NSA vs Snowden -- Follow the Money

[kentuck]

Some of the oldest advice we might find, when we are looking for someone with a motive for doing something wrong or illegal, is to "follow the money". Who has the most to gain and who has the most to lose?

As far as we know, Edward Snowden has not received any great compensation for blowing the whistle on the spying program of the NSA. He gave up a good paying job and a good life in Hawaii and may be in custody at any moment. Except to satisfy his personal narcissism, it is difficult to see where he benefits?

But the NSA has a lot to lose. The Agency is presently receiving about $80 billion per year from the taxpayers of this country. They work closely with the Carlyle Group, who have been involved in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East for several decades. They, in turn, contract their work out to folks like Booz-Allen, whom Snowden was employed with until this earth-shaking incident.

It is an incestuous relationship whereby officers of Booz-Allen and others work their way into the NSA and then, after they built up their infrastructure of connections within the government, they then move back into the contracting business, and one of their friends then move back into the leadership of the NSA.

Over the last 25 years, we have seen the Carlyle Group, under the leadership of Cap Weinberger, and with folks like George HW Bush on their Board, receive much of the government payola. They were also the parent company of Booz-Allen.

But the "war on terror" brought new opportunities for these contractors. With the assistance of John Poindexter, a computer information analyst from the Reagan Administration, they created the Total Information Awareness program. They wanted to "own the Internet".

So there was money to be made with the new "war on terror". Eventually they would be able to collect information on everyone. They would be able to catch the terrorists before they were able to act by connecting all the information. They received more and more government largesse. Their payroll got larger and larger as they hired more and more analysts, like Snowden.

But they could not produce the results that they promised. The centerpiece of their several years of spying and collecting information was the capture of the NYC subway bomber. But even that is under question. They have little to show for all the money they have received.

Naturally, they want to keep that money coming in. More than national security, it is about personal wealth for the cadre of political scam artists that gather government contracts. The fact that they were such a failure is the biggest secret of all.

Edward Snowden had very little "real" intelligence to give anyone. Phone numbers and email addresses and Internet communications were not as valuable as they thought for intelligence gathering. But the money they made from collecting this information was very valuable.

That is the secret they did not want exposed. Many in the NSA and the contracting business stand to lose a lot of money if the truth is known. This whole episode is not about national security. It is about scamming the American taxpayers. That is why everything is a secret. That is what Edward Snowden has exposed.

[Enthusiast]

1. I wonder how much this Booze Allen Group had to

do with fostering the 911 attacks. I suspect they are a decades long manifestation of the Neo-Con state apparatus.

[No Elephants]

2. The more things change, the more they stay the same. (English translation of French saying.)

New Democrats. Nothing like Old Democrats.