How Ed Snowden Almost Had Me

Note: I’m concerned about the ‘coronavirus’ outbreak (assuming it’s real) but while waiting to see how it unfolds, I read a book…

I’m a writer and yes I know the writerly tricks to ‘get the reader on our side’ in ‘nonfiction’ (especially in a memoir) but still, the more I read of Edward Snowden’s biographical Permanent Record, the more I find myself really liking Eddie Snowden…

…putting the book down, I don’t believe, not for a minute, that Snowden is a PTB mole. No way Eddie has been fucking with us!

The next day: Having read my old essay from Veteran’s Today (2013), I realized that Eddie almost had me.

ON EDWARD SNOWDEN’S OATH AND MOTIVES

by Allan Weisbecker (September, 2013) Note: The essay has been reformated, with contemporaneous comments in bold, and added imagery. 

“If Edward Snowden is who he says he is, he is a true hero and patriot. If, as some evidence might suggest, he is part of a psy-op meant to further subvert our Constitution, then he is not. But either way, the information he has helped make public can be turned against those whose life’s work is to mislead us.”–Allan Weisbecker

As I write it’s August 5th, 2013, exactly two months since Edward Snowden hit the media front page and I’m still waiting for someone to mention that Snowden, as a federal employee (of both the CIA and NSA, plus the Army), took this oath:

I, Edward Snowden, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” 5 U.S.C. §3331

Keep in mind that the oath uses two words – ‘support and defend’ — where one would easily do. The framers not being disposed to redundancy, this, I assume, is to accentuate, to make absolutely clear, the seriousness of the matter of the oath. And the framers are not done on the subject. The very next phrase states that Snowden must ‘bear true faith and allegiance’ to the Constitution, the obvious subtext being that not only must Snowden act in supporting and defending, but he must actually feel a certain way — having ‘true faith’ is not even voluntary! Presumably, this clause is meant to weed out (from federal employment) people who do not in their gut believe in the Constitution — if you do not or cannot ‘bear true faith and allegiance’ to the Constitution, look elsewhere for employment. (This inability describes virtually all of our elected officials – who take a similar oath – although this is a slightly separate subject.)

“What about the oath, Ed?”

Also keep in mind that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, whereas whatever law it is alleged that Snowden broke, be it the Espionage Act, or Theft of Government Property, or whatever they want to come up with, are not.

This, the oath, is a lawful obligation. In other words, if Edward Snowden witnessed a crime against the Constitution he was legally obliged to expose it. If in fact we are going to assume (or pretend) that the United States is a country wherein rule of law is taken seriously, and if the Constitution is indeed the Supreme Law of the Land, any legitimate threat to its tenets as perceived by an oath-taker must take precedence over any other law, be it state or federal. This is not only a clear interpretation of the Constitution itself, but has been upheld by case law, including the Supreme Court (Marbury vs Madison, among others).

So, in accessing Snowden’s guilt or innocence – it being a legal matter — let’s see what we’re dealing with; let’s define our terms. Let’s first take a look at the Supreme Law of the Land, the one most clearly applicable passage, i.e., the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

Clearly, this clause defines what ‘an authority’ (be it local, state, or federal) can ‘seize’ from ‘the people.’ (The Constitution differentiates between ‘person’ and ‘citizen,’ ‘person’ referring to any human being, citizen or not. The 4th Amendment applies to anyone under the jurisdiction of the United States.)

Since the programs Snowden has exposed involve illegal wiretaps, let’s look up the legal definition of ‘wiretap’ (I hope you’re already wondering why you haven’t heard/read this before, but more on the media to come.):

A form of electronic eavesdropping accomplished by seizing or overhearing communications by means of a concealed recording or listening device connected to the transmission line.

Notice that the legal definition of ‘wiretap’ uses the same word as does the 4th Amendment, where the latter refers to what authorities cannot do without a warrant: ‘Seize.’ (‘Seize’ being defined as ‘take possession by force’; ‘capture’; ‘confiscate’.)

Times have changed since the framing of the Bill of Rights, i.e., what is referred to by ‘papers and effects.’ As defined by lower and U.S. Supreme Court decisions, ‘papers and effects’ includes telephonic and electronic communications. Any private communication between individuals is sacrosanct under the Supreme Law of the Land.

For our purposes, simply put: a court adjudicated warrant must be issued to ‘seize’ your phone calls and emails. (In U.S. vs Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court recognized that email is equivalent to a letter or phone call for the purposes of the 4th Amendment.)

