I urge one and all to watch this important and revealing look at the most powerful rogue state in history:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/
United States of Secrets, Part Two, will air on Tuesday, May 20th.
This series dissects, with chilling precision, just how far the United States has strayed from its Constitutional and moral center, especially since 9/11. There appears to be no law or Constitutional amendment which cannot be safely dispensed with in the name of those who died on that fateful day. Any true patriots who perished in those towers must surely be rolling over in their graves by now.
While the NSA’s massive domestic and international electronic surveillance campaign, dubbed “The Program”, was initiated by the Bush-Cheney White House, it has not only continued under Obama, but has flourished, for it is now enshrined in law. In the larger context provided by this documentary, FATCA may be seen as just one more layer of a pervasive, persistent, global information dragnet that is truly Orwellian. By any objective measure, this monstrous technical and legal system provides the very foundation for an inevitable one-world surveillance society.
The would-be heroes of this story include not only Edward Snowden, but an unlikely cast of NSA insiders, who agonized about the removal of all remaining privacy and due-process safeguards, and who ended-up like all good American government whistleblowers: having their front doors rammed-in by FBI SWAT teams. A cautionary tale, to be sure.
This is not even the already sick and dying America I remember as a ten year old kid by the late 60’s. This is something even more evil and dangerous. This is a nation that has not only completely forgotten its founding principles, but which continues to cloak itself in hypocritical, pious rhetoric while simultaneously destroying every last vestige of democratic freedom for its own people, and for the entire world. We are indeed mere roadkill on America’s unstoppable journey to a vastly greater version of hell.
Watch the program, and weep.
I have now watched that program twice and purchased Glenn Greenwald’s new book. The book is so well laid out and you can see the documents there for yourself. If you cannot read them in the book please go to “The Intercept” and take a look at what they have been up to. They collect practically every keystroke you make, every email, phone call.
I am reminded of “The Lives of Others” and the life we are living right now. I must say FATCA IS a part of the whole here. In fact when it was mentioned in the Frontline program and in an interview Glenn did that banking data was already looked at, I wondered if the idea for pushing for FATCA didn’t come from some of the “data” they already had.
This is the most lawless, oppressive thing I have seen a Western government do in a long time. Nixon did it too and they stopped him, this is far, far worse. I have to wonder if people are just going to sleep through this all without grasping how disturbing it is.
And to think the U.S. portrays China as being full of propaganda and as constantly spying on their citizens. There’s nothing different about the U.S.A. right now. Not. one. thing.
I’m going to watch this Frontline episode tomorrow. Right now I’m trying to recover from this video about Common Core:
Part 2 of the United States of Secrets is on next Tuesday.
An absolutely great piece of journalism!
I also was thinking about FATCA when watching part 1. It’s the same disregard for privacy and legalities that led to FATCA legislation and its subsequent development by Treasury and the IRS.
Anybody else find it terribly scary when people are REWARDED for criminal behaviour?
@Deckard1138
To add to this good documentary, I highly recommend this interview of Greenwald by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. Go to NPR.ORG and look for the program on Wednesday the 14th. I would provide the link, but I am having a problem copy and pasting links on my NSA SURVEILLANCE DEVICE (cell phone) this morning. Alternatively, you could google… Greenwald On NSA Leaks: ‘We’ve Erred On The Side Of Excess Caution’ Why folks can’t see FATCA come GATCA dragnet as part and parcel of the surveillance state we are creating baffles me.
I think I have posted this before, but this Bill Moyers interview with Julie Angwin on Dragnet Nation is also worth your time. http://bit.ly/Oq0GN4
I’ve been reading Greenwald’s new book ‘No Place to Hide’ – it’s pretty interesting, and sad.
@Em the Common Core discussion reminds me of the “Fair” Elections Act.
