As I've alluded to in my previous post concerning reported unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens and unfettered data collection by private contractors at the behest of the NSA, the FBI and other government agencies, the United States seems to be turning into one big police state, where ordinary citizens come to be considered the enemy, and where a corporatized Government begins to rule over the people instead of being ruled by the people.
Reportedly, 70% of U.S. spending on intelligence is currently going to private contractors. And like I've said before, who knows what private contractors can, and might, do with that collected information?
This Democracy Now! interview with Peter Ludlow, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, whose article in The Nation, "The Strange Case of Barrett Brown", effectively describes the serious problems and conflicts of interest associated with allowing those private corporations to take over the responsibilities of Government in providing "secret" intelligence gathering and surveillance.
Have you noticed anything missing in the political discourse about the National Security Agency’s unprecedented mass surveillance?
ReplyDeleteThere’s certainly been a robust discussion about the balance between security and liberty, and there’s at least been some conversation about the intelligence community’s potential criminality and constitutional violations. But there have only been veiled, indirect references to how cash undoubtedly tilts the debate against those who challenge the national security state.
Those indirect references have come in stories about Booz Allen Hamilton, the security contractor that employed Edward Snowden. CNN/Money notes that 99 percent of the firm’s multibillion-dollar annual revenues now come from the federal government. Those revenues are part of a larger and growing economic sector within the military-industrial complex - a sector that, according to author Tim Shorrock, is “a $56 billion-a-year industry.”
Read more at: How Cash Secretly Rules Surveillance Policy
Move along, move along. There's no corporate police state here. Mining Company Deploys More Masked Militiamen Against "Eco-Terrorists"
ReplyDelete