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America's Enemies Now Using Carrier Pigeons And Invisible Ink Letters: The Absurd, The Tragicomic And The Bizarre
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
America's Enemies Now Using Carrier Pigeons and Invisible Ink Letters: the Absurdist, Tragicomic Narratives of Domestic Surveillance
If you know your electronic communication is being monitored, you start using couriers, carrier pigeons and invisible ink snail-mail--anything other than electronic communication.
The recent confirmation of programmatic domestic surveillance is rich with absurdist, tragi-comic narratives. Just to take the most obvious:
1. Is anyone dumb enough and/or credulous enough to believe "the bad guys" aren't aware of U.S. surveillance and electronic monitoring capabilities? Garsh, why did Osama bin Laden use couriers rather than his mobile phone?
Is anyone dumb enough and/or credulous enough to believe the bad guys think their communications within the U.S. or between non-U.S. and U.S. groups are safe from U.S. surveillance/monitoring because they really really trust the Bill of Rights to protect them?
Naivete about what the U.S. National Security State is capable of is highly correlated to which end of the drone strike you're on.
2. Why are Total Awareness surveillance/monitoring/data-capture programs considered news? All of this has been in the public-space media for years: exactly what is new? That a media-savvy young insider confirmed what a bunch of less media-genic outsiders have written about for years? Please re-read these stories if you missed them the first time--all are highly recommended:
Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law (April 15, 2009, New York Times)
Top Secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control (July 19, 2010, Washington Post)
Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department's most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.
"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities," he said in an interview. "The complexity of this system defies description." The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."
As he (former director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair) sat in the corner of a ballroom at the Willard Hotel waiting to give a speech, he mused about The Post's findings. "After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we so often do in this country," he said. "The attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing."
National Security Inc. (July 20, 2010, Washington Post)
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (March 15, 2012, Wired Magazine)
Is there a legitimate security need to monitor the entire world's communications? There are reasonable arguments to be made for and against this proposition, but what's missing is the sense that the nation's citizenry should have a say in these policy decisions.
We're supposed to be satisfied that a handful of thoroughly corrupted-by-the-corporatocracy congresspeople have been spoon-fed a thin dribble of intelligence gruel and told to rubberstamp it in the name of democracy.
This calls to mind the notion that authorities inoculate the public with carefully measured doses of the operative master agenda and narrative. The idea that this concept (developed by French philosophers Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard) might apply to the recent surveillance revelations was introduced to me by Aengus Anderson, host of the excellent audio program series The Conversation.
By carefully releasing bits and pieces of the program, authorities inoculate the public against outrage or political action; the citizenry soon habituates to the master agenda and internalizes it to the point of self-management: we're spied upon for our own good.

3. The problem with this sort of intrusive power and technology is that such tools beg to be used. If the tool exists, it will eventually be used. The more powerful the tool, the stronger its draw upon the Superusers with access to its power.
That's the lesson of the I.R.S. investigation of targeted political groups: if the ability to target "people of interest" exists, people of interest will find themselves targeted.
I've been a "person of interest" at least twice, and it is a disconcerting state of being. I was placed on the "don't issue this guy a boarding pass without a security check" list, and no explanation was offered.
The entire process of being placed on the list for reasons unknown and getting my name removed was Kafkaesque; the no-fly list program struck me as a convoluted, ultimately worthless mess, just the sort of thing you'd expect from overlapping agencies, data bases, procedures, etc. One gets the impression that there is essentially zero oversight of the program's effectiveness.
Due to my associations with groups (the American Friends Service Committee) and individuals of interest, I became a "person of interest" to the F.B.I. back in 1971-72, when an enormous percentage of the agency's resources were devoted to investigating draft resistance and domestic anti-war activity. The dominance of this political resistance is our highest investigative priority agenda has long been well-documented; it only makes sense once you accept that political resistance is criminal.
In my case, the F.B.I. helpfully called me to tell me they knew where I lived, etc., and would I like to talk to them now at my house or tomorrow at their office? I chose tomorrow, at their office, with a witness.
Interestingly, I'd broken no laws; my associations were sufficient to suggest potential guilt. This justified investigation and whatever monitoring and data gathering were deemed standard procedure at that time. (I'm sure the F.B.I. agents got a good chuckle out of interrogating a frightened 19-year old kid.)