The Patriot Act broadened wiretapping rules, giving authorities the right to seize phone records as long as they exclude message content. This is the greatest point of media-generated obfuscation in the issue of Edward Snowden’s guilt or innocence; ditto re the issue of possible felonies perpetrated by other federal officials. Right or wrong, as of now, it is not illegal to seize ‘meta-data,’ i.e., phone records (again, excluding content).

Do you get it? No? I’ll spell it out: Even after the Constitution-busting Patriot Act, you still need a warrant to ‘seize’ content of phone calls and emails. As soon as you record and archive communications, you are ‘seizing’ it. Does anyone have an argument with that?

One more time: AS SOON AS CONTENT HAS BEEN RECORDED WITHOUT A WARRANT, THE 4TH AMENDMENT HAS BEEN BREACHED. NO ONE HAS TO LISTEN TO (OR READ) THE CONTENT FOR THE CRIME OF WIRETAPPING WITHOUT A WARRANT TO HAVE BEEN COMMITTED.

To argue that ‘wiretapping’ has not occurred if no one has listened to (or read) the content is like saying it’s okay to rob a bank, as long as you don’t spend the money. It’s a legally, morally, and logically indefensible position.

Yet this is the position taken by the government/media in the matter of Edward Snowden. It is my view – and it’s the purpose of this essay to demonstrate – that the ‘Snowden issue’ is, at least in part (and with or without the knowledge of Edward Snowden) a carefully crafted psy-op meant to subvert the Constitution — principally the 4th Amendment — by redefining ‘wiretap’ and other associated terms, including ‘surveillance,’ ‘eavesdrop,’ ‘target,’ and the like.

Now let’s decide whether the NSA is in fact ‘seizing’ the content of phone and email communications (for simplicity’s sake we’ll leave out other types of data, like google searches and buying behavior).

Remember the David Petraeus/John Allen affair last year? No? A reminder:

According to the FBI itself, 30,000 pages of emails were ‘seized’ during this ‘investigation’ – this was not only without a warrant, but no crime was committed or even suspected. If you look at the details of the case (actually, there was no ‘case,’ only invasions of privacy), every keystroke these people made while online was recorded and archived. There is no other way to explain the detailed information that the FBI possessed and then leaked, arguably changing world history.

Note: In order to communicate privately, Petraeus and Paula Broadwell created an anonymous (they thought) email account and communicated by saving ‘drafts,’ which they erased after reading – no emails were actually sent. Apparently the CIA Director did not know that every keystroke his (and Broadwell’s) computer registered was being recorded, analyzed, and archived for future scrutiny. This means that no type of encryption, however clever/complex can defeat the NSA’s data-mining system, since the ‘wiretapping’ precedes the encryption.

How to change history…

But the data-mining ‘changed world history’? Hyperbole, you say? David Petraeus was the head of the CIA, within days of the scandal due to testify before the congressional committee investigating the Benghazi affair. John Allen was the proposed NATO chief, due for Senate confirmation. Both were forced to step down by the exposure of their private communications. (That they are both undoubtedly scumbags is not the point.)

You wanna talk about power?

But back on point (Snowden’s legal status): That the ‘relevant’ (again, no crime was committed or even suspected) emails (and possibly phone calls and messages) were seized (recorded) in real time (is there any other way?) without an issued warrant is not arguable. This is strong evidence that all electronic communications are seized, probably via keystroke sensing in the case of Internet communications – a clear and previously defined felony, and breach of the 4th Amendment.

That this was never mentioned during the media imbroglio is part of the psy-op to make it ‘acceptable’ that all electronic communications are seized and archived by the federal government, principally the NSA. If this sounds counter-intuitive — how could Snowden’s revelations make mass eavesdropping acceptable? — we have to analyze the media’s spin (and especially what they don’t tell us) and, more importantly, what law and policy changes (if any) are ultimately made. We’ll have to wait and see on these issues: this essay is meant to suggest alternate scenarios on both motive and method. Hence the updating of the essay.

The other possibility — and this assumes that no PTB faction was behind Snowden — is that the government/media spin is simply damage control.

