Hallmark of an Authoritarian State (analysis of the NSA)

When we look back through history at authoritarian states, one thing sticks out above all else, their tendency to have humongous inward looking spy agencies. With the USSR, it was the KGB and with Nazi Germany, it was the Gestapo. In fact, when you look at almost every police state in history, they all have one thing in common and that is their very intricate inward looking spy agencies. Every authoritarian regime in modern history had one and it would appear that the US has one too.

Enter the NSA. With the Washington Post's recent expose on America's intelligence-industrial-complex, one thing becomes crystal clear and that is the magnitude of our current inward looking intelligence infrastructure, the NSA to be more specific.

One could easily argue that this agency is designed to protect us not only from those outside sources that want to harm us, but also from ourselves. However, this argument was also made when defending both the KGB and the Gestapo and the argument is currently being used to defend North Korea's SSD by the supporters of that agency.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c98fb06454a7.jpg[/atsimg]

Lets take a look at the NSA for a minute. Currently, the NSA headquarters boasts a massive 6.3 million square feet of office space and 112 acres of parking space around it (roughly the same size as the Pentagon). However, that is only the current size. Documents indicate that the agency is only going to get bigger. Over the next 15 years, the NSA should grow by over 10,000 workers with over $2,000,000,000.00 ($2 billion USD) allocated for only the first phase of the expansion. This will bring an over-all increase in size of the complex on Fort Meade to more than 14 million square feet of building space.

The NSA has over 250 different private sector contractors with a presence at their Fort Meade HQ, which translates to about 13 percent of all secret contractors that we know of. On top of this, there are 681 locations (that we think we know of) in the Fort Meade cluster where top secret work is conducted on behalf of the NSA.

This complex is so secret, that when driving near it with a GPS, your gadget will start spouting out incorrect directions and putting you on an endless loop of U-turns and turn-arounds because the NSA is jamming all signals within a radius of their instillation.

Inside the locations are employees who must submit to strict, intrusive rules. They take lie-detector tests routinely, sign nondisclosure forms and file lengthy reports whenever they travel overseas. They are coached on how to deal with nosy neighbors and curious friends. Some are trained to assume false identities.

If they drink too much, borrow too much money or socialize with citizens from certain countries, they can lose their security clearances, and a clearance is the passport to a job for life at the NSA and its sister intelligence organizations...

Source: rawstory.com...

Although the NSA is supposed to be focused on foreign intelligence, I think we are all familiar with their domestic operations.



The other week, I started a thread titled, "Report: NSA creating spy system to monitor domestic infrastructure".

Internal Raytheon email calls system 'Big Brother'

The National Security Agency has begun work on an "expansive" spy system that will monitor critical infrastructure inside the United States for cyber-attacks, in a move that detractors say could end up violating privacy rights and expanding the NSA's domestic spying abilities.

The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources as saying that the NSA has issued a $100-million contract to defense contractor Raytheon to build a system dubbed "Perfect Citizen," which will involve placing "sensors" at critical points in the computer networks of private and public organizations that run infrastructure, organizations such as nuclear power plants and electric grid operators.

In an email obtained by the Journal, an unnamed Raytheon employee describes the system as "Big Brother."

"The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government...feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security," the email states. "Perfect Citizen is Big Brother."

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2190b43974ce.jpg[/atsimg]

Source: www.eff.org...

Whistle blower document obtained by the EFF (.pdf): AT&T’s Role in Dragnet Surveillance of Millions of Its Customers

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e6edd6a3ca03.jpg[/atsimg]

So, if the NSA is so large and only growing, yet their new focus is inward spying, then I would have to conclude that this is only crystal clear evidence that we are living under authoritarian rule. Why else would you need such a massive inward-looking spy agency? The excuse of protecting our population from terrorism, simply doesn't cut it, especially since the focus of this large spy network is pointed inward, at us. The only logical reason that can be deduced, is that this massive spy agency is designed to keep control over its own population.