This is precisely the mindset that fueled the 1950s witch-hunts of suspected Communists: guilt by association.
People like to say "it can't happen here:" nice, except it's already happened here. The tools have just become more powerful and further distanced from oversight.
It's a small, effortless step from seeing exposure of the surveillance program as a crime to seeing those who question the program as a potential threat.
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"Pssst, hey buddy........ You wanna buy an O?"
"Naivete about what the U.S. National Security State is capable of is highly correlated to which end of the drone strike you're on."
Well played, CHS
Golly gosh gee wiz...
You mean Perceptions Management?
can that pigeon carry a birth certificate?
on msm yesterday, I saw a human interest story about a 50-yr-old man who didn't know who his parents were
as a child, he stumbled on some news clippings about a baby stolen from a hospital
fortunately, dna testing was able to at least establish that his functional parents were not his biological parents
it was a powerful story
it makes me wonder: is there any way that babies can be better tagged and tracked and identified from the time they are born?
or even before?
any way at all?
because that would be such a help.
so that we could know who we are when we reach 50.
some sort of database of our identities.
if only.
boy, that would be such a big help.
it was a really great story.
I wonder how they chose it.
Sometimes I feel like Rob Stark at my Uncle's wedding.
Most governments don't give a shit about what their people think. For example, nobody asked the German people if they wanted the Euro, they just rammed it through, claiming that the parlimentary "representatives" were the voice of the people. The truth was they feared the public opinion, they feared rejection of their plans, and therefore, public opinion was bypassed.
Wheel ... Of .... FORTUNE!!!!!
Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel. The letter K. Oh, wait....
Hmmm ... govt collecting 'phone numbers' e.g. the 'number dialed' et al ... monitoring internet and 'social' website activity ...
NO WONDER the 'secret' NUMBERS STATIONS are still actve on SHORTWAVE!
Untraceable one-way comms, like a national one-way PAGER service (like in the OLD days of drug, -er- running!)
Cash, BitCoin, Gold, Silver and talking one on one. The simple pleasures of life. Thank you Bernanke you idiot.
You know, things are so bad that Obama and Chinese premier had to take one hour walk in the woods to discuss national interest of both countries.
Thank you OTM,
Am really considering the wax stamp and seals business
Wax seals are insufficient. Mail can be read through envelopes. Maybe wrap your letters with something opaque like aluminum foil.
"America's Enemies"
Good one MDB...oh, wait.
A Trillion Billion Dollar secruity network employing 100s of thousands of agents....... out smarted by a few people and a bird, plus a 99cent magic trick.
Reminds me of the Maginot line. Just go around it......lolz.
Pwned.
hahahaha... yes this is just getting pathetic. Throw another trillion on the fire I am starting to get cold..http://tinyurl.com/n8hmfya
They want to bug every house, so that conversations can be monitored. I suspect smart phones or tablets or game consoles will prove their best bet. "You NEED a microphone on this console/tablet"
Look at the new XBOX, always connected to the net?
Honestly, I think if a cellphone still has its batteries in they can probably do it now.
I'm sure a big portion of the program is designed to funnel disinfo to the appropriate "comments" sections on certain news stories and various chat-rooms, etc.
Does anyone have a cellphone that will let you disable voice commands?
Dunno, hold on Ill ask Siri.
Dunno, hold on Ill ask Siri.
"It's an illusion Michael, not a trick. A trick is something a whore does for money... or cocaine"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1WSH0VzoaM
Just like gun control, the criminals make out, the American public remains the willing dupe.
The next think you know they will be using your credit score for hiring and insurance purposes.
Oh shit!
Next they'll be picking names choosen by the OH GREAT SEWING MACHINE to cross of the list of evil private citizens
Next they'll be picking names choosen by the OH GREAT SEWING MACHINE to cross of the list of evil private citizens
Long pigeon food.
Name one government program or law that will prevent an evil act from being carried out by a dedicated psychopath.......
Execution (Of said psycos, of course)
I can name at least a dozen laws that help keep US government psychopaths in power. Does that count?
The Twenty-second Amendment of the United States Constitution?
The only reason I need for self protecting.
Dear A,
Here is the problem: With regard to the law, there are three kinds of people.
- One kind doesn't need the law because they have no intention of ever committing the act so proscribed ... say, murder.
