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In reply to the discussion: Greenwald: Leaked Docs Reveal Agency's (GCHQ) Digital Propaganda Toolkit [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)76. Alfred McCoy: It's About Blackmail, Not National Security
Surveillance and Scandal
Time-Tested Weapons for U.S. Global Power
By Alfred McCoy
Tomgram, Jan. 19, 2014
For more than six months, Edward Snowdens revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) have been pouring out from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Germanys Der Spiegel, and Brazils O Globo, among other places. Yet no one has pointed out the combination of factors that made the NSAs expanding programs to monitor the world seem like such a slam-dunk development in Washington. The answer is remarkably simple. For an imperial power losing its economic grip on the planet and heading into more austere times, the NSAs latest technological breakthroughs look like a bargain basement deal when it comes to projecting power and keeping subordinate allies in line -- like, in fact, the steal of the century. Even when disaster turned out to be attached to them, the NSAs surveillance programs have come with such a discounted price tag that no Washington elite was going to reject them.
For well over a century, from the pacification of the Philippines in 1898 to trade negotiations with the European Union today, surveillance and its kissing cousins, scandal and scurrilous information, have been key weapons in Washingtons search for global dominion. Not surprisingly, in a post-9/11 bipartisan exercise of executive power, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have presided over building the NSA step by secret step into a digital panopticon designed to monitor the communications of every American and foreign leaders worldwide.
What exactly was the aim of such an unprecedented program of massive domestic and planetary spying, which clearly carried the risk of controversy at home and abroad? Here, an awareness of the more than century-long history of U.S. surveillance can guide us through the billions of bytes swept up by the NSA to the strategic significance of such a program for the planets last superpower. What the past reveals is a long-term relationship between American state surveillance and political scandal that helps illuminate the unacknowledged reason why the NSA monitors Americas closest allies.
[font color="green"]Not only does such surveillance help gain intelligence advantageous to U.S. diplomacy, trade relations, and war-making, but it also scoops up intimate information that can provide leverage -- akin to blackmail -- in sensitive global dealings and negotiations of every sort. The NSAs global panopticon thus fulfills an ancient dream of empire. With a few computer key strokes, the agency has solved the problem that has bedeviled world powers since at least the time of Caesar Augustus: how to control unruly local leaders, who are the foundation for imperial rule, by ferreting out crucial, often scurrilous, information to make them more malleable.[/font color]
A Cost-Savings Bonanza With a Downside
Once upon a time, such surveillance was both expensive and labor intensive. Today, however, unlike the U.S. Armys shoe-leather surveillance during World War I or the FBIs break-ins and phone bugs in the Cold War years, the NSA can monitor the entire world and its leaders with only 100-plus probes into the Internets fiber optic cables.
This new technology is both omniscient and omnipresent beyond anything those lacking top-secret clearance could have imagined before the Edward Snowden revelations began. Not only is it unimaginably pervasive, but NSA surveillance is also a particularly cost-effective strategy compared to just about any other form of global power projection. And better yet, it fulfills the greatest imperial dream of all: to be omniscient not just for a few islands, as in the Philippines a century ago, or a couple of countries, as in the Cold War era, but on a truly global scale.
CONTINUED...
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175795/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_it's_about_blackmail,_not_national_security/
Time-Tested Weapons for U.S. Global Power
By Alfred McCoy
Tomgram, Jan. 19, 2014
For more than six months, Edward Snowdens revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) have been pouring out from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Germanys Der Spiegel, and Brazils O Globo, among other places. Yet no one has pointed out the combination of factors that made the NSAs expanding programs to monitor the world seem like such a slam-dunk development in Washington. The answer is remarkably simple. For an imperial power losing its economic grip on the planet and heading into more austere times, the NSAs latest technological breakthroughs look like a bargain basement deal when it comes to projecting power and keeping subordinate allies in line -- like, in fact, the steal of the century. Even when disaster turned out to be attached to them, the NSAs surveillance programs have come with such a discounted price tag that no Washington elite was going to reject them.
For well over a century, from the pacification of the Philippines in 1898 to trade negotiations with the European Union today, surveillance and its kissing cousins, scandal and scurrilous information, have been key weapons in Washingtons search for global dominion. Not surprisingly, in a post-9/11 bipartisan exercise of executive power, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have presided over building the NSA step by secret step into a digital panopticon designed to monitor the communications of every American and foreign leaders worldwide.
What exactly was the aim of such an unprecedented program of massive domestic and planetary spying, which clearly carried the risk of controversy at home and abroad? Here, an awareness of the more than century-long history of U.S. surveillance can guide us through the billions of bytes swept up by the NSA to the strategic significance of such a program for the planets last superpower. What the past reveals is a long-term relationship between American state surveillance and political scandal that helps illuminate the unacknowledged reason why the NSA monitors Americas closest allies.
[font color="green"]Not only does such surveillance help gain intelligence advantageous to U.S. diplomacy, trade relations, and war-making, but it also scoops up intimate information that can provide leverage -- akin to blackmail -- in sensitive global dealings and negotiations of every sort. The NSAs global panopticon thus fulfills an ancient dream of empire. With a few computer key strokes, the agency has solved the problem that has bedeviled world powers since at least the time of Caesar Augustus: how to control unruly local leaders, who are the foundation for imperial rule, by ferreting out crucial, often scurrilous, information to make them more malleable.[/font color]
A Cost-Savings Bonanza With a Downside
Once upon a time, such surveillance was both expensive and labor intensive. Today, however, unlike the U.S. Armys shoe-leather surveillance during World War I or the FBIs break-ins and phone bugs in the Cold War years, the NSA can monitor the entire world and its leaders with only 100-plus probes into the Internets fiber optic cables.
This new technology is both omniscient and omnipresent beyond anything those lacking top-secret clearance could have imagined before the Edward Snowden revelations began. Not only is it unimaginably pervasive, but NSA surveillance is also a particularly cost-effective strategy compared to just about any other form of global power projection. And better yet, it fulfills the greatest imperial dream of all: to be omniscient not just for a few islands, as in the Philippines a century ago, or a couple of countries, as in the Cold War era, but on a truly global scale.
CONTINUED...
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175795/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_it's_about_blackmail,_not_national_security/
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Greenwald: Leaked Docs Reveal Agency's (GCHQ) Digital Propaganda Toolkit [View all]
Octafish
Jul 2014
OP
It was in the dawn of that era that the movie, The Anderson Tapes, was released
Babel_17
Jul 2014
#79
Another exasperated, cranky kick. This shit is really getting on my nerves. Rec! nt
riderinthestorm
Jul 2014
#12
He's famous because what he's doing is relevant as is Snowden and Assange.
Tierra_y_Libertad
Jul 2014
#25
Interesting to consider how these things were done before the Personal Computer revolution.
Trillo
Jul 2014
#29
Wow, more evidence of what has long been suspected. Once again, thanks Greenwald, Snowden
sabrina 1
Jul 2014
#36
Claiming GCHQ did these things yesterday would have you branded a conspiracy theorist.
pa28
Jul 2014
#38
“Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING)
OnyxCollie
Jul 2014
#51
They spy on Youtube? Oh, no, they'll find out I like Steve Spangler's science demonstrations.
tclambert
Jul 2014
#53
The Hillary is inevitable are you calling Elizabeth a liar is getting funny, too.
djean111
Jul 2014
#59