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In reply to the discussion: The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)17. J Edgar Hoover with Supercomputers
George Orwell put his ideas down on paper in 1984, Animal Farm and other written works. While he didn't foretell the arrival of computing and its implications for mass surveillance, Terry Gilliam did. In the Python's outstanding 1985 film, "Brazil," the Memory Hole was partly electronic, but still required a lot of paperwork and tubes to get the job done of keeping history straight and the tabs on everyone. Today, things are even worse.
Ray McGovern called the situation: "J Edgar Hoover on Supercomputers." I think it may be even worse. The guys who got rid of Nixon -- and Frank Church -- have the latest gear.
J. Edgar Hoover With Supercomputers
by Ray McGovern
AntiWar.com, January 6, 2006
On Dec. 19, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Gen. Mike Hayden held a press conference in which they once again misled the American people.
Gonzales and Hayden answered questions about reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), which Hayden directed from 1999 to 2005, was eavesdropping on Americans via a special program in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The implications for privacy and our system of checks and balances are immense.
As long as he read from his prepared statement, Attorney General Gonzales did just fine with the press. He conceded that FISA requires a court order to authorize the surveillance the president ordered the NSA to undertake, and then hammered home the administration's "legal analysis:" the twin arguments that Congress' post-9/11 authorization of force and the president's power as commander in chief trump the legal constraints of FISA.
When the reporters' questions began, though, Gonzales faltered and twice spilled the beans. Asked why the administration decided to flout rather than amend FISA, choosing instead a "backdoor approach," Gonzales said:
"We have had discussions with Congress as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."
So they went ahead and did it anyway.
SNIP...
[font color="green"]Another concern is that, among the groups of American citizens most likely to be sucked up by the NSA's vacuum cleaner because of the nature of their work and their international calls/contacts are members of Congress and journalists. A key question that raises its ugly head is this: If hundreds of calls and e-mails involving Americans are being intercepted each and every day, and juicy tidbits are learned about, say, prominent officials or other persons, there will be an almost irresistible temptation to make use of this information. Former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley, who for many years monitored court-authorized electronic surveillances and wiretaps relating to organized criminal and drug conspiracy groups, recently underscored how much one can learn about someone by listening in on his/her private communications. She reminds us that the blackmail potential is clear.[/font color]
CONTINUED...
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=8349
Hannah Arendt warned us where all this is going:

The goal of wholesale surveillance, [font color="green"]as (Hannah) Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, is not, in the end, to discover crimes, but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population. [/font color]And because Americans emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough evidence to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant.
Chris Hedges, The Last Gasp of American Democracy
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Perhaps that article also points to why some so strongly de-emphasize the "U" in "DU" as well....
villager
Aug 2015
#1
It's beyond a Wurlitzer-it's a heavenly choir thanks to NASA (Dulles's PAPERCLIP pals) et.al. K&R
bobthedrummer
Aug 2015
#9
I'm pretty sure you mean this thread, for those who may have somehow missed it
Electric Monk
Aug 2015
#14
Kick and an invitation to join in on a discussion of "information operations" aka Psy-Ops for those
bobthedrummer
Aug 2015
#20
It used to be against the law, directing propaganda against the American people.
Octafish
Sep 2015
#26
Freedom is for those who can afford it. Poor kids rot unknown in jail for five years and die...
Octafish
Sep 2015
#29
Wait; is that, could that possibly be, and involving all sorts of people, a.....govt CONSPIRACY??
WinkyDink
Sep 2015
#30