- One kind doesn't need the law (the psychopaths) because they will commit the act, if given the chance.
- The law is for the third, and probably largest, group, who need the law to maintain a peaceful and orderly civil society.
Group #1 - Leave alone.
Group #2 - Exclude from civilization permanently, dead or alive, once they are found out.
Group #3 - Will respond to outcome of group #2 and behave properly.
Basically what went on in Iceland for two or three centuries - no government.
The ease at which legislators can be blackmailed dictates no current voting be allowed on laws.
In fact blackmail is probably the reason so many illegal laws have been passed.
Banana Republic 101
Reviewing the Supreme Court rulings it is clear this should extend to justices as well.
Indeed, especially Roberts, he shold resign at once.
The "Hoover" on him is now public knowledge overseas.
Bent the law regarding the adoption of his children.
Certainly explains how he was pressured into some dubious holdings.
Just reading his wiki and couple years back he 'had a seizure and was pushed, sorry, fell five to ten feet'.
Intimidation and shows of power, to keep someone in line? I am just speculating in general, of course.
Ding ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Do you mean all nine laptops had porn in them?
America's enemies. Oh, you mean free-thinking sovereign individuals and sovereign states with significant resources.
Lemon juice ink, FTMFW....
" ...but what's missing is the sense that the nation's citizenry should have a say in these policy decisions."
This has been the plan.
There's an 'expert' for everything these days, supposedly, so what does your opinion matter? We have corporate media whores to question your sanity and your motive should you be awake enough to question it (their motives being above reproach, ya understand).
This is one of the prime points that John Taylor Gatto has been driving at. Can we collectively feel the reassuring pat on the head? "Be a good boy, get your HS diploma and the application line of Mega Corp is right over there."
The elite want 'consumers', not citizens, and certainly not any real competition (what we used to affectionately call 'markets').
It used to be they wanted producer/consumers, but now that the debt slavery model has been so fully implemented we (the masses) are simply consumers in their mind.
The amount of times we are asked to "trust the experts" every day, every newscast, every story... Its not that its uncountable, its that at the crux of each story seems to the need to "trust the (right) expert". Sure, you can go on the internet and find an expert saying the exact opposite of the expert on TV, but don't believe everything you read on the internet /mind explodes
There is no reason to spy on 99.9% of the U.S. population.
If the United States government is not doing anything evil....then why is it SO afraid of its citizens?
Riddle me this...(because evil likes full control)
laser walkie talkie with secret decoder ring
This is precisely the mindset that fueled the 1950s witch-hunts of suspected Communists: guilt by association.
Oh, you mean that when Obama pals around with admitted terrorists like Ayers, we aren't supposed to draw any conclusions?
Or when 2 Chechen kids go to jihad training camps, we aren't supposed to draw any conclusions?
Idiot. The Venona tapes clearly showed that there were Communists in DC, and a lot of the communists in Hollywood have bragged about what they did.
This isn't guilt by association, it's investigation because of association. However, building up that association list prior to a crime to be investigated is a crime itself. There's no crime associated with the term 'Tea Party'. There were the crimes of subversion and treason associated with the term 'Communist'.
Every dictator in history has come to power with the aid of people who think just like you.
Not all government investigations are political. Some are actually well-grounded in national security concerns.
Unfortunately, a foul combination of marxists, corporatists, and islamists seem to have gotten control of the US government, and the security and defense apparatus has become thoroughly perverted to the point of almost complete inversion.
Emphasis on Perverted.
Gay Obama and Gay military and Gay Supreme Court and Gay Boy Scouts and Gay marriage and Gay rights.
No rights for Christians or anyone opposed to Gay rights.
Christians are the terrorists and the enemy, and Islam is peaceful and Democratic ?
If you are on a site like this you should understand statistics/odds.
You are more likely to win the lottery, die in a car crash, get struck by lightning...etcetc.....than you ever have of being hurt by a "Terrorist". Yet, you dont see the government spending trillions on safer cars, or Lightning Shelters and weather forcasting.......
Yet they spend trillions, and emply 10s of thousands, to look out for people that might kill 10-20 people a year? YOU ARE PARANOID...TURN OFF YOUR TV...THE SYSTEM IS NOT SET UP TO PROTECT YOU, BUT TO PROTECT "THEM" FROM YOU (Should you ever wake the help up and realise you have been duped)
Yet they spend trillions, and emply 10s of thousands, to KEEP THE MONEY FLOWING TO THEIR FRIENDS.