"Whoever shall trade a little liberty for a little security, deserves neither and will lose both" --Benjamin Franklin

Even if we look at the best case scenario and say that the intentions behind this are as pure as distilled spring water, the sheer size of this operation is far too large and wealthy to be held accountable. Even if this agency has the best of intentions at the moment, there is nothing to stop it from going rogue and exerting it's power over the people, if it hasn't already. This spy system has gotten far too large and is now completely out of control. The only difference between this complex and that of the KGB or the Gestapo, is that this system is far more massive, far more powerful and far more efficient, the like of which the world has never seen before. This system is the hallmark of an authoritarian state.



--airspoon



Sources:

rawstory.com...

www.eff.org...

rawstory.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 21-7-2010 by airspoon]

You get to the castle walls and all the guns are pointed inward...something severly messed up about that I would say...
It goes right along with the definition of "Terrorist" in the Patriot act.
ooops, I mean Patriot in the Terrorist act.
SandF

reply to post by Danbones


Yes, I can't believe that this hasn't raised more red flags in the minds of Americans. We are completely off our rockers. If this kind of thing happened 100 years ago, it would be considered a declaration of war on the public. Sadly, this is happening right under the nose of the public, with all but full consent of said public. Have we not learned anything from history?

--airspoon

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by Danbones

 

Yes, I can't believe that this hasn't raised more red flags in the minds of Americans. We are completely off our rockers. If this kind of thing happened 100 years ago, it would be considered a declaration of war on the public. Sadly, this is happening right under the nose of the public, with all but full consent of said public. Have we not learned anything from history?

--airspoon

it is a war on the public
most are just too tied up watching
American Idol and The Simpsons to
give a rats [snip].

America is asleep, but when she awakens
there will be hell to pay. And I don't think it
will take 15 years to reach that awakening.

reply to post by airspoon

You think your annoyed here in Australia in Canberra the NSA monitors all Australian communications why the hell a foreign power has been allowed to do this on Australian soil I do not know.

reply to post by anglodemonicmatrix


It's because you are part of the American empire, whether you like it or not. Unlike empires of past that were military based, our current empire is economically based. Because we are conditioned to think of an empire as we have always known them, we aren't so quick to see this crystal clear empire that is based purely on economics.

--airspoon

reply to post by boondock-saint


Sadly, by the time that America does wake up, it will be far too late. In fact, some argue that it is already too late. Most of our liberties that were included in the Constitution to ensure that we could do whatever it takes to fight tyranny, have been skirted and completely subverted.

For instance, our weapons are not nearly even close to where they need to be in order to fight the weapons on the tyrants. Also, we can not assemble without first getting the permission of the government, who we would be assembling against. We see this liberty subverted all of the time whenever the government disperses protestors at a rally or the G20/G8. Because of this, we have no way to effectively arm ourselves and even more important, no way to organize.

By the time Americans wake up, we will be chained to the floor wishing we would have "seen" it coming much earlier.

--airspoon

Originally posted by Danbones
You get to the castle walls and all the guns are pointed inward...something severly messed up about that I would say...
It goes right along with the definition of "Terrorist" in the Patriot act.
ooops, I mean Patriot in the Terrorist act.
SandF

Your right, I would even go as far as to say that there are much more guns pointing inwards than there are pointing outwards.

My theory is that TPTB knows that our economy is not sustainable, yet we have too many untapped natural resources for them to allow chaos to erupt when we enter the new depression (which will be much different from the first depression of 1929), so instead they will just clamp down.

--airspoon

reply to post by airspoon

There is a tragic flaw in the ptb's plan...
The Algonquin hero NaNaBozo got the greed monster, the Wendigo to eat it self.
The Chinese say the same in the IChing:
One cannot fight evil with weapons, without becoming evil one's self
so, when all good is consumed evil cannot feed on it self...

We put the lanyards at the other end of the guns and go have a beer...


A bunch off wishfull thinking edited out...better leftt for another time.
[edit on 21-7-2010 by Danbones]

[edit on 21-7-2010 by Danbones]

[edit on 21-7-2010 by Danbones]

[edit on 21-7-2010 by Danbones]

Originally posted by anglodemonicmatrix
reply to post by airspoon

 

You think your annoyed here in Australia in Canberra the NSA monitors all Australian communications why the hell a foreign power has been allowed to do this on Australian soil I do not know.