Addendum: Again, this essay was written just two months after the Snowden story broke in the summer of 2013; in the six or so years since then (briefly, so we can move on) nothing has changed, in terms of legislation or policy. I could send you to the various links I studied to verify that nothing has changed via Snowden’s revelations, but, for now, one should do: Regarding the much-touted 2015 USA Freedom Act, this well-researched piece from last year (2019) sums it up well:

Supporters claimed the new legislation would effectively end the NSA bulk telephone metadata program. Others, including myself, felt the bill was somewhere between terrible and disastrous, because its reforms didn’t go far enough. Last year, critics who predicted that USA Freedom Act would not end NSA’s telephone bulk collection were, ironically, vindicated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which admitted that in fact three times as much American telephone data was being collected than before the law’s enactment.

By the way, whenever you see the word ‘freedom’ in the name of a piece of legislation, you can be sure George Orwell is at least twitching in his grave.

One big ‘tell’ that Snowden may not be all that he seems is that those who came before him and who disclosed the same surveillance practices, got so little media exposure that most have never heard of them. Here’s Russell Tice, a decorated veteran of the Air Force, the DIA, the NSA and a whistleblower from 2005:

Listen to Tice and tell me how Snowden’s ‘explosive’ and ‘world changing’ exposures are any different. Why was Snowden’s face all over the media for months, while Tice doesn’t look at all familiar? The same could be said about Tom Drake, William Binney, plus Wiebe, Loomis and several others.  Meaning this: Snowden was old news. That he got so much press is a fair indication that his ‘coming out’ was a planned event.

Take a gander/listen to this pre-Snowden proof that the media knew all about the ‘Surveillance State’ going waaay back.This guy is FBI, a ‘counterterrorism’ expert hemming and hawing the ‘shocking truth’:

‘There’s a way to look at digital communications in the past.’ The obvious question: How could you look at any particular digital communication in the past unless you’d recorded them all? And indeed, the context of the agent’s words make it obvious that this is the case. Unless the NSA managed to procure 300 and some million warrants, not only is ‘looking at digital communications in the past’ illegal (via federal statutes) but a blatant, inarguable breakage of the Supreme Law of the Land, the 4th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Edward Snowden took the oath to ‘protect and defend’ the Constitution three times. (His Army enlistment, his employment by the CIA, then the NSA.) Maybe one of those times it stuck. (But again, if so, why hasn’t he mentioned it?)

Since over the past two months of the Snowden affair no one has made this point (except in passing), I may have some denial to penetrate, so I’ll yell: THE GOVERNMENT IS ILLEGALLY WIRETAPPING ALL DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS MADE BY EVERYONE, and according to multiple previous whistleblowers, it has been doing so for some time, since even before 9/11.But let’s not get sidetracked by disbelief or outrage. For the moment, what we are dealing with is the matter of Edward Snowden’s guilt or innocence. (We’re saving his motives for later.)

WHAT ABOUT ‘PROPER CHANNELS’?

There are those who have said that Snowden should have gone through proper channels in his exposing of the NSA’s blatantly illegal/unConstitutional shenanigans. Going through proper channels means Snowden would have used the Federal Whistleblower Protection Program; that was his only ‘proper channel.’ Let’s meet the official who oversees the program, the Director of National Intelligence…

Not only is James Clapper the official who Snowden would rely on to ‘protect’ his rights, but the other official mentioned in the clip, Keith Alexander, was Snowden’s NSA boss, whose previous perjury inspired the congressman’s query. So imagine how that would go, as Snowden gingerly enters Director Clapper’s office, hoping for protection:

SNOWDEN: Sir, do you mind if I blow the whistle on the perjury you committed when you testified before Congress last month?

Coincidentally, Snowden’s NSA boss, Keith Alexander, wanders in.

SNOWDEN: Oh, and you too, sir. You two don’t mind having your careers ruined by perjury charges, do you? There’s the possibility of jail time, too…

The treatment of other whistleblowers may have entered Snowden’s mind as well, like Bradley Manning, whose ‘speedy trial’ for his whistleblowing involved over two years in solitaryconfinement… (Yes, ‘Bradley is now ‘Chelsea’.)

‘Proper channels?’ In an age wherein it is statutorily legal for the president to Guantanamo-ize aU.S. citizen with no judicial recourse (the N.D.A.A.) or, if he’s feeling extra cranky, to blow him to smithereens (Anwar al-awlaki and his 16-year old son, neither of whom were even under indictment for a crime) via extra-judicial citizen hit lists? Give me a moment to stop giggling…

But what about ‘national security’? I forgot about this video: It’s pretty good, actually, if a tad repetitive… Meaning I’m hoping by now you already know this stuff.