911 Truth Hollywood Speaks Out
Despite the reinforcement of the official 911 conspiracy story (i.e. the big lie) which Frontline obviously felt was necessary to lay the foundations for their surveillance story, I found Part 1 to be a riveting, dramatic and fairly accurate presentation of the path leading into the panopticon prison. For me, the three key words in the documentary were “little public outrage”. When I combine the surveillance state horror with the attempt by the US government to produce drugged, dominated and dumbed-down children through Common Core indoctrination and other disturbing programs which target children, I am truly worried about the future of America and the entire world. It will be interesting to watch Part 2 when they get into the details of the Snowden saga. Unfortunately the Greenwald drip method of revealing the Snowden files might end up either making people fearful of expressing their outrage or too acclimated to the revelations that they will no longer be shocked into expressing their outrage. Then the US government will go unpunished and “The Program”, probably under a new euphemistic name, will go on and on. The inscription on the tombstone of privacy could well read: “There was little public outrage.”
“We erred on the side of excess caution.”
I don’t think it was probably viewed as anything more than a giant win/win opportunity by the USG at the time.
Although I will concede that things look grim for the future of freedom (such as it has become), I don’t think we should automatically believe that all is lost or that the USG is as omnipotent as it thinks it is. It can only do what it does as long as it can fund itself and funding is drying up, whether they realize it or not. We are quickly running out of easily exploitable energy sources and without them – life as everyone knows it is going to change a lot. It will be interesting to see what happens then.
In the meantime, the only immediate viable solution for USC’s outside of the homeland is divesting and then, if you feel like it, becoming politically active in our own countries to try and raise awareness and fight the false narrative that FATCA is about tax evasion – b/c clearly it isn’t when you look at it even a little closely.
Nothing about the land of my birth surprises me much anymore. I am a child of Vietnam and Watergate, my first real concrete memories of the USG. And I came of age under Reagan. How can I be other than jaded?
@ Sid
Thanks.
It is beginning to sink in I see.
The best way to reinforce an event and preserve its place in history is to build a museum to commemorate it.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/14/us/9-11-museum-objects/index.html
@Attucus
Old post on “The Lives of Others”
http://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/the-lives-of-others-the-true-significance-of-bradley-birkenfeld/
@USC, thank you for that link. It’s an excellent article. Maybe it can be reposted in full here. The danger in all this is the way people are being treated as Pre Crime suspects. “The Lives of Others” always chilled me to the bone.
When you contrast the attitude the author of that other article has “I know it’s morally wrong but, fiscally Canada should just give up.” with what the bottom line is here you can see how people have become more and more accepting.
Maybe it is too late. We have allowed our privacy and autonomy to be so eroded now it’s to the point people are over whelmed. Not just over whelmed people are afraid to say anything. They are afraid to write what they think online, they are afraid to step out in the press and speak up. Look what happened to Drake and Binney, to Snowden. Is no one asking “When did we all get so afraid to speak our minds?” It’s there, it’s here. We have tons of people who read here and who have legitimate fears of saying anything here, of typing it out or of talking to the press.
When Drake blew the whistle and others before him no one made a peep of noise about it. If these things had been revealed in the sixties or seventies as they were when Nixon was spying on everyone there would be huge push back. The “five eyes” have gone way, way too far and FATCA make no mistake IS part of this all. Once they have everyone’s banking data in addition to what they already collect well, you can pretty much get ready to accept there is no such thing as any right to privacy at all. Say the wrong thing or go to the “wrong” protest, want to do something about an issue in your town the city leaders disagree with? Well, all your communications and banking records can be passed along so they can dig through and find the one tiny thing to ruin you with and shut you up. This sounds hyperbolic? Except when you know that in every culture where this type of thing has been allowed to go on it is always, not sometimes, always misused to harm innocent citizens. To “keep them in line” and to control what information comes out in the press.
I am deeply saddened to see Canada and yes the U.S. going down this path. My father, grandfather, uncle and now nephew were not fighting “for” anything of this nature when they served in the U.S. military. In fact they supposed they fought for the opposite. It cost in particular my uncle a great, great price. “For freedom” What a lie. In light of all this spying on every.single. person there is no doubt this propaganda machine to get people to accept allt his has been very successful. “If you aren’t doing anything wrong why do you care!” and “I’d give the government my bank records if it stopped criminals!” I’m stunned by comments such as I see some people making these days. They have been slowl lulled into championing giving away all their rights.