FTFY!
Because of Hawaii, I must add the odds of dying by hitting a coconut on your head are higher than...
"There's no crime associated with the term 'Tea Party'. There were the crimes of subversion and treason associated with the term 'Communist'."
Include subversive term 'Socialist' - FOXNEWS SPECIAL REPORT
"There's no crime associated with the term 'Communist'. There were the crimes of subversion and treason associated with the term 'Tea Party'."
Include subversive term 'Patriot' - MSNBC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
And NELS seemed so adamant about his logic.
'
'
'Beautiful guy!
I was just about to mouth off some comment with the line "witch-hunts of suspected Communists: guilt by association" that it's too bad they didn't get'em all back then as we wouldn't have the problem now!
Haven't read it, but I heard Beck talk/interview the author: Frightening. McCarthy was right.
Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies [Paperback]•?•
V-V
What Tea Party. I haven't seen them since before OWS. OWS pisses me off. WTF you pussies, you don't expect the Right to take their fair share of MACE do you. They have to "work" you know.
Dear USA:
You are really starting to scare me.
The World
Wait until the economy truly collapses..........
Have been planning for it for a few years now.........but juuuuuust recently, there has been a step up in the tempo of preparations.........
Dear USA,
We are worried about your mental health and concern that you may not commit suicide. A qualified physiologist is highly recommended.
The world.
Dear USA:
You are really starting to scare me.
The World
Dear World:
Technology has been guided in a direction to best enhance a Scarcity Model. Breakthroughs have been extraordinary and done with your consent and approval.
A continuation on this path will only enhance the ability to subsidize the consumption for a special few of you... For a yet undetermined length of time.
I have no fear or guilt subsidizing this consumption. Fear and guilt are human traits.
Best,
The MACHINE
Yes and President Maduro of Venezuela said that the US infected mosquitoes with cancer which infected Chavez and caused his death.
I guess he's never heard of Occam's Razor?
There's always BitMessage:
https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page
C.
One time pad ciphers still work very well even in the digital age just a matter of securing and transmitting the key until the message needs to be deciphered.
Book code also, with the advantage of multiple uses.
Other thing I forgot to mention is use shorthand and abbreviations and substitute words like never use a single letter word like I, substitute with something like eye or aye. A single letter in a cipher is always the easiest point to start from when trying to crack.
This is why a good encrypter bunches each group of letters into 5 units.
With the amount of computer capacity available to bust code, the one book to never use in any permutation of book or pad code is the KJV Bible. It's tempting because of availability, but guaranteed it's the first one to be checked against.
Is the clap trap senate hearing to be televised?
The Justice Department sued Arizona over a law requiring non-citizens engaging in suspicious behaviour to show identification because it violated the civil rights of these non-citizens.
On the other hand, the Justice Department has no problem identifying citizens and their communications when the citizens are engaging in any type of behaviour.
We NEED more communist withhunts. Begsy job as Witchfinder General.
Edited: Font colors aren't showing. Was writing an "invisible" message. Sorry to use the space
The French used carrier pigeons. It did not end well.
That's only because they wrote all their messages in pigeon English.
About this:
The entire process of being placed on the list for reasons unknown and getting my name removed was Kafkaesque; the no-fly list program struck me as a convoluted, ultimately worthless mess, just the sort of thing you'd expect from overlapping agencies, data bases, procedures, etc.
If you fly, you are a fucking sheep that secretly likes getting your nutsack touched by uniformed men.
Seriously, if you fly you are giving your personal consent to be abused by the system, and rationalizing it as a need to do business or something. This shows you worship money over anything else. If businesses banned flying for just one week, TSA would be gone.
Unconstitutional checkpoints are about one thing. Conditioning people to volutarily or through coercion give up their Constitutional rights.
The simple proof of this is when people hold their ground and challenge them on their Constitutionality they will win. Often it is not easy and you could be beaten or worse. The tyrants won't make it easy and will use violence (ie.terorrism)to attempt to force people to willingly give them up.
Just because they are allegedly legal doesn't mean they are Constitutional. And most Americans just mindless go along to get along with tyranny like good little slaves.