The above is off-point, meant as a by-the-way in case there is someone reading this who is still under the delusion that there is an actual ‘war on terror’:

‘Arguably 16’ U.S. citizen deaths by terrorism since 9/11? (This is of course not counting countries we have actively attacked or are militarily occupying.) You might want to argue that the Fort Hood killings should count (they shouldn’t) and/or the Boston marathon bombing (an obvious government black op), etc., etc, but by any halfway reasonable count the number is still below 100. Way below 100. In fact, below 50. In thirteen years. Going on three times the lengthof World War II.

The fact that there is no war on terror sort of throws some perspective on the matter of Edward Snowden – his guilt or innocence – doesn’t it? (Ditto re his motives, but we’re saving the most interesting for last.)

MEDIA OBFUSCATION

What the media/government does is go on and on about ‘meta-data,’ assuring us that it is not illegal/unconstitutional to archive it. They are 100% correct. Let’s listen to the president himself on this subject and see if anyone notices the elephant in the room:

As Greenwald and Snowden and, indeed, everyone involved in the NSA data mining very well know, the salient point – salient by miles, by light years – is that the NSA digital content seizing represents billions of felonies committed by the NSA every day.

Everyone involved in this program or who knew about it (pre-Snowden) should be (impeached if necessary then) indicted, tried, and if found guilty serve jail time for violating the Supreme Law of the Land, plus in some cases for perjury and/or lying to the American people (which brought Nixon down). Here are just some of the culprits, plus a few of their media cohorts (although they took no oath, let’s jail them on GPs, general principles):

Assuming Snowden is who he says he is, and assuming he does not want to go to jail, and assuming he believes in rule of law, what he and Greenwald should be harping on is the clear breakage of the Constitution and the oath to support and defend it taken by everyone involved, including the president. But not a word about this crystal clear issue, from these folks, or anyone else. Greenwald, by the way, is not only a lawyer, but a Constitutional lawyer. One would think he’d know…

WHO OR WHAT IS EDWARD SNOWDEN?

Try as I might, I’ve only come up with two possibilities to explain Snowden et al’s total silence on the matter of Snowden’s oath and their de facto silence on the matter of the 4th Amendment:

They are really, really stupid.

Or….

They are following orders.

If there’s a third possibility, help me out. Maybe I’m stupid. (I sure as hell know I’m not underorders.)

If Snowden is operating under orders from on high, who is issuing them and for what reason?

One way to understand motive(s) is to infer from effects. So: What were/are the effects of Snowden’s ‘revelations’ (again, they are actually old news)? Most of these effects infer a conflict/power struggle amongst those with real power. Call them what you will: The Shadow Government (or to wax redundant, the Secret Shadow Government), the Deep State, ThePowers that (shouldn’t) Be, the Illuminati, The Elite, whatever – The Corporate/Wall Street/IntelNetwork/Secret Society/Foundation supported psychopaths who assassinated JFK, perpetrated 9/11, plus all kinds of crimes against humanity in between. Let’s keep it simple and refer to ‘them’ as the State.

If Snowden is one of the State’s lower tier — a plant or dupe or asset, wittingly or unwittingly part of a psy-op or power play, it’s a safe bet that he’s a pawn in a struggle among the top tier.

The true nature of the power struggle can only be guessed at; you and I can only speculate. But let’s do so, using the known effects of the Snowden Affair as the start point.

1. This one has ‘expired’ but may be of retro-interest. We know there is discord in the Obama Administration, especially regarding what to do aboutSyria. I’ll let Webster Tarpley (a piece of work but you gotta love him) sum up this piece of speculation:

Point being: There may be a power struggle on the State’s top tier regarding an attack on Syria (and the likely inception of World War III). Obama (his string-pullers) doesn’t want to do it, the other side does; the ‘other side’ includes Secretary of State John Kerry – you know there’strouble in River City when the president’s Secretary of State goes public with his own policy. The Snowden controversy weakens Obama and makes it more likely that he’ll cave and risk his presidency, and the fate of the planet, by direct involvement in Syria.

2. It appears that the NSA has been in some way hurt by Snowden’s revelations. (Actually, only time will tell on whether any real damage was done.) An ‘obvious’ perpetrator would be the CIA. (Scare quotes are necessary because virtually all the ‘information’ we base our speculations on come from the media, i.e., the State itself; hence anything that is ‘obvious’ is likely to be untrueor at least misleading. This is a realm of not only smoke and mirrors but catch-22s, lots ofthem.)

