First, one of the better articles on the security apparatus, from the Washington Post: Top Secret America Part I: A Hidden World Growing Beyond Control
With some 854,000 Americans currently holding Top Secret clearances, this sounds like the description of the CIA from Legacy Of Ashes but with many, many times the size, spending, and waste. The only real conclusion you can make from all this? Absolutely nobody in the US Government has any real control, or even knowledge of what’s going on in their own Top Secret America. Glenn Greenwald also has his take on the Post’s article.
If the UAE and other oppressive, authoritarian regimes have gotten BlackBerry and to hand over the encryption keys (and the messages and all their other user data) then why not the USA? Naturally, somewhere in our security apparatus, your messages are already decoded! But that’s the domain of the Army and the NSA. Now, our friends in the White House can’t wait to pass new laws to give local, state and federal law enforcement simple, easy access to the same information. Perhaps they can’t resist the pressure from the security apparatus. More here and here and here. Oh, and here.
The NSA recently declassified documents showing that The Iraq War Was Planned Long Before 9/11 (just in case this wasn’t intuitive to you when the re-invasion was announced)
The UK Proposes All Paychecks Go to the State First (Surely the US Government is watching the experiment, and someday soon your local bank branch will go into FDIC receivership on Friday, with a new sign that says “IRS” on Monday!)
You have to wonder how much of Part I on Top Secret America got understated (or totally redacted) when you read that the Washington Post Censors Article re Half of Karzai’s Palace Being On CIA Payroll
Did the propaganda arm of the security apparatus (esteemed outlets such as Fox News and NPR) leave you thinking that extremist Muslim sects want to build a mosque at Ground Zero? Untangling the Bizarre CIA Links to the Ground Zero Mosque
John Boehner explains why he handed out tobacco industry bribes on the floor of the House of Representatives (“it’s a practice that we’re trying to stop, and I know that I’ll never do it again”)
You may know that Canadian taxes bring the price of cigarettes up yonder to $8 per pack. The New Big Tobacco: Inside Canada’s Underground Tobacco Industry describes how the natives have brought the price down to about $2 per pack. (Maybe these are the cigarettes this guy was smoking when he got busted?)
What happens when “nominal adults, even the barely educated variety characteristically found on school boards” find your kid in school with a toy gun? Then, what happens a year later? Lunatics to the Left, Lunatics to the Right, and Not a Drop to Drink “Think about it. Kid—he’s eight—shows up with toy gun after watching 12,000 hours of shoot’em-ups on the lobotomy box, Luke Skywalker blasting funny-looking milkmen like a pretty little mollycoddle turned psychopath. Kid sees war coverage with heroic GIs in Afghanistan killing anybody they can see. He watches recruiting ads for the Marines, who carry guns and want A Few Good Persons. Why would he possibly be interested in a toy gun?”
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