I can’t watch the PBS program due to copyright restrictions but I’m very familiar with the story of Binney, Drake and Wiebe. The government maliciously ruined each of their lives and pursued completely unfounded prosecutions. In the case of Drake, they falsified evidence by reclassifying documents that were unclassified just so that they could charge him with possession of classified documents.
The story of the Peoria, Illinois mayor is also informative (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/how-a-mayors-quest-to-unmask-a-foul-mouthed-twitter-user-blew-up-in-his-face/). Law enforcement vested with unbelievable powers, an unquestioning judiciary, digital footprints for everything we do, and vindictive government officials who seem to be totally immune from any form of punishment is a dangerous recipe.
All the technology, all the computers, sensitive equipment, oh yes and a sky full of satellites lead us to believe that the spies are watching you. It amazes me that the world can’t find Malaysia Flight 370 that went down in March. They don’t really know where it flew. So when it comes to the crunch we wait for the bits and pieces to wash ashore just like in the old days. So much for all the so called advanced equipment. The US designed a pen to write in space and spent thousands of dollars on R@D. The Russians sent up their people with a pencil and it worked perfectly. What does that tell you? I refuse to run scared!
@Ann, whether or not they can find the plane is a different issue. No one has to run scared. I think the idea is to be aware of how deep this spying has gone and that yes everything you do can be and is collected. Scared of that or not it is simply morally reprehensible. Given what they have already done to those they “did not like” it is high time people started to demand their privacy be protected under the law. It worries me when people accept these programs for ANY reason or dismiss them because that is exactly how we got in this situation.
In the past when things like this were done it has always been used in horrible ways to ruin people. See the above mentions of Drake and Binney. There are many stories about these people out there and interviews. The government falsified documents to ruin Drake for speaking out because he was trying to expose what is wrong with some of these programs. The same with the others.
There’s a matter of supporting those trying to put a stop to all this data gathering with NO suspicion of any criminal act having ever occured. Civil liberties associations all over the world have been concerned about this for some time now. Privacy matters a lot more than people have been lulled into thinking lately that it does not so much. FATCA is certainly a part of all this. Parts one and two of these Frontline docs should make a big impact and I hope they do.
@Em @All:
Em: I knew Common Core was BAD but I never knew HOW bad it really is. They have us by the throat with the boot of communism on our faces and we MUST fight back. If not for ourselves for our children, grandchildren and all our futures.
But then again, this is what we have all been doing here at IBS.
It is just that everywhere you look they are at it in the worst possible ways.
While we fight FATCA and GATCA they are destroying our children.
I should have said, WHILE we fight FATCA and GATCA.
Several things interesting in the video, Em:
This Michael Barber owns ALL school books in Canada?
And is working with Bill Gates to own them all in the US and working with UNESCO to go globally with this evil nonsense.
UNESCO’s motto: “Your children are our children” ? REALLY!
As Dr. Vesta points out. “They have a two year head start in the states that have implemented Common Core and they now want OUT.
@EM: Your Comment:
“When I combine the surveillance state horror with the attempt by the US government to produce drugged, dominated and dumbed-down children through Common Core indoctrination and other disturbing programs which target children, I am truly worried about the future of America and the entire world.”
Frightening, isn’t it? I am worried too. It looks almost too late. I say almost because who could have foreseen a Snowden. Sometimes when we look for them we see glimmers of a chance at turning this around.
@AtticusinCanada:
Your comment:
” The “five eyes” have gone way, way too far and FATCA make no mistake IS part of this all. Once they have everyone’s banking data in addition to what they already collect well, you can pretty much get ready to accept there is no such thing as any right to privacy at all. Say the wrong thing or go to the “wrong” protest, want to do something about an issue in your town the city leaders disagree with? Well, all your communications and banking records can be passed along so they can dig through and find the one tiny thing to ruin you with and shut you up. This sounds hyperbolic? Except when you know that in every culture where this type of thing has been allowed to go on it is always, not sometimes, always misused to harm innocent citizens. To “keep them in line” and to control what information comes out in the press.”
