus far unflinching support of the NSA, now asking for a "top-to-bottom review of U.S. spy programs."
Apparently what really, really did it for her this time, after a torrent of revelations of illegal NSA surveillance, was the spying on foreign leaders of friendly countries.
Let me go in a different direction in order to try to make a point about the dangers of an intelligence agency having "total awareness" about everybody, including government officials...
On September 18th, the San Francisco Bay Area East Bay Express published an excerpt of the book "Going Postal: The husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein has been selling post offices to his friends, cheap."
The author, Peter Byrne, reports that the U.S. Postal Service is being killed (defunded and privatized) for political reasons, and that the company tasked with selling off its properties is C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE). And it just so happens that the company's chairman is Richard C. Blum, Senator Dianne Feinstein's husband.
Here's a list of his findings after a yearlong investigation:
- CBRE appears to have repeatedly violated its contractual duty to sell postal properties at or above fair market values.
- CBRE has sold valuable postal properties to developers at prices that appear to have been steeply discounted from fair market values, resulting in the loss of tens of millions of dollars in public revenue.
- In a series of apparently non-arm's-length transactions, CBRE negotiated the sale of postal properties all around the country to its own clients and business partners, including to one of its corporate owners, Goldman Sachs Group.
- CBRE has been paid commissions as high as 6 percent by the Postal Service for representing both the seller and the buyer in many of the negotiations, thereby raising serious questions as to whether CBRE was doing its best to obtain the highest price possible for the Postal Service.
- Senator Feinstein has lobbied the Postmaster General on behalf of a redevelopment project in which her husband's company was involved.
The emphasis is mine
Now, what's my point in bringing this up? Well, to begin with, if one takes what's being reported in that article at face value, one question that immediately comes to mind is why isn't anybody in jail yet! On the other hand, we pretty much know the answer to that question by now: because we have a two-tiered legal system.
But that' not the point I'm trying to make... You see, when it comes to powerful, well-connected people, including people in government, you are very likely to see these types of "arrangements," where family members and associates of politicians (especially powerful politicians) may be involved in all kinds of business enterprises, that in some occasions may have the appearance of conflict of interests or improprieties.
Even so, at least in theory we all have the right of due process when it comes to any accusations of conflict of interests or actual criminality.
But what happens when you have an intelligence agency, which by-the-way, is increasingly controlled by for profit corporations, engaging in the building of extremely detailed dossiers on every citizen, on every government official?
Well, if that's the case, you are basically describing a shadow government; one that does not operate under the rule of law or democracy.
Any entity capable of knowing every possible piece of information about not only average citizens, but of government officials and functionaries of high profile organizations basically has total power over a society, in the final analysis.
I'll leave the reader with the following video. It's a RT interview of NSA whistleblower Russell Tice. I conducted some research on him, and found out that he was actually interviewed by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown in 2009, but haven't been able to find other mainstream media references about him after that.
And I'll leave the readers with a couple of questions... Are manipulative Psy-Ops and propaganda techniques being used against government officials by intelligence agencies, or the 2011 report by Michael Hastings an isolated event? Are government officials being subjected to manipulation, intimidation, or even blackmail by rogued elements inside the for profit corporate-controlled intelligence agencies?
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