This guy eventually won damages in a lawsuit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDLlEh0x2XA
Corporate business is part of the apparatus.
This is precisely the mindset that fueled the 1950s witch-hunts of suspected Communists: guilt by association.
......
....
They should have finished the job. Fuckhead commie sympathizers.
But it's for the greater good.
Sacrifice your self for the state.
Forward
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Fuck you Karl Marx, Obama, dickholder, and the rest of the commie cocksuckers. This includes you guys at the NSA.
/rant off
There is a certain irony that the one form of communication the NSA can't easily monitor is snail mail, brought to you by the bankrupt USPS, with DIP funding provided by the same people that fund the NSA.
Gotta keep that failing economy going at all costs
Maybe CNN followed the carrier pidgeon couriers to the OBL cave and that's how they found him
But there was no money for business and the militry in this so they just said CNN found him but we can't. So let's carpet bomb mountains where he's not hiding and claim we almost got him. Keeps us and our corporate criminal partners busy stimulating the economy.
I'm expecting swat raids across the US soon to shut down rooftop pidgeon cages.
Expect the usually lunacy to stir up the chicken little Tea Party types that believe every rumour is true that carrier pigeons should be avoided since they are poisoning the environment due to chemtrails coming out their asses then the environmentalists will and EPA will go after them for polluting the environment due to large volume of shit they produce.
With politicized administrative allies like Lois Lerner, Doug Shulman and Sarah Ingram willing to make 500 demand performance appearances at the Big House, er, White House, to pick up opposition targeting plans too sensitive to be transmitted by phone or email, what privacy-minded POTUS would ever need carrier pigeons?
3. The problem with this sort of intrusive power and technology is that such tools beg to be used. If the tool exists, it will eventually be used. The more powerful the tool, the stronger its draw upon the Superusers with access to its power.
That's the lesson of the I.R.S. investigation of targeted political groups: if the ability to target "people of interest" exists, people of interest will find themselves targeted.
Couldn't be said any plainer. Remember when Tom Delay wanted to use the spy satelites to find the 11 dem senators hiding??
"The Feds were watching Nicky play golf for so long that they ran out of gas. Just what I needed, right in front of the control board."
"This calls to mind the notion that authorities inoculate the public with carefully measured doses of the operative master agenda and narrative. ... this concept [was] (developed by French philosophers Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard)"
In the intelligence community it is called a "limited hang-out" ... I just wanted to add that term to the conversation for those who want to research it on their own.
My view is, disinformation has to be 98% truth to be effective, so don't take anything you read on the net or see on TV etc as being more than 98% truthful.
So if you are expecting Snowden or Assange or whoever to LAY IT ALL OUT for you, you will be disappointed. The Big Picture has to be assembled by each and every one of us, on our own.
I wish I could give you 50 green arrows.
OT-Obama is sepaking at a rally for Ed Markey. It reminds me of a Hitler rally.
I have no problem with the Federales monitoring for National Security Matters so long as they agree that any mis-use of information garnered, for any other purpose whatsoever, is PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.
I have no problem with the Federales monitoring for National Security Matters so long as they agree that any mis-use of information garnered, for any other purpose whatsoever, is PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.
so you actually believe the bullshit about raghead terr'ists ...... It's all invented in order to provide a reason to lock every dumb fuck out there in a prison of their own making inside their head... THERE ARE NO TERR'ISTS except those created by the CIA/NSA/MI6/MI5 and our military over reach in parts of the world that we should get the hell out of.
Example of government abuse.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a92_1370980017
Is this footage from East Germany circa 1980? Oh, no, its not.
How many years did it take us to get Bin Laden? Oh yeah and the end result essentially was a large military operation against an "old-age" home where an isolated old man was shot in the face amidst a bunch of women...Hoo Ah!!!
As you well know, OBL was never the objective. As a poster pointed out on this board previously, they finally got him just to mock us.
They finally got him, because he died what, 10 years earlier from cirrhosis of the liver.
Or they needed him alive as a boogie man, but then they needed to get rid of him to regain control of Al Qaida to use them in Libya and Syria.
Kidney failure.