Staying with really surface, simpleminded possibilities: The NSA didn’t like what the CIA was up to and/or didn’t like David Petraeus as its head (the Benghazi fiasco might have been involved).

So they got rid of him by making public his private life, via their database. Ditto General John Allen. Alternatively, Allen may have been ‘collateral damage’ in the destruction of Petraeus. Or, who knows? Maybe Allen (NATO chief is a major seat of power) was the real target. As with allthese possibilities, permutations mount…

This was last fall (2012). The CIA got pissed off and retaliated via their boy Edward Snowden (‘formerly’ CIA with top secret clearance). It took a few months to do it right, but they did it. That James Clapper didn’t see it coming (his blatant perjury, see the above clip and this one) indicates that the op to screw the NSA was compartmentalized within CIA (or whomever/whatever is really behind Snowden). The same likely goes for Keith Alexander, when he lied.

But a ‘turf war’ motive feels too simple and obvious. Let’s get subtler, more devious, and moreinteresting.

3. On the Top Tier, the thinking may go something like this…

…some force within the State’s top tier wants the world to know that ‘no communications are secure.’ (That there is disagreement on this is obvious.) Call it thePanopticon Effect – a panopticon being a prison system (conceived by philosopher Jeremy Bentham) wherein any prisoner at any time knows that he might be under surveillance, although there is no way to know if he is being watched at any given moment. The fear engendered results in a sort of mind control of a powerful and persuasive sort.

Do you think it was a coincidence that the spectacular assassination of journalist Michael Hastings occurred in the midst of the Snowden affair? Maybe. Maybe not. (Right there you have a facet of the Panopticon Effect in action.)

Why make it so obvious? Was there a message in Hastings’s gruesome death? Most definitely. But first, a related issue: I read The Operators, Hastings’s book on the Afghanistan war. Hastings’s view of recent history is reflected in this partial list of his beliefs, gleaned from his book: Osama bin Laden perpetrated 9/11. (Hastings seems to have completely bought the 9/11 Commission Report.)

Osama bin Laden was killed by a Seal Team raid in Pakistan in 2011. In the book, Hastings asks a high ranking intelligence officer ‘Why we haven’t gotten bin Laden?’ When the officer tells him he doesn’t think we will get bin Laden, Hastings writes:

Of everything I had heard so far, this stunned me the most…. Bin Laden was our whole raisond’etre in Afghanistan.

There is a whole worldview implied by Hastings’s astonishment, no? Even the dumbest-ass man on the street tends to mention oil when motives for U.S. policy in the Mideast/Central Asia come up. Not a word about oil in Hastings’s book. Hastings does not mention heroin trafficking/money laundering as a motive for the invasion of Afghanistan. He mentions only in passing that Afghan president Karzai’s brother was deeply involved in trafficking (until he got whacked) and does not mention at all that he was a CIA asset (which is common knowledge). He also doesn’t mention that Karzai worked for Unocal during pipeline negotiations with the Taliban.

He does not seem to be aware that approximately one trillion dollars worth of minerals havebeen found in Afghanistan, including maybe the world’s richest vein of lithium, which is vital for computer and nuclear weapons manufacture. To further quote from the New York Times:

Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers inthe world, United States officials believe.

Hastings believed that Pat Tillman was killed in a friendly fire accident, not murdered because he was planning on blowing the whistle on the U.S. military’s protection of opium growing and production.

I wonder if Hastings had read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, wherein it is argued that control of Central Asia is vital for the success of the American Empire, and if he knows that Brzezinski has been major force in U.S. foreign policy since before the Carter administration — and is an acknowledged Obama mentor.

To sum up: Michael Hastings does not doubt that the United States invaded Afghanistan as a response to ‘the global terrorist threat.’ By the way, Hastings believes the official story of the Boston Marathon bombing. He also considered Bob Woodward to be a real journalist. (Oh, and I wonder if Hastings was aware that the U.S. citizen terrorism toll since 9/11 ‘is arguably 16.’)

The Operators is possibly the most extreme example of limited hangout (if unintentional) that I’ve ever come across. Given all of the above (plus more), I find it difficult to believe that Hastings was working on a story of such explosiveness that it warranted his assassination. That his death was so transparently, so spectacularly, an assassination is also problematical. (I’ll not go into details except to say that brand new Mercedes Benz’s do not blow up like that, absent sabotage.) Since he was driving a new Mercedes, why not stage a car-jacking gone sour?

