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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Obama Is Expanding the Century-Long Project to Build a Total Surveillance State
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-obama-expanding-century-long-project-build-total-surveillance-stateThe American surveillance state is now an omnipresent reality, but its deep history is little known and its future little grasped. Edward Snowdens leaked documents reveal that, in a post-9/11 state of war, the National Security Agency (NSA) was able to create a surveillance system that could secretly monitor the private communications of almost every American in the name of fighting foreign terrorists. The technology used is state of the art; the impulse, it turns out, is nothing new. For well over a century, what might be called surveillance blowback from Americas wars has ensured the creation of an ever more massive and omnipresent internal security and surveillance apparatus. Its future (though not ours) looks bright indeed.
In 1898, Washington occupied the Philippines and in the years that followed pacified its rebellious people, in part by fashioning the worlds first full-scale surveillance state in a colonial land. The illiberal lessons learned there then migrated homeward, providing the basis for constructing Americas earliest internal security and surveillance apparatus during World War I. A half-century later, as protests mounted during the Vietnam War, the FBI, building on the foundations of that old security structure, launched large-scale illegal counterintelligence operations to harass antiwar activists, while President Richard Nixons White House created its own surveillance apparatus to target its domestic enemies.
In the aftermath of those wars, however, reformers pushed back against secret surveillance. Republican privacy advocates abolished much of President Woodrow Wilsons security apparatus during the 1920s, and Democratic liberals in Congress created the FISA courts in the 1970s in an attempt to prevent any recurrence of President Nixons illegal domestic wiretapping.
Today, as Washington withdraws troops from the Greater Middle East, a sophisticated intelligence apparatus built for the pacification of Afghanistan and Iraq has come home to help create a twenty-first century surveillance state of unprecedented scope. But the past pattern that once checked the rise of a U.S. surveillance state seems to be breaking down. Despite talk about ending the war on terror one day, President Obama has left the historic pattern of partisan reforms far behind. In what has become a permanent state of wartime at home, the Obama administration is building upon the surveillance systems created in the Bush years to maintain U.S. global dominion in peace or war through a strategic, ever-widening edge in information control. The White House shows no sign -- nor does Congress -- of cutting back on construction of a powerful, global Panopticon that can surveil domestic dissidents, track terrorists, manipulate allied nations, monitor rival powers, counter hostile cyber strikes, launch preemptive cyberattacks, and protect domestic communications.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
pnwmom
(108,995 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)Why has the surveillance state continuing to expand if Obama has cut back those programs?
pnwmom
(108,995 posts)Obama dropped at least one whole program in 2011 and cut back on another.
RC
(25,592 posts)What of this massive data center in Utah, that just opened?
The NSA Is Building the Countrys Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
By James Bamford
03.15.12
7:24 PM
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
Utah Data Center
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
Utah Data Center
http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/
NSA's Utah Home Is A 1.5 Million Square Foot 'Spy Center'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/nsa-utah_n_3434175.html
There is much more to show expanded massively.
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)the new euphemism for "doubled the budget of"?
Pholus
(4,062 posts)More money for data transfers: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/price-surveillance-govt-pays-snoop
More cameras: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/26/video-surveillance-boston-bombings/
More drones: http://www.alternet.org/story/15373/dhs_pumping_money_into_drones_for_domestic_surveillance,_hunting_immigrants_and_seizing_pot
More lobbying: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/nsa-surveillance-telecom-lobbying_n_3422816.html
More NSA facilities: http://matthewaid.tumblr.com/post/16727828364/nsa-expanding-its-facilities
but look at the good sides here....more jobs!!!!
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Pholus
(4,062 posts)Not a very rigorous analysis there.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)created in 1978.
Same for laws passed before 2006.
And a data center that was announced in 2009.
Pholus
(4,062 posts)Markey's disclosures about prices paid for data were from 2012.
The video surveillance thing was post Boston Bombings -- 2013.
The drone story was from 2012.
The lobbying story from 2013.
The budget story was from 2012.
You seem to have problems with numbers at times. Let me help you.
2012 > 1978
2012 > 2006
2012 > 2009
2013 > 2012
cali
(114,904 posts)great white snark
(2,646 posts)And it certainly isn't an excuse to use the Rand/Ron Paul worthy "big brother is watching" pic.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,758 posts)For example, no one should ever have to pay to replace a lost cellphone. The NSA should be able to lock in and find the cellphone on request. That also goes for kidnapped victims. The NSA should have a department to help police track down missing persons.
That also goes with helping them identify public corruption. Secret meetings and deals that they hear about should be forwarded to the right law enforcement agencies.
But there are no benefits, are there? None at all. Because there is so much information out there that the only practical purpose is to use it forensically.
Pholus
(4,062 posts)Instead of another form of corporate welfare:
We pay the telcoms for access.
The government pays telcoms for access to us.
Seems the money all flows one way....why not cut out the middleman and nationalize it.
Baitball Blogger
(46,758 posts)Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)westerebus
(2,976 posts)Can a half a $ trillion program kill the inter-tube's spam and if not, can it keep your ID safe?
No.
So why are we spending the money?
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)because it serves the corporate state.
And not just surveillance. The propaganda apparatus is equally powerful, again, serving only the corporate state usually against the interests of working class Americans.
This is simply undeniable. Well, employees of the propaganda mechanism can deny it.