Yet another act in the ongoing theater of the International Surveillance State: “Wikileaks names US cell-phone spy target as Afghanistan, claims Google”(h/t Wenzel@EPJ)
The protagonists are well-known by now:
Wikileaks, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, and Paul Watson (from Infowars, Alex Jones’ site).
They’ve already established their “street cred” (credibility at the grass-roots) with their activism, so their words are taken at face-value:
Earlier this week, Pierre Omidyar’s national security blog, The Intercept, reported that the US is recording all telephone calls made in and out of the Bahamas and one other unnamed country.
The story, co-bylined by Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, explained that the Intercept had decided not to name that second “country X” due to the risk of increased violence in response.
As I wrote at the time, this decision prompted a furious response from former allies Wikileaks, which “condemn[ed] Firstlook for following the Washington Post into censoring the mass interception of an entire nation.”
Upping the stakes, Wikileaks also promised to name the redacted country within 72 hours.
Late last night the organization made good on its promise, issuing a statement claiming that “country x” is Afghanistan…
“Country X”! I’m surprised Greenwald didn’t put on a V for Vendetta mask and hiss “Psssst” from the bowels of a seedy bar.
As I’ve written here and here and here and here, and even back in 2005 in “Language of Empire,” the government has been spying on all our calls and emails, without a warrant for a while now.
Even the mainstream press has reported this a long time ago.
That fearless dissident voice, The New York Times, published the following only a decade ago:
“Bush lets US Spy on Callers Without Courts,” James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, NY Times, December 16, 2005.
Let me call your attention to this line:
While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said.
Except for the suspiciously low number of people the government admits to targeting, what did this piece really hide?
Here is a leading establishment organ substantiating what activists and immigrants have known since 9-11:
Every call overseas, every email, is subject to government monitoring.
Now, I don’t know what other people take to be monitoring. But, by 2004 many immigrants like me were generally aware that the government was listening to all our calls and emails abroad. We even joked about it.
It was in 2010, when I was browsing Cryptome’s archives, that I realized that calls and emails directed abroad were also being taped and archived.
That part, I admit, was a shock.
US isn’t alone. Since the advent of electronic communication, all communication is monitored by all states to whatever degree is technologically feasible, always erring on the side of maximal monitoring than anything less than that — and whether or not this is publicly known or not known.
The United States being a freer society than most, in fact, any other, which doesn’t say a whole lot about the rest of societies in other parts of the world in our day and age, it makes for big news when such annoucments are made with so much fanfare. I suspect it is part of the mind-fck being administered to the people. Occassionally tell them the truth so that those organs which bring the truth gain credibility, as you also point out.
On wikileaks, as you have yourself reported, and as I have previously also reported, is merely a mind-fck. I have a detailed report on how it is done with study links for the worst of insomniacs. With your permission Lila, I just leave that link here for you readers:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/05/note-on-mighty-wurlitzer.html
all the best,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
p.s. I liked your original layout — it was familiar and comforting, just like the 1980s sitcom Cheers bar, to know that you have come to a familiar place. Then you next iteration wasn’t too different and also good. This one I like the least. Just 0.02.
Hmmm.
I had that thought too. Maybe this is too different and some will be put off.
But it is much clearer to read, you know.
And cleaner looking. I will try it for a while and go back to the other if there are other complaints.
So far it’s one for and one against.
Everything in the major media is a dead-end. You know it, I know it.
Wikileaks came out of cypherpunks, which included defense contractors and nuclear research labs, as well the software engineers at the biggest corporations in the world.