Month: June 2013

Senator Ron Wyden Calls for Congressional Hearings

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I like Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.  He is one of the few Congressmen who has exhibited strong support in the defense of privacy issues, from his questions around drones, to his concerns with regard to the surveillance state being implemented all around us.  Recall, he was the only Democrat who strongly spoke in support of … Read more

My Response to David Brooks’ Hit Piece on Edward Snowden

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Where does the New York Times find these people?  I used to think Paul Krugman was bad, but David Brooks makes Krugman look like the reincarnation of Nostradamus and Adam Smith. A few minutes ago, I had the unfortunate experience of reading the latest nonsensical, statist drivel from David Brooks in an Op-Ed on Edward Snowden titled “The Solitary Leaker.” I’m not sure if my brain cells will ever forgive me the experience.

It’s one thing to write a hit-piece on Snowden (something we all knew would happen), and I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that the New York Times would be the “paper of record” to bring us such an editorial.  It’s quite another to write one that would only influence the simplest and most ignorant, brainwashed mind.  He sounds like a 15 year old boy arguing in the high school cafeteria.

At this point, I’m convinced that 90% of the people that call Edward Snowden a traitor are merely expressing a subconscious recognition of their own cowardice. The other 10% work for the military-industrial-Federal Reserve-propaganda complex.  David Brooks seems to uniquely fall squarely into both categories.

So let’s get into it.  It appears that David Brooks dusted off his copy of “How to Write a Hit Piece for Dummies” before getting started as he begins with an attempted character assassination.  He writes:

Though obviously terrifically bright, he could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school. Then he failed to navigate his way through community college. 

What drivel.  So many of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and thinkers failed to thrive in the school system.  They were simply too bright.  Even Albert Einstein was known to have struggled in many high school classes.

Brooks then writes:

He has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years. When a neighbor in Hawaii tried to introduce himself, Snowden cut him off and made it clear he wanted no neighborly relationships.

Really David, that’s the best you could do?

So after he completes his ineffective character assassination, he attempts to actually make an argument.  Something David Brooks is not very good at.  He writes:

This lens makes you more likely to share the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age: the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency, the assumption that individual preference should be supreme. You’re more likely to donate to the Ron Paul for president campaign, as Snowden did.

But Big Brother is not the only danger facing the country. Another is the rising tide of distrust, the corrosive spread of cynicism, the fraying of the social fabric and the rise of people who are so individualistic in their outlook that they have no real understanding of how to knit others together and look after the common good.

Brooks doesn’t even attempt to explain why Libertarianism is booming.  He sort of just implies that it has sprung out of thin air and then deeply laments its existence. This “deep suspicion of authority” did not spring from the ether.  Rather, it is the quite natural response to a corrupt, criminal and out of control corporate-financial and political oligarchy that has taken too much control and remains subject to zero accountability.  This isn’t about the balance between the individual and the political system we live under.  It is a realization that the “state” is being run to the benefit of the 0.01% at the expense of the 99.9%. It isn’t any more complicated than that.

Then he writes:

For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.

While I do not disagree with this statement, trust must be earned.  Our leaders have lost the trust of the citizenry and rightly so.  Then he makes another bizarre generational slander:

He betrayed his friends. Anybody who worked with him will be suspect. Young people in positions like that will no longer be trusted with responsibility for fear that they will turn into another Snowden.

That’s not all though.  He follows it with another childish knock on Snowden’s high school performance:

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Meet the Contractors: America’s “Digital Blackwater”

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The acronyms are seemingly endless.  From SAIC and CACI to CSC, there are many companies you’ve probably never heard of making billions of dollars spying on you and your friends and family.  As I mentioned yesterday when I highlighted how Booz Allen Hamilton earns 99% of its revenue from the U.S. government and that a substantial number of its contracts are “secret,” this entire thing is simply a gigantic racket and a very dangerous one at that.  It’d be one thing if these so-called “private” contractors were merely funneling billions of dollars of taxpayer money to themselves like the bankers and their allies at the Federal Reserve do each day, but these contractors are also destroying the Bill of Rights and Constitution at the same time.

Tim Shorrock has written an excellent article on all this for Salon.  Below are some excerpts:

Amid the torrent of stories about the shocking new revelations about the National Security Agency, few have bothered to ask a central question. Who’s actually doing the work of analyzing all the data, metadata and personal information pouring into the agency from Verizon and nine key Internet service providers for its ever-expanding surveillance of American citizens?

The revelation is not that surprising. With about 70 percent of our national intelligence budgets being spent on the private sector  – a discovery I made in 2007 and first reported in Salon – contractors have become essential to the spying and surveillance operations of the NSA.

