NSA spying and inequality are deeply, inextricably linked.

[woo me with science]

It is deeply disingenuous to try to argue that they aren't related, or that people focusing on one are ignoring the other.

They are deeply, intimately connected.

Why do plutocrats put a sweeping, Constitution-assaulting, spying infrastructure into place? To create total information awareness, power and control; to spy on competitors and politicians; to facilitate their corporate predatory agenda; to prevent investigation of their abuses by a free press; and to crush dissent by protesters and the citizens they are systematically exploiting, stripping of their rights, and impoverishing.

Caring about poverty REQUIRES that we take a powerful stand against this government spying. This sort of government abuse enables every corporate outrage that is the CAUSE of the poverty we are talking about.

What is the NSA really for?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024215519

"Clear evidence of collusion between TransCanada and the federal government assisting local police to unlawfully monitor and harass political protestors”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023049508

Corporate Espionage and the Secret War Against Citizen Activism
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111643982

NSA Spying Not Very Focused on Terrorism: Power, Money and Crushing Dissent Are Real Motives Ops
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023923016

Keiser Report: CIA, NSA & Economic Espionage (E498) (second half with Greg Palast)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017146372

Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Non-profits
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024106205

NSA data could be most useful for connected types on Wall Street.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022983519

NSA spied on EU's Anti Trust Chief
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024204596

2011: Wall Street firms spy on protesters with police in tax-funded center
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023286585

OUTRAGEOUS: Our Tax Money Funds Gov Surveillance Center In Lower Manhattan--& Wall St Is Part Of It!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2178769

Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12527647

NSA Monitors Porn Habits To Discredit 'Radicalizers'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024099994

How FBI Monitored Occupy Movement
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101651867

FBI started surveillance of Occupy before it occupied
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10022930860

Wall Street Protesters Complain of Police Surveillance
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101618930

Whoop, There It Is... 'Evidence Homeland Security Coordinated Occupy Crackdown' -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002462465

ACLU discovers FBI is labeling peace activists as 'potential terrorists'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4500788

Why is FBI Manufacturing Reasons to Arrest Occupy Protesters, Ignoring White Supremacist Violence
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12522821

DHS Tracked Occupy Wall Street to 'Control Protesters
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101463537

'Occupy' crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials
http://www.examiner.com/top-news-in-minneapolis/were-occupy-crackdowns-aided-by-federal-law-enforcement-agencies

FBI uses new powers to bug anti-war groups
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x237625

ACLU: FBI instructs police to suppress peaceful protests
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x253574

Ridiculous FBI list: You might be a domestic terrorist if ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1790765

American Protesters Declared Enemy for Weapons Testing Purposes; Rules of Engagement
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2132808#2139011

DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100227662

NSA, DEA fabricating evidence trails to imprison Americans using spying.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023406605

ACLU: On revenge and the NSA
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023491532

On the Espionage Act charges against Edward Snowden Glenn Greenwald
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023066929

US Uses Espionage Act To Convict Manning Using Words Added In 1990: "with a computer"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023375845

Fed Court: Just changed interpretation of Espionage Act to cover leaks that are NOT Harmful To USA
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023365713

Obama's abuse of the Espionage Act is modern-day McCarthyism
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023413935

NY Times: White House Uses Espionage Act to Silence Employees, Press
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101616764

Obama Has Charged More Under Espionage Act Than All Other Presidents Combined
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023080388

A Nation of "Suspects"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5011487
http://www.truth-out.org/nation-suspects/1314810046

That magic word, "terrorism." The government's identification of those needing further scrutiny
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022730456#post13

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002257966

"Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator Transportation Security Administration officers consider when looking for possible criminals and terrorists"
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15/tsa.screeners.complain/

Top US counterterrorism official: drone critics are Al Qaeda enablers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002279862

[librechik]

1. yes indeed.

excellent observation

[quinnox]

2. But..but..but.. Obama...and the government knows best

...and...no one cares about it anyway so that makes it ok...This is the kind of moronic logic to be seen among the authoritarian spy defenders.

K&R!

[woo me with science]

12. The corporatists are gearing up for an election year,

so we will hear lots of feigned concern about inequality by those who simultaneously enact vicious assaults on and massive betrayals of the 99 percent including the unconscionable TPP and the predatory NSA.