This illustrates an more fundamental issue here concerning PRISM and Snowden in general. Take all the ideology out if it a boil it down to it's essence you get this. Some interesting justifications on both sides.
reason.com/blog/2013/06/12/outrage-toward-edward-snowden-shows-the
Outrage Toward Edward Snowden Shows the Intertribal Warfare at the Heart of American PoliticsIn a revealing column at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall (pictured) voices doubts about Edward Snowden (and Bradley Manning before him) less for the details of their leaks of government information than for why he thinks he did it. To Marshall, Snowden is "some young guy I’ve never heard of before who espouses a political philosophy I don’t agree with." That philosophy, he believes, is one that views that state as "essentially malevolent." That's enough to put the columnist and the whistleblower in different tribes, and it's a good start at explaining why so many Americans have lined up behind government officials on the matter of leaks and surveillance, while many others have cheered leakers and denounced the peeping-tom state.
...
People can click through and read the rest if the idea intrigues them. When you get right down to it that is the heart of the matter is power essentially malevolent or benevolent when concentrated (centralized) forget about the justifications as to why it is being done aka for 'national security' or welfare of the people.
I cannot agree with the question, not at all.
It doesn't matter whether I think power is essentially malevolent or benevolent, the Constitution of the United States of America, the supreme law of the land, and the only vehicle through which government derives its moral and legal authority to rule, treats power as essentially a malevolent force which requires government to restrained through a system of checks and balances and enumerated powers, the remainder of which reside with the people.
We either accept the central tenent upon which the law was written, or there is no law and we keep making it up as we go, which , not surprisingly, hasn't worked out so well.
That's the real central question, is there a law or is there not?
Of course there is a law. There are 1000s of laws. They're all totally meaningless in practice, incoherent and (self)-contradictory, and exist solely to perpetuate the illusion of the rule of law.
There is a law, but there is no rule of law.
Agreed on the Constitution but power is too centralized, the Constitution was more in line with a unified way for individuals aka states to be able to conduct business and laws with each other like an ANSI standard for example. It is a limited centralization process. Now it has been completely perverted and inverted so it only an illusion. The answer yes there is Constitutional law if people break tightly centralized cluster of power and apply it in it's original intent and manner. There is always some sort of law when things are not equal, those moar equal in the animal farm get to dictate what it is.,........
In Marxism we are used to the stick approach aka Communism not the honey on the end of the stick aka Socialism and here they've pioneered a new form with just enough captured private enterprise to choke out the free market through crony corporate partnerships between government and corporations. The only difference between Socialism and Communism is resources, abundant resources means honey approach limited means the stick when the inevitable naked self interest kicks in to grab as much as possible of them limited resources. They are transitioning the government to go from the honey to the stick approach cause they know the resources are drying up. They say it is for your safety because of 'national security' but it isn't. The sad thing is a lot of people in these agencies actually believe it down at the lower levels. Communism is next though in a government/corporate style militaristic hybrid next that is when the guns come out and FEMA camps become second homes for a lot of people and most likely the bulk of the ZH readership that isn't working for the government now.
Everyone keep believing the paradigm shift hasn't happened as we are UssA getting ready for the transition to uSSa.
Cost benefit analysis never seems to enter the picture of tyrants
They could use a skilled financial advisor
Maybe Bernie Madoff could do some pro bono work for cigarette and snack credit in the commissary
"We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."
i just got my instructions from the snowden cabal...its in invisible ink , so what now?
The financiers try to keep the populace, the very nation, and even the 'rulers' as debt slaves. So what kind of financial advice do you think they get?
V is For Vendetta
A very good article. I'd just like to point out one little historical fact that I would not have undermine your message, because yours is a good message: We know since the fall of the USSR, that a lot of those people accused during the "witch hunts" of being traitors, spies, and their dupes and sympathizers, were in fact traitors, spies, dupes and sympathizers. A lot of them were not, but the witch hunt label has been so overused that people ignore the damage that nitwit Roosevelt and his commie friends in the State Department did in selling out Eastern Europe and allowing weapons technology be taken by the Russians. To this day, there are still people complaining about the Rosenbergs, even though we have evidence of their guilt to validate their trial and execution.
The witchhunts, in EXACTLY THE SAME MANNER as Communist Party purges, eliminated people who posed very little to no threat whatsoever, while totally, purposely, ignoring those who posed enormous threats. You're conflating the interests of people with the interests of the state. The state and it's politicians gained immensely from everything they claimed to be trying to prevent, stop, and punish.
How could the MIC have its Cold War if the Russians didn't have nuclear weapons?