Why make it so obvious? Can anyone answer this question?

Hastings’s friends and associates say the notorious email about the ‘big’ story he was working on (plus the feds were following him and he had to go under the radar, etc., etc.), did not sound like Michael. Perhaps because Michael didn’t send it? In any event, what’s the message in Hastings’s death? You got a big story, Mister Investigative Journalist? Well…

Which reminds me. From The Operators:

I was standing outside the circle. Dave came up to me. ‘You’re not going to fuck us, are you?’ I answered what I always answer. ‘I’m going to write a story; some of the stuff you’ll like, some of the stuff you probably won’t like.

Jake came up to me. ‘We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write,’ he said. ‘C. will hunt you down and kill you.’

This was during the writing of the Rolling Stone piece, ‘The Runaway General.’ I think it’s safe to say that ‘they’ didn’t like what he wrote.

I am not saying that Jake or Dave or ‘C.’ hunted down and killed Michael Hastings. Find me a ‘journalist,’ though, who in reading about that threat doesn’t ask him/herself, ‘What line do youhave to cross to get blown to smithereens/burned to a crisp?’

Why was JFK killed in such a public, grisly manner? Etc. (There is a long line of ‘etceteras’ here. There is a book of etceteras here…)

Immediately after Hastings’s death, the media propagated the rumor that the ‘big story’ from Hastings’s email had to do with the Petraeus/Allen ‘scandal’ (during which no crime was committed). Then they (the media) said, ‘No, never mind, it was something else!’

This bit of mind control was meant to say to the journalism world that that story, specifically, the one about seizing private emails to take down CIA Directors, could get you killed.

SOME SPECULATION

Maybe Michael Hastings was not working on a story that got him killed: Someone wanted to give that impression, as a warning to all ‘journalists.’ Combine Snowden’s revelations with Hastings’s obvious assassination and what do you get? You’re being watched at all times and if you step out of line, you’re dead. The Panopticon Effect on steroids.

During the cold war, with limited resources the East German secret police (the Stasi) created great fear in a population of millions with the idea that everyone was always being watched. The idea was more important than the reality.

BLACKMAIL

A week or so ago a bill in effect censoring the NSA for their surveillance programs was defeated in a House vote. Given the blatant crimes by the NSA, how could this happen? Well, imagine this scene:

Congressman X in his office. In his pocket is his cell private cell phone, which he uses only for family and other personal matters. It rings.

PHONE VOICE: Hi, Senator X, this is a fan of yours over at the NSA. How are ya? Hope the kids’ new puppy did okay at the vet yesterday…. Listen, we’d consider it a big favor if you voted against the House bill. You know the one. Vote your conscience, but think of us, too.

If you don’t think scenes like that are already being played out, maybe recall the Petraeus/Allen scandal. Or maybe get a cranial MRI to see what’s the problem in there.

4. Related to the Penopticon Effect is the possibility that a force within the State simply wants to get us used to being recorded (again, there seems to be internal disagreement on this); to see it as a natural aspect of modern life — as in, say, the city of London, which has per capita (by far) the most CCTV cameras of any place on the planet. Londoners have apparently come to accept this appalling state of affairs; the U.S. is doing its best to catch up, New York City being at the forefront here.

Since we’re being visually watched all the time, why not recorded? Edward Snowden and his revelations (again, which were old news to anyone paying attention) may be the way to eaaaase us into this mindset. In any event, this is the effect we are observing.

The National Defense Authorization Act

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2011 was a blatant assault on the Constitutional right of habeas corpus – the right of judicial recourse; to face your accuser. Is the Snowden issue a similar assault? To make it ‘formally legal’ to ignore the 4th Amendment?

The M.O. in the Snowden psy-op (if it indeed is one) appears to be the obfuscation of the difference between the physical act of recording and actual human eavesdropping (a living person listening in): As this essay has made clear, the latter is not necessary for a ‘wiretap’ to exist, legal or otherwise. And it’s Snowden himself – who should know better – doing the initial obfuscating. The media has merely taken its cue from him. Let’s parse relevant parts of Snowden’s initial interview, after his bolt to Hong Kong.

To sum up, here’s a list of things Edward Snowden has not said:

1. He does not not mention that the NSA’s surveillance system – the physical act of wiretapping — is a clear and judicially defined breakage of federal law and the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution – again, it is not necessary for a human to listen to (or read) the data for illegal ‘wiretapping’ to have occurred.

