{"id":10236,"date":"2015-07-20T07:11:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T12:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10236"},"modified":"2015-07-20T07:11:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T12:11:17","slug":"the-terrorism-pretext-mass-surveillance-is-about-money-and-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10236","title":{"rendered":"The Terrorism Pretext: Mass Surveillance is About Money and Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Terrorism Pretext: Mass Surveillance is About Money and Power<\/a><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe are under pressure from the Treasury to justify our budget, and commercial espionage is one way of making a direct contribution to the nation\u2019s balance of payments\u201d<\/p>\n

-Sir Colin McColl, former MI6 Chief<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For years public figures have condemned cyber espionage committed against the United States by intruders launching their attacks out of China. These same officials then turn around and justify America\u2019s far-reaching surveillance apparatus in terms of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet classified documents published by WikiLeaks reveal just how empty these talking points are. Specifically, top-secret intercepts prove that economic spying by the United States is pervasive, that not even allies are safe, and that it\u2019s wielded to benefit powerful corporate interests.<\/p>\n

At a recent campaign event in New Hampshire Hillary Clinton\u00a0accused<\/a>China of \u201ctrying to hack into everything that doesn\u2019t move in America.\u201d Clinton\u2019s hyperbole is redolent of similar claims from the American Deep State. For example, who could forget the statement made by former NSA director Keith Alexander that Chinese cyber espionage represents the\u00a0greatest transfer of wealth<\/a>\u00a0in history? Alexander has obviously never heard of\u00a0quantitative easing<\/a>\u00a0(QE) or the self-perpetuating \u201cglobal war on terror\u201d which has likewise eaten throughtrillions of dollars<\/a>. Losses due to cyber espionage are a rounding error compared to the tidal wave of money channeled through QE and the war on terror.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When discussing the NSA\u2019s surveillance programs Keith Alexander boldly\u00a0asserted<\/a>\u00a0that they played a vital role with regard to preventing dozens of terrorist attacks, an argument that\u00a0fell apart<\/a>\u00a0rapidly under scrutiny. Likewise, in the days preceding the passage of the USA Freedom Act of 2015 President Obama\u00a0advised<\/a>\u00a0that bulk phone metadata collection was essential \u201cto keep the American people safe and secure.\u201d Never mind that decision makers have failed to provideany evidence<\/a>\u00a0that bulk collection of telephone records has prevented terrorist attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Terrorism Pretext: Mass Surveillance is About Money and Power \u201cWe are under pressure from the Treasury to justify our budget, and commercial espionage is one way of making a direct contribution to the nation\u2019s balance of payments\u201d -Sir Colin McColl, former MI6 Chief For years public figures have condemned cyber espionage committed against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[130,5493,4884,2148,464,536,577,643,765,793,834,7414,4810],"class_list":["post-10236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-china","tag-counterpunch","tag-cyberwarfare","tag-hacking","tag-keith-alexander","tag-money","tag-nsa","tag-power","tag-surveillance","tag-terrorism","tag-us","tag-us-deep-state","tag-usa-freedom-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10237,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236\/revisions\/10237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}