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In 1972, the CIA Director Relabelled “Dissidents” As “Terrorists” So He Could Continue Spying On Them … And Nothing Has Changed
For 500 years, government spying has always aimed at crushing dissent.
Likewise, the U.S. government has long used anti-terror laws to crush dissent and protect the powers-that-be.
As Edward Snowden said:
These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power.
He’s right. And see this.
Indeed, the government arbitrarily labels anyone it doesn’ t like – including American citizens – as “terrorists”.
As PrivacySOS notes (via ACLU):
[Washington Post reporter] Betty Medsger’s new book on the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, “The Burglary”, contains some relevant and largely suppressed history. In the wake of the Media, PA burglary and the subsequent newspaper articles exposing J. Edgar Hoover’s red squad surveillance programs, some CIA officers began to voice dissent internally about their own agency’s troubling domestic operations, codenamed MHCHAOS. In 1972, Medsger writes, CIA director Richard Helms
called his top aides together and said he was adamant that MHCHAOS would not be “stopped simply because some members of the organization [the CIA] do not like this activity.” He made changes in order to protect the program more now that the [dissident officers were] so determined to have it end. To the maximum extent possible, within the agency, the program and the agent then in charge of it, Richard Ober, would be identified with terrorism and not with American dissidents. The massive program would in fact have the same functions it always had, including the monitoring and destruction of the more than five hundred alternative newspapers staffs it had under surveillance. (At the same time, the FBI also monitored alternative and campus newspapers, sometimes suppressing them.)
Henceforth, Colby wrote in a memorandum after that meeting, the label “international terrorist” would replace “political dissident” as the target of the CIA’s illegal domestic operations. As part of this image transformation, Helms did what Hoover had done many times—and would do again in April 1971 to protect COINTELPRO when he thought it was about to be revealed—to minimize the possibility that secret operations would be exposed. Helms ended MHCHAOS in name, but continued it in reality with a new name: International Terrorism Group. It would be much easier for people, including people within the CIA, to accept the domestic operations if they thought they were aimed primarily at stopping terrorism rather than at stopping dissent.
It’s common to hear law enforcement officials describe non-violent activists as terrorists today.
Bonus:
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Bush I and Bush II were Liberal. All Congresses, where funds are allocated, were liberal.
Reagan was actually closest to a Libertariann. Then he was shot so he decided to play.
The last Conservative President was Hoover.
The last true conservative Candidate was Barry Goldwater in 1964. Thomas Dewey was the previous one who lost to both Roosevelt and Truman.
Even Ike was not all that Conservative. Dick Nixon was not a Conservative but a Crook that was groomed by Senator Prescott Bush back in the 1940s.
So looking at the past 20 Years? No you'd have to back to 1932 when the watershed moment was reached with the election of FDR.
So, we have a Liberal country, right?
I mean, after all, it's what the voters keep asking for.
On the other hand, all these labels are meaningless, and only serve to divide us. Really, you would need to get way in the weeds to have a real discussion about who is Liberal or Conservative. Would Bush 2 be a Liberal Neo-con, or a Liberal Facist? Would Bush 1 be a Liberal Royalist.
It's funny that so many are in a twist about the "Left",
that they are oblivious to any connection between gargantuan government abuses and the "Right".
The sheeple want to trust government. They imagine that if they trust government,it will be trustworthy. "Power corrupts." Trust corrupts. Each lie accepted causes more lies to be issued. "The greatest heresy is that the office sanctifies the holder thereof," applies to the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, or the Presidency. The common trick of intellectual charlatans is to expand the definition of a word and then expect that you'll believe the same logical consequences follow as they did for the prior less expansive definition. Why must we trust government each time?
Each lie accepted causes more lies to be issued.
That is Supply/Demand Economics at work. The Supply of lies will be increased as the Demand for lies is not met.
People are hungry for those lies as they make them feel good...justified.
Demand just continues to increase for lies and deception.
People live in fear and don't want to be responsible for the information or the decisions they would have to make individually, if they did not just listen to leaders. So the fear is what drives them to copy the behavior of others and to listen to lies, and force those to be considered truths.
You do it long enough, you no longer believe the truth, you only believe the lies. And people will crucify you for telling them the truth, because it exposes their self-deception and their fear which they've been trying to hide, like good little cowards.
Everything comes down to cowardice and courage.
duplicate
No something has changed indeed. The public is now a willing participant in the spying. From cellphones to the soon to be released Google Glass we are now aiding and abetting the Fascists.