You are absolutely right. And after FATCA comes GATCA.
From GATCA there is NO escape.
@furiousac
“find the one tiny thing to ruin you”
or as in the doc – manipulate the information to frame you!!!!
An article in today’s Toronto Star show how personal data can be misused by authorities to damage people’s lives without giving those people any recourse to recover from it:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/05/17/no_charges_no_trial_but_presumed_guilty.html
There have been other press reports about people being denied entry to the US because of such data being accessible by US border guards. This is only a foretaste of what will happen when information collected by the IRS and the NSA becomes available for misuse by border guards and police.
I am not really up to date on what the objections in the U.S. are to “common core” and I don’t think the angle they are coming from in some ways is one I would agree with especially for me personally given the source and how I feel about that.
We have a standardized curriculum in Ontario and to be honest it pretty much precludes ANY time to teach anything except what is required on the standardized tests so preaching to our kids is something that wouldn’t be an issue since no one has any TIME to do such. It is very narrow and focused on science, language and math with zero time for Engish lit, debate, exploration of topics in any depth at ALL, arts OR civics. All these things are down the drain in favour of what are now deemed more serious areas of study.
I will defend to the last breath the teachers who fought this and those who still do. My own step mom is a professor of education very involved in reading recovery, in fact the primary leader in the world on those issues.
I was very, very involved when Mike Harris took Ontario down this standardized testing path and protested WITH THE TEACHERS against it as well as got involved in Alfie Kohn’s efforts to oppose. I worked in schools a lot during those years, met with teachers, sat on school boards and was head of more than one parent council. I opposed vigourously the EFTO and their over bearing efforts as well as the week long tests our third graders including my own son took AND how that “data” was used or was going to be used since it reduced education at such a young age to a set of quantified numbers and nothing else. Those first tests were found to be at a grade 8 level for 3rd graders and were used to say “See! We need these tests and Mr. Harris curriculum!” It was a set up. It’s nothing but, a waste of money and sucks the life blood out of good well rounded liberal arts education and disallows teachers their ability to actually teach. It’s very narrow, over loaded with check boxes and statements such as “by x age, every student will do x,y, and z to x standard.” Children aren’t widgets, they aren’t “standard” and elementary and high school education is also a time to explore options…or it was before this all started up. I despise early “streaming” so that certain “standards” are not disrupted. The only upside during that time was working with some incredibly talented and caring teachers. Many of the best and brightest were driven away by these ridiculous “standards” since they could no longer actually use their teaching skills to inspire a love of eduation. To quote one I greatly admired “I am leaving next year, I can no longer stand to watch what happens in my classroom because of these “standards” This was at a school for the arts, one of the rare ones still standing. Funding was pulled away from everything except the “standards” so we had to raise a boat load in order to do what a school for the arts is supposed to do.
I think the issue in the U.S. is different and coming from an entirely different angle. One I usually don’t agree with much.
But, I’ve derailed enough from the topic of this excellent post about the NSA and Frontline’s program which is the topic of this thread! Thank you Deckard, and sorry for going off on standardized testing, “standards” and such.
Just today there is an article about how the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is trying to stop back ground check information being shared with employers beyond a criminal record. Right now they have been caught “sharing” health issues which are not in the scope of the checks and should not be “shared”
Everyone ought to be far more concerned that every keystroke, every email, every interaction their children make online is ALREADY being collected. So is their health information in the future if their job requires a back ground check. As soon as they can have a bank account if they live outside the U.S. that data will be collected on too. If anything the Frontline program shows very clearly what all the danger is with this massive data gathering. FATCA is a huge part of that and I’m not convinced FATCA wasn’t implemented due to some of the “data” they were already gathering up. “The Program” would have given them a tiny window into what could be further “collected” by bullying if necessary. Chilling and I’m grateful to Frontline for taking this on.