2. He does not list the federal officials and private operatives responsible for the program and who should be indicted for their crimes. In fact, the word ‘crime’ is not uttered in any of his statements; nor is the term ‘special prosecutor.’

3. He doesn’t mention that he took the oath to protect and defend the Constitution (three times). Has he been instructed to ‘not go there’? (If he did go there, the legal/ethical conundrum would be quickly solved, in his favor.)

4. He makes no distinction between ‘target,’ ‘wiretap,’ ‘eavesdrop,’ ‘surveillance,’ and ‘metadata,’ when in fact the legal distinctions are vital in understanding the matter. (Blurring these distinctions are either a part of the motive for the Snowden affair, or are part of the damage control.)

5. He doesn’t mention the principle motive of blackmail for the existence of the database. Or the creation of a list of people to be rounded up when martial law is declared. Or to increase a general state of fear among the population, ensuring submissiveness, i.e., mind control.

That last bit is vital. The subtext of ‘everything Snowden’ is that we are being watched in all we do. Again, the Hastings assassination comes to mind, as the consequence of the surveillance.

6. He does not mention that by law and by logic, the illegally-created NSA database should be destroyed — in simple computer-speak, deleted.

7. The real, the horrendous, problem, is the very existence of the database. (This cannot be repeated too many times.)

As I say, maybe Edward Snowden is just really, really stupid.

How about Glen Greenwald? Really, really stupid? Let’s parse Glen, plus his media cohorts:

As I say in the video, what Greenwald (and maybe Snowden) is trying to do is get you to accept the existence of the data base and only worry about who has access to it. The crime, the continuing crime (as of 2020), is the very existence of the database.

The above list of what Snowden has not said applies equally to Greenwald – especially to Greenwald. Given his more frequent media face time and his status as journalist and Constitutional lawyer, his non-use the terms ‘crime’ and ‘special prosecutor’ in referring to the NSA database are especially suspicious regarding his real agenda. (When he became an attorney, Greenwald took the same oath to support and defend the Constitution as did Snowden. Why isn’t he doing so? ‘Don’t go there’?)

Like most psy-ops, this one is run by the media, in plain sight.

IT’S TOO LATE, BABY….

Senator Y is a real pain in the ass. The kind of phone call made to Senator X didn’t work; Senator Y voted the wrong way. Not only that, but Senator Y is trying to sponsor a bill to create a Special Prosecutor to look into what he has called ‘The massive crimes represented by the existence of the NSA database.’

‘Since the database is virtually all illegal wiretaps,’ Senator Y stated on the Senate floor, ‘by federal and state law all the data not collected via a warrant, as per the 4th Amendment, mustbe erased, in other words, deleted. Destroyed.’

Senator Y comes in to work one morning and fires up his Mac. His screensaver is now a pastiche of child pornography.

The existence of the NSA database represents the end of whatever was left of our democracy.

It is in fact too late to do anything to save it. Ask Senator Y.

Let’s finish up with a little predictive programming via 1998’s Enemy of the State. (Give this one a look…)

#

(The version of my essay that appeared in the September, 2013 issue of Veterans Today has been deleted from the VT database. If this raises a grin, good for you.)

Okay, see how it’s worse now, in terms of Snowden’s possible guilt (in having acted at the will of the PTB)? He’s had all this time, and now a book to set the record straight, at the very least to bring up the issue of the continuing existence of the database, and he did not do it. Since the affair and up until the present, there has not been one mention of the deletion of that database — which deletion should have been carried out as a matter of course — by anyone involved in or reporting on the matter. (It really is like a bank robber being caught, tried and convicted, and no one even brings up that he should return the money.)

What does this tell you?

Addendum: I forgot to mention the repercussions of his behavior for Edward Snowden himself. Personally. Was his life ruined? Well, he’s a millionaire, from speaking engagements, not to mention his book plus the movie deal to come.

What does this tell you?

Allan

Oh, by the way, here are some other factoids I got from Eddie Snowden’s book:

Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11

AGW or man-made climate change is real

We did go to the moon with Apollo

UFOs are a hoax

Chemtrails are a ‘conspiracy theory’

Eddie likes and respects ‘journalists’

I’m forgetting three or four others, but you get the idea…

Addendum: And finally, Jon Rappoport also thinks Snowden is fishy. He sums up some great points here.