Google glass...the most absurb idea I have ever heard. Anyone who would walk around with one of those gadgets must be seriously effed in the head.
I think they mistake the looks of lunacy for looks of admiration...otherwise I just don't get it.
… And Nothing Has Changed
PLENTY has changed. The tools available today for surveillance, media manipulation and shaping of public perspective are better than anything Goebbels could dream of.
Nixon would never have left the White House with the tools they have today. No need to burgularize the Watergate when you can read every e-mail, listen in on every phone call from ANYONE. Read 'Beyond Brave New World' - Huxley was aghast at the progress made towards the future he dreaded in the few decades after he wrote 'Brave New World' - events he thought would take centuries took mere decades.
When you can spy on anyone, any time- when you know someone's darkest secrets - you can CONTROL that person. Remember all the REPUBLICANS horrified by Bush's shredding of he Bill of Rights - who nonetheless voted a straight party line? How many were 'persuaded' by the potential revelation of things they did not want revealed? How many votes FOR the Patriot Act were the producut of 'blackmail'?
In 1972, the CIA Director Relabelled “Dissidents” As “Terrorists” So He Could Continue Spying On Them … And Nothing Has Changed
Before there was 9/11 and "Nanothermite"...
Certainly helped to make that label stick more securely along with the Patriot Act and NDAA that ensued which completely (or almost completely) absolves them now of any wrongdoing in the violation to our once most basic and sacred freedoms!
Son of Captain Nemo,
And in response to 9/11, the U.S. government has called dissent terrorism ... instead of actually doing anything about terrorism.
Similarly:
Saudi Arabia's new anti-terrorism law to criminalise any form of dissent - including demanding political reform and exposing corruption
instead of actually doing anything about terrorism.
'Real' terrorism - 9/11 and other acts of violence are ofter the end result of direct action by our Intelligence Agencies or 'blowback' against actions taken by those agencies. Such 'terrorist acts' have been consciously used to expand the powers and funding for these agencies. Powell was caught on video by a student warning of a 'terrorist-industrial' complex replacing the old 'military-industrial' complex. Lacking any conventional enemies of note- the US alone is responsible for HALF the world's military spending - we have created a new 'bogeyman' to justify what no longer makes sense, spending we can no longer afford (if we EVER could).
Intelligence agencies aren't going to STOP what they themselves are responsilble for, activities which justify their existence. If anything they seem to be CREATING more 'incidents' than ever would have occurred without their involvement. Find some loudmouth and feed their deluded fantasies - then arrest them and tout your 'success'.
"Intelligence agencies aren't going to STOP what they themselves are responsilble for, activities which justify their existence. If anything they seem to be CREATING more 'incidents' than ever would have occurred without their involvement."
That model has been working so well for the government schools, the military decided to copy it. A very successful and lucrative $trategy.
In this matrix system, sure, point taken.
Let's change the system and the mission ground up if we have to.
Triage.
Save the best, get rid of the rest.
We must.
Responsible people of all ages
HELP WANTED - NOW.
The need is growing greater by the day.
Funny about the government calling people terrorists because government has been the biggest terrorist organization for all of its existence.
Nothing else even comes close.
CS
Very well said. In my response below I didn't want to identify who in fact the real terrorist is in this argument, as I didn't think I had to.
If you and any of the other "ZH" readers out there are interested, this is something that might help in making a breakthrough possible. Bob Mcllvaine lost his son in one of the Towers on 9/11 and is probably one of the most influential and outspoken voices of the surviving family members seeking answers to why so much has been concealed and censored from the public by both the MSM and Fed Government on what took place that day.
I think this petition is one of many keys to get Americans off their butts and to look at this objectively as yet another opportunity to finally open doors that have been shut for far too long and with a heavy burden and price. I have a lot of admiration and respect for NYCCAN's past efforts. In 2009 they requested from the City of New York an initiative for a second investigation on the collapse of the Twin Towers and Bldg 7 to be placed on the voting ballots in the Fall election, in which they would need 80,000 signatures by petition in order for it to be officially authorized. To make a long story short, they were successful in obtaining the required number signatures only to have an injunction from the courts that called into question "the official rules" and less than two days before the election the petition was summarily thrown out on a technicality. Needless to say after hundreds of volunteers and a monumental effort that took months of planning was finally achieved, politics played it's usual role.
I look at NYCCANs latest efforts as a second chance for settling unfinished business. I hope other that read through the 'High-rise Safety Initiative' will feel the same and make this something that we can all be proud of in seeking the justice that has yet to be delivered 13 years later.
http://highrisesafetynyc.org/
http://highrisesafetynyc.org/petition/
G.W.