Terror is being used an an excuse to implement a surveillance state, and the TPP is a major step in trading US sovereignty and democratic rule for global corporate tyranny.

Watch what they do, not what they say.

[PowerToThePeople]

13. Setting us up for another bait and switch, '08 style? n/t

[woo me with science]

15. They want to control the narrative,

Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2014, 11:13 PM - Edit history (1)

so that they can seize and campaign on the country's anger about inequality without actually being held accountable for their policies that viciously promote inequality.

I think they will definitely try a bait and switch in 2016. Until then they need desperately to control the narrative and prevent the growth of this awareness among the people that we've been conned, over and over again. They need to keep the lying Third Way/Republican narrative alive that painful corporate policies are the only realistic or electorally viable policies, and the only way they can do that is by keeping discussion of alternatives out of the mainstream.

Look what happened last week when just *one* politician started talking against the surveillance state and suggesting that something other than corporate predation could be possible from our government. Within a day, the propaganda brigade had flooded the board with threads insinuating racism and homophobia and any mud they could sling. They are terrified, not so much of the individual politicians, but of losing control of the corporate, lying narrative: that nothing other than corporatism is realistic or possible. They are terrified that some are finally starting to tell the truth: that not only are policies that represent and help people rather than assaulting them *possible,* but they are necessary and good for the country and merely require making a choice to enact them.

These corporatists desperately don't want to talk about the TPP, and they will try to handle the NSA by pretending to reform it, all the while denying its real purpose and function for the One Percent.

They fear one thing, and that is a country that recognizes that policy is CHOSEN....and unites against the predation.

[sabrina 1]

37. I noticed that also, how the board was flooded with attacks on a DEMOCRAT as soon

he appeared to be getting some traction as a potential candidate.

THAT is what got me interested in me since I was not at all familiar with him.

They ARE losing control of the message. OWS presented a different message which resonated with the people so fast you have to conclude that a majority of the people KNOW something is terribly wrong, but didn't know how to articulate it. OWS did that brilliantly and they became a target of the Corporate Security State, as one of your links says, even while they were in the planning stages. It is SPOOKY to think that citizens are being spied on, monitored, labeled 'potential terrorists' in a country that STILL claims to be a democracy.

Thank you for this excellent OP. I am reading the links which will take a while.

[questionseverything]

14. illegal prosecutions are just icing on the cake

http://www.businessinsider.com/dea-agents-cover-up-spying-program-2013-8#ixzz2b5rgTgIz

watching the current admin's speech yesterday nothing was said about the sharing of nsa intel with other le agencies, the parallel
construction which denies the accused of a fair trial

thanks for your well documented op

[woo me with science]

16. Fabrication of evidence trails against American citizens...

This is how corrupt our government has become, when headlines like that are met with silence.

[riderinthestorm]

3. Yup. agreed. Since the NSA hasn't stopped any terrorist attacks its obvious its existence is for

Economic dominance for the elite.

[ProSense]

4. This is

It is deeply disingenuous to try to argue that they aren't related, or that people focusing on one are ignoring the other.

They are deeply, intimately connected.

Why do plutocrats put a sweeping, Constitution-assaulting, spying infrastructure into place? To increase their own power and control, to facilitate their corporate predatory agenda, and to prevent investigation of their abuses by a free press and dissent by the citizens they are systematically exploiting, stripping of their rights, and impoverishing.

Caring about poverty REQUIRES that we take a powerful stand against this government spying. This sort of government abuse enables every corporate outrage that is the CAUSE of the poverty we are talking about. Targeting our outrage here is not an either-or proposition.

...mumbo jumbo. You could end the NSA tomorrow, but if you don't address poverty, nothing would change.

Citizens United, those corporate ads following you around on the Internet, greed, low wages....corporations are responsible for rising inequality, not primarily the government. It's corporate influence in government that leads to inequality, not the other way around.

[PowerToThePeople]

11. I agree with you

Citizens United, those corporate ads following you around on the Internet, greed, low wages....corporations are responsible for rising inequality, not primarily the government. It's corporate influence in government that leads to inequality, not the other way around.

