{"id":24906,"date":"2017-08-27T14:56:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-27T19:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24906"},"modified":"2017-08-27T14:56:10","modified_gmt":"2017-08-27T19:56:10","slug":"the-cia-and-me-how-i-learned-not-to-love-big-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24906","title":{"rendered":"The CIA and Me: How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CIA and Me: How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo by Andrea Yori | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging technologies for digital surveillance, agile drones, and biometric identification. In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information, the Washington Post reported<\/a><\/em> that the national security state had swelled into a \u201cfourth branch\u201d of the federal government \u2014 with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security organizations, and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year.<\/p>\n

Though stunning, these statistics only skimmed the visible surface of what had become history\u2019s largest and most lethal clandestine apparatus. According to classified documents that Edward Snowden leaked<\/a> in 2013, the nation\u2019s 16 intelligence agencies alone had 107,035 employees and a combined \u201cblack budget\u201d of $52.6 billion, the equivalent<\/a> of 10% percent of the vast defense budget.<\/p>\n

By sweeping the skies and probing the worldwide web\u2019s undersea cables, the National Security Agency (NSA) could surgically penetrate the confidential communications of just about any leader<\/a> on the planet, while simultaneously sweeping up billions<\/a> of ordinary messages. For its classified missions, the CIA had access to the Pentagon\u2019s Special Operations Command, with 69,000 elite troops<\/a>(Rangers, SEALs, Air Commandos) and their agile arsenal. In addition to this formidable paramilitary capacity, the CIA operated<\/a> 30 Predator and Reaper drones responsible<\/a> for more than 3,000 deaths in Pakistan and Yemen.<\/p>\n

While Americans practiced a collective form of duck and cover as the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s colored alerts<\/a> pulsed nervously from yellow to red, few paused to ask the hard question: Was all this security really directed solely at enemies beyond our borders?<\/p>\n

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

The CIA and Me: How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother Photo by Andrea Yori | CC BY 2.0 In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging […]<\/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],"tags":[15723,2472,135,865],"class_list":["post-24906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-alfred-w-mccoy","tag-big-brother","tag-cia","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24906","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=24906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24907,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24906\/revisions\/24907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}