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Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts)
Fri May 16, 2014, 03:41 AM May 2014

Spying is Meant to Crush Citizens’ Dissent, not Catch Terrorists

Spying is Meant to Crush Citizens’ Dissent, not Catch Terrorists
The Big Secret Behind the Spying Program
By Washington's Blog
Global Research, May 15, 2014

While many Americans understand why the NSA is conducting mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, some are still confused about what’s really going on.

In his new book, No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald writes:


The perception that invasive surveillance is confined only to a marginalised and deserving group of those “doing wrong” – the bad people – ensures that the majority acquiesces to the abuse of power or even cheers it on. But that view radically misunderstands what goals drive all institutions of authority. “Doing something wrong” in the eyes of such institutions encompasses far more than illegal acts, violent behaviour and terrorist plots. It typically extends to meaningful dissent and any genuine challenge. It is the nature of authority to equate dissent with wrongdoing, or at least with a threat.

The record is suffused with examples of groups and individuals being placed under government surveillance by virtue of their dissenting views and activism – Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, anti-war activists, environmentalists. In the eyes of the government and J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, they were all “doing something wrong”: political activity that threatened the prevailing order.

The FBI’s domestic counterintelligence programme, Cointelpro, was first exposed by a group of anti-war activists who had become convinced that the anti-war movement had been infiltrated, placed under surveillance and targeted with all sorts of dirty tricks. Lacking documentary evidence to prove it and unsuccessful in convincing journalists to write about their suspicions, they broke into an FBI branch office in Pennsylvania in 1971 and carted off thousands of documents.

Files related to Cointelpro showed how the FBI had targeted political groups and individuals it deemed subversive and dangerous, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, black nationalist movements, socialist and communist organizations, anti-war protesters and various rightwing groups. The bureau had infiltrated them with agents who, among other things, attempted to manipulate members into agreeing to commit criminal acts so that the FBI could arrest and prosecute them.

More:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/spying-is-meant-to-crush-citizens-dissent-not-catch-terrorists/5382374

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Spying is Meant to Crush Citizens’ Dissent, not Catch Terrorists (Original Post) Judi Lynn May 2014 OP
That's always how it's ended up Warpy May 2014 #1
Interesting take. Enthusiast May 2014 #5
Yup! Coming soon to a police state near you. OffWithTheirHeads May 2014 #2
Of course. Which makes you wonder what the real agenda of the spying apologists is villager May 2014 #3
they've openly said their goal is to defend a leader no matter what they do MisterP May 2014 #13
They're not really spying apologists. JoeyT May 2014 #16
K&R DeSwiss May 2014 #4
The Age of Privacy is Dead and Gone Forever...... Cryptoad May 2014 #6
Kicked and recommended! Enthusiast May 2014 #7
Dissenters ARE "terrorists", to the people in power ProfessorPlum May 2014 #8
Look at what happened to Occupy... elzenmahn May 2014 #9
k&r Electric Monk May 2014 #14
A government that views its own citizens as the enemy has big problems. nt bemildred May 2014 #10
Yes, and the same applies to the TSA mindwalker_i May 2014 #11
Kicked and recommended. Uncle Joe May 2014 #12
K & R GoneFishin May 2014 #15
Yep. K&R + a link to The Intercept bobthedrummer May 2014 #17
Very true, whether it's the US or Cuba or China doing the spying. nt geek tragedy May 2014 #18
K & R !!! WillyT May 2014 #19

Warpy

(111,278 posts)
1. That's always how it's ended up
Fri May 16, 2014, 03:55 AM
May 2014

whenever totalitarians have set up internal spy groups. Secret police always follow.

I have one word for why I don't want to see this continue: McCarthyism.

You see, I was a little kid during his 15 minutes of fame but I remember the fear. Everybody thought that they were one asshole with a grudge away from being turned in and their lives would be ruined. My mother had a brief flirtation with the Party during the 30s when they were the only ones standing against Hitler and Mussolini. She had left by the start of the war the way most of their people did, finding out what Stalin was all about. He was little better. She watched the hearings on the first TV set on the block, white knuckled and furious.

It didn't matter to McCarthy and his buddy Nixon, anticommunism sold well in the heartland and it didn't matter that the Party was a fraction of what it had been twenty years earlier.

A lot of us are feeling a cold chill pervading everything as the revelations from Snowden pile up. It's a chill that is sadly familiar.

MisterP

(23,730 posts)
13. they've openly said their goal is to defend a leader no matter what they do
Fri May 16, 2014, 01:08 PM
May 2014

can't get more anti-dissent than that: they've in fact reached philosophical or ontological levels of repression

JoeyT

(6,785 posts)
16. They're not really spying apologists.
Fri May 16, 2014, 11:48 PM
May 2014

They're Obama apologists that happen to be defending spying because he's doing it. If this had come out during a Republican presidency, they'd be screaming louder than anyone else about how awful it was.

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
4. K&R
Fri May 16, 2014, 05:21 AM
May 2014
''In the Bill of Rights of the United States, there is an attempt to secure certain freedoms and protections by way of mere text on paper. Now while I understand the value of this document and the temporal brilliance of it in the context of the period of its creation, that does not excuse the fact that it is a product of social inefficiency and nothing more. In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design. There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendment is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost. All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order. In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance.'' ~Peter Joseph

''All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.'' ~George Orwell

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it." ~Edward Bernays

"The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind." ~Emily Dickinson

"Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more! It's true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care. Once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant!" ~Plato (The Republic)

''People think that the universe is outside of us, but actually the universe is inside of us and no where else.'' ~Robert Anton Wilson


Cryptoad

(8,254 posts)
6. The Age of Privacy is Dead and Gone Forever......
Fri May 16, 2014, 06:12 AM
May 2014

it been gone for 30 years,,,,,,,, also read study the 9th amend

Enthusiast

(50,983 posts)
7. Kicked and recommended!
Fri May 16, 2014, 06:12 AM
May 2014
The record is suffused with examples of groups and individuals being placed under government surveillance by virtue of their dissenting views and activism – Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, anti-war activists, environmentalists. In the eyes of the government and J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, they were all “doing something wrong”: political activity that threatened the prevailing order.

Who could deny this? And who would deny this has been ramped up to a new found intensity today? The only deniers are the paid liar sock puppets or cultist personality worshipers.

mindwalker_i

(4,407 posts)
11. Yes, and the same applies to the TSA
Fri May 16, 2014, 11:32 AM
May 2014

They don't catch shit, and that's been demonstrated multiple times. People have commented that it's security theater (slashdot), but the label implies that it's just to make people feel safer when they aren't. In reality, the TSA makes people afraid to stand out, specifically to protest or disagree with the government, which is much darker than "security theater" implies.

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