Thom Hartmann: NSA Whistleblowers - Are They Spying on the Entire Country? P2

[thomhartmann]

For tonight's Conversations with Great Minds - I'm joined by NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Kirk Wiebe. Both men were involved in exposing the NSA's massive, illegal, domestic spying program known as the Trailblazer project initiated in 2000. Despite not leaking any classified information - and exhaustively going through all the protocols required for members of the intelligence community to blow the whistle on wrongdoing - both men faced serious retributions for going public with what they knew about the NSA's surveillance program. In 2007 - after a reporter for the Baltimore Sun obtained information regarding waste, fraud, and abuse at the NSA - FBI agents raided the home Kirk Wiebe - confiscating computer hard drives and business records - and revoking security clearance that Wiebe - an NSA veteran - had held since 1964. Wiebe was not charged with any crime. However - Thomas Drake - whose home was also raided - was charged with multiple crimes including violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. Eventually those charges were dropped in 2011. Since then - Drake has gone on to win multiple awards for his courage in blowing the whistle on the NSA - including the Ridenour Prize for Truth Telling and the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. And both he and Kirk Wiebe have done tremendous work to inform all of us on the growing American surveillance state. The National Security Agency is building a massive spy center in Utah. What for? And will Americans be the targets of the NSA's prying eyes?

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[KurtNYC]

1. Because it is possible to create a system that captures every

phone call, email, text message, instant message, facebook post, every tagged photograph, every uploaded YouTube video, every plane ticket, every credit card transaction (complete with what was purchased), every surveillance video, every ATM transaction, every use of a bus pass, subway or train fare card and internet post...they will.

If only the education or medical systems in this country suffered from the same kind of redundancy and multiple overlapping layers of governmental attention !

[jjewell]

2. Mankind has never created a weapon...

that he didn't deploy against someone, somewhere...

The internet is being "reverse-engineered" as/into a weapon against the masses...

[90-percent]

3. Mass criminalization and selective enforcement

My hero Frank Zappa had a lot to say about that in his time.

Would be nice if I could find a link or something, wouldn't it?

Anyway, are we a totalitarian fascist police state yet?

Well, in my opinion, yes, absolutely. All the apparatus is in place, it just isn't being used aggressively yet.

It's those damn L.A. chalkers that are the real enemies of the state. I say make them eat rubber bullets!

-90% Jimmy

[90-percent]

4. The above concepts were fleshed out on Joe's Garage Acts 1,2, and 3

this is the source of the info below

http://forum.grasscity.com/apprentice-tokers/775365-frank-zappa-music-industry-government-joes-garage-%5Bwall-text-warning%5D.html



The idea of the album's background character "The Central Scrutinizer", whose job it is to enforce all un-passed laws is, in my mind, supposed to represent the government. The album brings up very controversial points about government, in my mind. It reads;

"Eventually it was discovered, That God, Did not want us all to be the same. This was, BAD NEWS, For the Government of The World, As it seemed contrary, To the doctrine of, Portion Controlled Servings. Mankind must be made more, Uniformly if, THE FUTURE, Was going to work. Various ways were sought, To bind us all together, But, alas, Same-ness was unenforceable. It was about this time, That someone, Came up with the idea of, TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION. Based on the principle that, if we were ALL crooks, We could at last be made uniform, To some degree in the eyes of, THE LAW. Shrewdly our legislators, Calculated, That most people were, Too lazy to perform a, REAL CRIME, So no new laws were, Manufactured, Making it possible for, Anyone to violate them, Any time of the day or night, And, Once we had all broken, Some kind of law, We'd all be in the same,Big happy club, Right up there with the, President, The most exalted industrialists, And the clerical big shots, Of all your favorite religions. TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION, Was the greatest idea of its, Time and was vastly popular, Except with those people, Who didn't want to be crooks, Or outlaws. So, of course, they had to be, TRICKED INTO IT... Which is one of the reasons, Why, Music, Was eventually made, ILLEGAL."




Ah, yes, franks's good old CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER, responsible for enforcing laws that haven't been passed yet. I bet there really is an official CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER buried in the convenient immediately passed after 9/11 PATRIOT ACT!

Frank's liner notes mentioned that such concepts aren't so far fetched, as the religious theocracy of 1979 Iran actually did outlaw a lot of music.

-90% Jimmy

PS - in Frank's own words:

"If the plot of the story seems just a little bit preposterous, and if the idea of The Central Scrutinizer enforcing laws that haven't been passed yet makes you giggle, just be glad you don't live in one of the cheerful little countries where, at this very moment, music is either severely restricted ... or, as it is in Iran, totally illegal. "

source: http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/The_Story_Of_Joe%27s_Garage