Well, most of northwestern Australia is sprinkled with our stuff one way or another, not just Pine Gap. Thanks, by the way.

Anyway, the reason is, we all trade back and forth, so there's a lot of sharing of time, space and equipment. We provide a lot of the equipment. You guys provide space and location. We trade goodies - it works out for everyone.

See, NSA, Navy 'et al' have to site things in certain places, you can't just randomly pick, sad to say. And a lot of countries, yours, ours, the other British overseas territories, have pesky laws precluding direct spying on our own civilians. We generally obey such laws. So when we need to not, we get YOU to do it for us, using our equipment. There's no laws, for example, precluding us from accepting intel YOU gather about our own citizens. Nor you for us. So we trade data on each others' citizenry as part of UKUSA, which is a very handy agreement for such things.

reply to post by Bedlam


Well, it works much different than that. As far as foreign agents on American soil, Mossad is probably the only ones working against US citizens in any wide scale role.

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims? I believe what you are saying, is that western countries are spying on each other's citizens because the laws prevent them from spying on their own? Is this what your saying?

I believe the NSA is in Australia because the NSA is the cream of the crop, with equipment and infrastructure that no other agency has, either foreign or otherwise. Australia is part of our empire and thus we operate within their borders. The actual wheels and deals and the cogs of the inner workings are quite complex, I'm sure.

Also, just to note: Australia, South Africa, Canada, etc... are not British Overseas Territories. They are actually their own countries now.

--airspoon

Originally posted by airspoon

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims? I believe what you are saying, is that western countries are spying on each other's citizens because the laws prevent them from spying on their own? Is this what your saying?

You have to understand why NSA places receiver sites where they do. It's not just because Australia has nice landscape. We've got installations all over the northern coastline of Australia, from the northwest corner to a bit east of center.

Go look up UKUSA. And yes, that's what I'm saying. We do have stuff we don't share, the two sets of guys are somewhat isolated from each other at Pine Gap, but yes, if you need info on Patrick Irishbomber, we supply it for them. If we need info on Joe Juarez, they supply it to us, off the same equipment, through diplomatic channels, usually, but sometimes it just "comes over the wall".

We cheerily help each other bypass each other's SIDs, when necessary.

edit: And yeah, I know they're not (neither are WE, for that matter) but you knew right away the countries I was speaking of, yes? And in fact, those are for the most part the ones that participate in UKUSA.


second edit: Some backgrounder on UKUSA and NSA here. (warning: link goes to the Great Satan itself - flush your cookies!) There is, of course, more to UKUSA than the surface data here, but even this stuff is pretty blatant, given who wrote it.

[edit on 21-7-2010 by Bedlam]

reply to post by Bedlam


[cookies flushed] LOL. I have no doubts that certain intelligence agencies share info with each other, but I don't think the Aussies or British have active agents - with permission - operating inside our borders.

--airspoon

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by Bedlam

 

[cookies flushed] LOL. I have no doubts that certain intelligence agencies share info with each other, but I don't think the Aussies or British have active agents - with permission - operating inside our borders.

--airspoon

Hm, how to answer that one. Well, in a sense, they sure do. Maybe more than one sense. They do to us what we do to them, or with them, depending on the program. There are lots of liaison programs where we share specific data.

We also have snoopy people wandering around their more sensitive bits, as they do us, only we exchange strongly worded letters over it rather than PNGing each other, since we're friends. We do moderately regular military co-training/personnel exchanges - they run very nice classes out of SAS for interrogation and 'military observation and reconnaissance' (spying for grunts, 101). Along that line, we train some of their guys in the finer points of blowing crap up and causing discord amongst our enemies' political systems. At least we used to, all the time (met my wife that way - long story).

We also have co-located SIGINT here and there, not just in Australia. I don't know how it works domestically - I have seen Brits and Aussies at Ft Meade but in what capacity I couldn't say. They didn't have vendor or tour badges, but it's hard to disguise when they talk. Since we generally co-locate at every other fixed site (not so much with the military SIGINT guys) it stands to reason we do it at NSA central too, but if or to what extent I couldn't say.