It is fighting the symptom, not the root cause. Rescinding Citizens United and a reshaping of corporate law/tax codes/etc are needed to stop the issue.

We are fighting to remove the gun from the murdering lunatic. The gun needs to be removed so no one gets killed. You still need to get rid of the murdering lunatic or he will just come back at you with something else.

[reACTIONary]

30. "mumbo jumbo" - Excelent summary. (nm)

[sabrina 1]

38. And it's Corporate influence that is responsible for the massive Spying program, as Bernie said,

the violation of our constitutional rights, WHICH HAS TO END. This is not about 'terror'. That has already been established now, it is about control of the World's economics and anyone who hasn't grasped that by now isn't paying attention.

[Egalitarian Thug]

56. Thank you for the hopeless effort. n/t

[siligut]

5. Absolutely, who is arguing that they aren't related?

Those in power want to stay in power. The criminals who have found their way to the top, know that they need to keep one step ahead and have all sorts of ways of doing it, spying is just one.

[redqueen]

6. Exactly. This isn't new, or unique to the US. nt

[questionseverything]

7. built to control the message

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8865

Barr had been CEO of the U.S. government contracted firm HBGary Federal until earlier this year, after the firm was embarrassed when their hard drives were scrubbed, their websites hacked, Barr's Twitter account defaced, his iPad remotely wiped and some 70,000 of the "cyber security" company's emails were stolen and posted on the Internet by Anonymous in retaliation against Barr who, the hacktivist group claimed, was poised to release inaccurate information about the group's supposed "leadership".

Found among the treasure trove of Barr's HBGary emails was a $12 million plot being hatched on behalf of the criminal thugs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest and most powerful Rightwing lobbying outfit. The scheme was being secretly devised, according to the emails, by the Chamber's high-powered D.C. law firm Hunton & Williams along with HBGary and two other U.S. cyber security contractors, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies. Their plans were to smear, defraud, plant fake documents and spy --- even hack --- perceived political opponents of the Chamber.

The plot was accidentally discovered via Anonymous' hack of HBGary just days before it was to be put into action. The scheme was to take tools developed by the three companies with public money for use in the "War on Terror" and turn them against U.S. Citizens like myself and my family who were discovered to have been named as targets in the emails, along with photos and personal details about us. A number of progressive advocates and organizations, including other journalistic outlets, were also to have been targets of the Chamber's plot.

Also discovered among the emails was a parallel scheme being coordinated by the same D.C. law firm and the same three U.S. government-funded cyber security firms --- who had banded together to call themselves "Team Themis" --- to target perceived proponents of WikiLeaks, including Salon journalist Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of the corporate giant Bank of America. In both plots, HBGary's Aaron Barr was seen as the lead developer of the various extra-legal schemes.

[riderinthestorm]

9. Wow. Gotta K&R this. nt

[woo me with science]

17. This should be an OP.

Thanks for posting this.

[questionseverything]

19. dod working with bank of america to stifle reporters

with fake personas and infiltrators ...add in a couple planted docs and who gets prosecuted?

the whistle blower of course (anon)

ty 4 reading the link

[woo me with science]

21. It is corrupt and disturbing beyond words.

I never thought I would see my country come to this. We live in Oceania now, complete with a surveillance machine and a Ministry of Justice and a propaganda machine that incessantly drones,

2 + 2 = 5.

[sabrina 1]

39. HB Gary, exposed, and that is why we see all the Smears against Greenwald. Someone else

probably got that contract AFTER HB Gary was exposed. There was supposed to be a Congressional Investigation into what they were doing, which Hank Johnson, I believe, called 'illegal'. But nothing has happened. Yet.

Aaron Barr. I wonder what he's up to now?

Greenwald needs to be careful. I remember the emails back and forth regarding how to find out about his 'private life', did he have children who could be watched on their way to school, a wife etc. It was spine chilling especially when you remember that Greenwald at that time was a relatively obscure blogger. And we have enablers, right here unfortunately.

Thanks for that reminder. Anonymous are priceless when they do things like this. We would never have known.