The Rosenbergs in 10 lifetimes could not have damaged this country as much as the Roosevelt administration did in just over a decade.
Yes, I have read stories about how the FDR Gov. during late stage of WWII gave the Soviets the plans and machines and materials, everything needed to build the Atom Bomb.
There was a book written about it, sorry I cannot recall the name.
"... the 1950s witch hunts of suspected Communists ...
Once again, "George Washington" is spreading malicious disinformation.
More accurately, his assertion should be changed to, "Venona fueled the 1950s hunt for real traitors like Theodore Hall, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Gregory Sivermaster, Judy Coplon, Harry Hopkins, William Weisband ... " The list goes on and on, and those are just the ones we know about.
Far worse were the traitors we didn't know about:
"The identities of more than half the Americans who the deciphered Venona cables indicate cooperated with Soviet intelligence remained hidden behind cover names. How many were still working in sensitive positions ... or holding policy-making jobs?
The hunt for these real but unidentitfied Soviet sources consumed the time and attention of hundreds of security officers for many years and subjected thousands of individuals to investigations.
Particularly in the realm of diplomacy and defense policy making, the knowledge that these unidentified Soviet agents existed diminished the mutual trust with which American officials could deal with each other."
'Venona'
'Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'
Asswipe do you know "George Washington" didn't write what your commenting on?
"Asswipe?"
Typical resort-to-name-calling Ideologue.
But - other than that - yes, I just realized my mistake and came back here to correct it.
Excuse me for momentarily confusing ranting Ideologues - it's sometimes hard to tell them apart here on zerohedge.
Incidentally, the word is "you're" not "your," asswipe.
Try reading the book on Venona, asswipe.
It is a moot point. The government doing the investigating was and is far more dangerous than the people being investigated could ever be ... Unless they managed to gain control of said government. The net threat posed by the government is in any case preserved. Last time they were hunting chasing phantom communists, today they're chasing phantom terrorists. Meanwhile the real communists and terrrorists ... Are the ones doing the chasing.
I want a full refund.
snooping should be easy enough to fix...just send out terabytes of "action" words listed as "suspect" or (i invented a new word here!) "alertworthy".
just to show how stupid the NSA search terms are you understand, not because i agree with any violence against my fellow man...
ok...i also realize that this just means that NSA can increase its budget to find out what words are being used instead of power "action" words..see? i'm taking people off long temr unemployment and letting employ them instead to come up with "beetlejuice" is an alternative for "jihadist".
"HOLD FAST" and "CARRY ON".
oh..and i guess the NSA algos were trading short today..so they probably don't need to fund their wet or black ops with congress approved funding..because they are making LOADS OF MONEY printing profits frontrunning tock exchanges faster than the fed can print profits..i mean money..i mean "in god we trust"
LOL, If the asshole nations of the world don't think that the NSA isn't collecting GLOBAL data of every kind, on every peice of digital data they transmit between each other, I have a bridge to sell them. You think this is limited to the USA? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.
The Radio in your photo, Charles, looks like a Zenith TransOceanic, the choice of Kings, Queens and the generally rich prior to the invention of the Transistor radio. While it uses vacuum tubes it can also be powered by batteries. I have two of them just in case of EMP. One still works fine, the other has a buzz when used with AC. They tell me it's a "leaky" capacitor.
Might want to rethink using carrier pigeons...
"Skeleton of hero World War II carrier pigeon found in chimney with a secret message still attached to its leg (and now Bletchley Park are trying to crack the code)"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226203/Skeleton-hero-World-War-II-carrier-pigeon-chimney-secret-coded-message-attached-leg.html
A few years late!
"1. Is anyone dumb enough and/or credulous enough to believe "the bad guys" aren't aware of U.S. surveillance and electronic monitoring capabilities? Garsh, why did Osama bin Laden use couriers rather than his mobile phone?"
Is anyone dumb enough to think the OBL wasn't an al-CIAda cutout until they decided to throw him under the bus in the fall of 2001. He would be dead from the consequences of his congenital Morfan's syndrome in a few months anyway. Might as well use him up. Good to the last drop.
A ready made Emmanuel Goldstein (1984). Too bad they had to (fictitiously) kill him off ten years after he shuffled off this mortal coil.
'Morfan's' Syndrome, eh? What's that?