Then what a perfect opportunity to get at the heart of what has been ailing us going on 13 years now and bring this matter once and for all "into the light"?
Didn't these guys have plenty to say about what was missing and why the "Official Report" was incomplete?
We both know and understand that the lawmakers in Washington will continue to use it as the "bully pulpit" and supreme underlying excuse for more unchecked power to continue infinitum on why we must do the things we do in the world in order to protect our safety and strategic interests which in essence simply stated means our governments continued subversion of the rule of law!
Until that chapter is properly closed expect more of the same.
Maybe, but:
No idiot, we vanquish terrorism when state govts grow some balls and dissolve the federal govt, the only real terrorist.
It's past the point of being fixed. It can't be fixed. It has to be dissolved and return to the articles of confederation.
It won't happen of course, because state govts have no balls.
Huge reserve of courage within each of us?
What bullshit. Americans have no courage. Americans are sheep.
*** I'M A DISSIDENT, AND I'M NOT HIDING YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!!! *** You don't have to come for me, I'm coming for you. Just stay there you cowards. No more guerrilla / drones, just man to man, let's see who's tougher... you scumbags or humanity.
Drifter,
There is no point in hating the messenger... GW is right, and for the moment, so are you. But look for the bigger picture and you'll see that there's no reason to stop where you're stopping, because the problem is vastly far larger. And it's not even government based, as it's actually controlled by the socio-economic system of the globe. So the very institutions all across the globe are directing and abetting this situation we're in, and rebuilding everything is the only solution.
And GW is not the only one who explains that everyone must muster up individual courage to defeat the global beast. That injunction is found in many places, and it's a fact. Looking / waiting for some leader to save humanity is doomed to failure. It's when the people of the world decide enough is enough and each choose to gather with others to put an end to this control, to rebuild the world as they want.
And it will take a lot of dialog, something most people don't really do well... sure they talk about bullshit, but the talk that's required is to reconsider and alter what we might believe to be the right path / organization for the future. It takes real rediscovery. Ultimately, most people will just wait for others to tell them what the new structure of the world will be... the future is hopeful as long as we advance a cooperative model.
We have entered the surplus era, and the focus on the right technologies / social structures (distributed and spontaneous networks of activity) / research will lead to increased prosperity for almost all of us (billionaires / trillionaires will see a decline, but the rest will all be comparable millionaires). Renewable energy, 3-D printing, decisions made by citizens instead of politicians, etc. But it takes courage. Something we've not had in most people for a long long time (ever). Like the shift from scarcity (human history to present) to surplus (from present to future), we need to shift from cowardly to courageous.
If we don't have courage, someone will gladly intimidate us to take our valuables / value (surplus my ass). That's what you guys currently call an economy / civilization.
"Like the shift from scarcity (human history to present) to surplus (from present to future), we need to shift from cowardly to courageous."
Not gonna happen. Humanity isn't suddenly gonna "get courage", and technology isn't gonna save us either. Your skittles and unicorn dreaming is nonsense.
1776 America was the last national burst of courage in human history. There won't be another one.
"You don't have to come for me, I'm coming for you."
Absolute utter bullshit. You're not going after anyone idiot.
You don't seem to have any grasp of human history and human evolution. How the fuck do you think we got from cave dwelling to where we are today? Technological progress. It's not going to stop suddenly, unless people like you force it to remain in stasis so only you can benefit.
The burst of courage, I agree, very difficult. I think the way things are going, people will prefer to stay corwards even to the very end, as their children are taken away. Just the absurdity of the will of some people to live no matter what the consequence.
Yes, I will, you idiot.
If 30% of the population would get disgusted and lock up their credit cards for 3 months the system would collapse. Effective civil disobedience doesn't require a whole lot of "courage" in the classic sense. It does require self discipline. If just a third to one half of us would lock up your credit cards, live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pork and beans for 3 months and save our paychecks (or dividend or SS checks) the system would could not survive. Sorry to deprive you all of the romance of violent revolution, but the system survives on docile consumers. Suddenly stop being consumers and become meaningful savers and you win.
It requires only some organization.
+1
Well said.
All ZHers are--------you betcha.
What would happen if GW, ZeroHedge, Mike Rivero and Alex Jones all joined together to launch the #VoteNoConfidence meme and make it go viral on twitter?
Why not GW... what have we go to lose?
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ps- hey Tylers... I like to photoshop... can I post pics here too? thx
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