[questionseverything]

41. some are still following the trail

Brown case, including Brown’s initial (aborted by arrest) reporting on Endgame.22 Hastings, prior to his
untimely death, posted on his Twitter account to his friend Ron Brynaert that he was going to be working on
Barrett Brown's story and to “get ready for your mind to be blown”.23

However, before going underground Michael Hastings' car exploded and his engine was blown sixty feet in a
fiery crash in Los Angeles. Many journalists on the left in the US have assumed foul play in the Hastings
crash and recently an Email was released by one of Hastings' friends in the military that suggests Hastings
was onto a major case and about to go underground after learning he was being investigated and under
surveillance by people he assumed were FBI.

Clearly the FBI worked with the creators of Bonesaw and their supporters in the intelligence infrastructure
who had no desire to see any of this come to light. In fact, when HBGary was researching people on the left
who were writing about misconduct at the US Chamber of Commerce, Christopher Rouland ordered an
Endgame employee to write an Email to HBGary that stated “please let HBGary know we don't want to see
our name in an Email” as was recently reported by Nation magazine in an article about Barrett Brown.
Brown, according to Nation magazine, published as a reporter the Email from the Stratfor data dump that
Anonymous made available. Brown and his “Project PM” which Michael Hastings was also a part of
became fascinated with Endgame.

It appears Endgame desired to remain under the radar as was exhibited by an exchange between HBGary's
Aaron Barr and Brian Masterson at Xteron brought to light by Barrett Brown's reporting where he
reproduced these Email exchanges:

Aaron Barr to Brian Masterson of Xetron: "But they are awfully cagey about their data. They keep
telling me that if their name gets out in the press they are done. Why?"

CEO Chris Rouland to employee John Farrell: "Please let HBgary know we don't ever want to see
our name in a press release."

John Farrell to Aaron Barr: "Chris wanted me to pass this along. We've been very careful NOT to
have public face on our company. Please ensure Palantir and your other partners understand we're
purposefully trying to maintain a very low profile. Chris is very cautious based on feedback we've
received

http://freepress.org/images/departments/5042.pdf

[sabrina 1]

43. Thank you. The story just seemed to die after the Congressional Committee

was set up to investigate what they were up to.

I knew about Hastings and have been hoping he left info that can later be followed up on.

I haven't read the article yet, just skimmed it, but I will.

That's an interesting conversation in your last paragraphs. Lol, I'm sure they want to keep a 'low profile' but with all this spying going on, on EVERYONE, that might be a challenge, unless they are exempt of course.

Thank you for the link .... I appreciate it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Why do you hate Murika?

http://m.

&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpU9FEUBPWt4

Fuck yeah

[El_Johns]

10. KR

[WillyT]

18. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[L0oniX]

20. bookmarking ...saving to .doc

[Rex]

22. Some here would pretend we have not lived with 30 years of 'trickle down' economics

under BOTH political parties...then again their agenda is obvious.

[woo me with science]

24. See post 21. I really do think

the very existence and relentlessness and creepiness of the lying propaganda machine drives home as well as all the predatory legislation how thoroughly and deeply corrupt this government has become.

[Rex]

26. I agree and it has totally saturated the media both on cable and here on the WWW.

Funny, we all thought MAYBE someone would be held accountable for 8 years of corporate/government thievery under the BFEE...boy were we dreaming!

[woo me with science]

33. What an incredible waste.

Not just waste. Betrayal.

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/LOB9DBtkkbFHpUli3Fx5cQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYwMA--/

[Rex]

36. Over 50 years in politics in bed with corporate ownership.

They just don't do corporate malfeasance, the owners COULD actually go for it (it won't matter since the system is rigged they would still be able to keep the lions share) but we know they won't. To ignore regulations and oversight to downright doing nothing in Congress. People asking if they actually do anything? I say yeah they owe us 24 billion dollars for shutting down the government. For starters.

You can go back to Spiro Agnew and Nixon. So many people promise equality, so few deliver it.

[zeemike]

23. Yep...K&R

What they have in store for us is a neo fudelism...so they can feel and act like kings.

[woo me with science]

42. We had an interesting short interlude there in human history,

when the farm animals were relatively well cared for and allowed to have a middle class. I guess that got old for them.

[JackRiddler]

25. Amen! All our grievances are related...

and smart people who claim not to see it are in avoidance.

[woo me with science]

34. "All our grievances are related."