From Narus, the Israeli-born Boeing subsidiary that makes NSA’s high-speed interception software, to CSC, the “systems integrator” that runs NSA’s internal IT system, defense and intelligence, contractors are making millions of dollars selling technology and services that help the world’s largest surveillance system spy on you. If the 70 percent figure is applied to the NSA’s estimated budget of $8 billion a year (the largest in the intelligence community), NSA contracting could reach as high as $6 billion every year.

But it’s probably much more than that.

With many of these contractors now focused on cyber-security, Hayden has even coined a new term — “Digital Blackwater” – for the industry. “I use that for the concept of the private sector in cyber,” he told a recent conference in Washington, in an odd reference to the notorious mercenary army. “I saw this in government and saw it a lot over the last four years. The private sector has really moved forward in terms of providing security,” he said. Hayden himself has cashed out too: He is now a principal with the Chertoff Group, the intelligence advisory company led by Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of Homeland Security.

So Hayden actually used the term “Digital Blackwater” in a positive sense.  What more do you need to know?

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Sales of George Orwell’s 1984 Have Soared 126%

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I first read this story earlier in the day via the Washington Examiner.  That was a few hours ago and at the time their story stated sales were up a mere 69%.  They subsequently  updated the article to inform readers that sales had risen to up 91%.  Well I just checked for myself and the … Read more

Booz Allen Hamilton: This “Private” Company Earns 99% of its Revenue from the U.S. Government

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One of the most dangerous things happening in America today is that so called “private” companies are doing much of the government’s dirty work, completely in the shadows and with essentially zero accountability.  Booz Allen Hamilton, the defense contractor that employed whistleblower hero Edward Snowden is one of them.  Recall that Booz Allen is the contractor that journalist and activist Barrett Brown was thoroughly investigating when he was arrested last year.  In the past couple of days, both Bloomberg and the New York Times have written stories on this shady company and some interesting facts have emerged.  One of the most telling is this excerpt from Booz Allen’s annual report:

“Because we are limited in our ability to provide information about these contracts and services,” the company said in its latest annual report, “you may not have important information concerning our business, which will limit your insight into a substantial portion of our business, and therefore may be less able to fully evaluate the risks related to that portion of our business.”

More from Bloomberg:

There’s a company near Washington with strong ties to the U.S. intelligence community that has been around for almost a century and has secret ways of making money — so secret that the company can’t tell you what they are. Investors who buy just need to have faith.

Booz Allen is the government contractor that employed Edward Snowden when he leaked a trove of secret documents about National Security Agency surveillance programs to the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post. The consulting company, based in McLean, Virginia, is upfront about the ways in which its silence creates risks for shareholders. It derives 99 percent of its revenue from the U.S. government and says a substantial portion of its contracts are classified.

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The “Pardon Edward Snowden” Petition is Exploding with Signatures…Sign Here

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Yesterday, someone created a “Pardon Edward Snowden” petition on Whitehouse.gov and I’ve never seen a petition get this many signatures this fast.  Recall, the Administration raised the threshold on these petitions from 25,000 to 100,000 back in January.  This threshold represents the amount needed to garner a White House response.  This petition already has 21,500 … Read more

Video of the Day: Ron Paul Warns of Electronic Surveillance back in…1984

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There are three words that come to mind when I think of Ron Paul; principles, credibility and consistency.  Not only is the video below great because we get to see Dr. Paul speak on the Congressional floor thirty years younger, but also because he was adamantly criticizing civil liberties threats in the context of a … Read more

Meet the Whistleblower: Edward Snowden

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In a courageous and brilliant strategic move, the whistleblower everyone is talking about has come forward and revealed his identity as well as current location.  His name is Edward Snowden, he is 29 years old and has fled to Hong Kong.  He was most recently working with the NSA as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton.  If you recall, Booz Allen Hamilton is one of the defense contractors that activist and unofficial Anonymous spokesperson Barrett Brown was investigating when he was arrested and turned into a political prisoner. As might be expected, The Guardian has broken Mr. Snowden’s story.  Some choice excerpts are below:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

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Picture of the Day: CHANGE

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Actually the image is titled “Stasi USA” and it’s another brilliant gem from William Banzai7. Some things never CHANGE.   Like this post? Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G Follow me on Twitter.

Martin Luther King: “Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was Legal”

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Even if you have read Martin Luther King’s celebrated “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” I insist you read it again. For those that have never read it, the inspired prose may very well change your life.  The letter’s message is eternal and extraordinarily relevant in the current global struggle of the 99.9% against the criminality, corruption and oppression of a very small, but very powerful 0.01%.  One of the key tactics this tiny minority uses is to claim that their immoral deeds are “legal.”  He spends much of his time in the letter outlining the distinction between “just laws” and an “unjust laws,” and one of the key points he makes that we should all keep close to our hearts and minds in these trying times is:

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers.

I also think it’s important to recognize that many of his contemporaries referred to his tactics as “extremist,” very similar to how the term “terrorist” is used currently to demonize public dissent in America.  Below are some of the excepts I found most powerful:

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

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