As I've watched more and more people waking up all over the country, that's what they all say WOKE them up: a dawning (or sudden) realization that the root problem in ALL these issues is the same. We are bought and sold by the bloodsucking corporate One Percent and their purchased politicians.

Every single issue is propagandized separately, but the thread in common is that we are bought and sold, and they are stripping our protections and monetizing every single aspect of our lives in order to buy and sell us some more. Once people realize that and can start to pay attention and follow the money *in every single issue,* they see through the bullshit and the propaganda.

Good post - Thanks.

[BelgianMadCow]

46. that's why I always though of Occupy as a civil rights movement

for democracy, against predatory capitalism.

[arely staircase]

27. "beautiful"

[LiberalLovinLug]

28. This is what the NSA appologists fail to admit

Like a bunch of chicken littles running around clucking about how the sky is falling when meanwhile, back on earth, the farmer is one by one hacking to death their families back in the barn..and will soon be coming for them next.

[jazzimov]

29. WTF?

[Egalitarian Thug]

31. K&R Just look at the establishment of the U.S. intelligence agencies. Who has run them

from the very earliest days? Information has always been power.

[woo me with science]

32. +1

[jsr]

35. Recommend

[joshcryer]

40. This is especially true in Soviet Russia...

...and other surveillance states that have followed the basic roadmap.

[Fumesucker]

48. The Soviet Union is ancient history now Yakov

You could try moving into the 21st century, things have changed.

[joshcryer]

49. But the methods are employed to this day.

And without bringing the poor out of poverty.

[Fumesucker]

50. As we have been told repeatedly, *everybody* does it, that's why it's OK

It's a problem so old that it was ancient when the Latin phrase for it was coined. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Who will watch the watchers indeed.

[joshcryer]

51. I am agreeing domestic spying = impoverishment.

I am not in any way saying it is fucking OK.

Unless we're going to delude ourselves that the Soviet State and the Western Bloc and countries that employ those methods are egalitarian and don't have poverty. An allegation so preposterous it doesn't merit ones consideration.

[Fumesucker]

52. You seem to be responding to an argument no one is making

I know I'm not saying that any nation at all is egalitarian and has no poverty.

[joshcryer]

54. *You* are the one responding to an argument no one is making.

I am stating the absolute objective truth.

If it didn't work for the totalitarian states, how can we think it would work for us?

[Fumesucker]

55. You might not be making the argument but someone here is

Everyone does it, therefore it's OK, I've read it hundreds of times in one variation or another now on this "liberal" board.

Actually I started this subthread joshing about your use of "Soviet Russia".

[joshcryer]

59. Who? Absurd.

I think that the OP is correct and I think that Soviet Russia and other totalitarian states mirror the idea. Security states don't give one shit about the impoverished.

[Fumesucker]

61. Oh, it's an argument the clacque is rather fond of n/t

[LuvNewcastle]

53. Only whistleblowers can watch the watchers these days, but too many people

don't appreciate them for what they do, people who should be praising them. It must be frustrating to say the least when a whistleblower sticks his neck out and the people he's trying to help shit on him, all because they're too loyal to some politician who doesn't give a damn about them. But that's another old story.

[LuvNewcastle]

44. They could never get away with the shit they do without all the surveillance and intimidation.

We've been manipulated at every turn, and they're guiding us to the slaughterhouse. Thanks for the excellent thread.

[BelgianMadCow]

45. for posterity.

bookmarked

[solarhydrocan]

47. +38 another excellent compilation. Thx

[Kolesar]

57. Compiled by somebody who does not *do*anything about poverty or domestic spying

:mumbo jumbo:

[Octafish]

60. When few understand, what is more important than witing about this?

Goverment spying has caught near zero terrorists, yet its information is processed and held largely by a few private corporations, SAIC; Booz, Allen, Hamilton; Blackwater...all connected in Washington and on Wall Street.

The top 400 incomes took in more than the bottom 300 million, wars for profit go on in secret around the globe, banksters who looted their institutions and illegally tossed millions from their homes, and the traitors who lied America into war walk free.

If you haven't noticed, it may be because you didn't hear about it on the corporate news. If you did notice and you're criticizing people who have noticed, you probably are in the wrong place.

[xchrom]

58. du rec.