Trump has allowed the right wing fringe into positions of power. His
administration has changed the standards for what is permissible. Immigration
and customs personnel are now detaining American citizens who aren't white.
Trump's proposed budget contains vicious cuts to domestic programs that affect
all of us while adding 54 billion dollars to the military that the Pentagon
didn't request. Trump's personality defects mean that the most consequential
deaths concerning nuclear war and the end of humanity, are in the hands of a
national leader who suffers from attention deficit, poor judgment, and the
consequences of narcissistic personality. Our President watches Fox in order to
get his information, tweets all night, does not read briefings, does not read
books or reports, and spends most of his energy worrhying about his image, as a
strong man with sexual conquests. Like other autocrats, he is attempting to
take control of the entire government, putting his children in charge, and his
spies in every government department.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:30 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: jamesjarvis98 <jamesjarvis98@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: James Bamford | The Multibillion-Dollar US Spy
Agency You Haven't Heard Of
Today's airing of Democracy Now is an eye opener for those who believe that
impeaching Trump will solve our problems. Trump is merely the scab covering a
pus pocket. Pull him off and the only change will be that everything will be
instantly covered, and we will have no idea where to turn.
We keep making the same mistakes. We focus on one individual, when the cause
of our up coming destruction is an entire anti American Movement. The Movement
is dedicated to reducing our government to "pimple" size. The driving force in
this fast growing movement is only interested in the freedom to do as they
please. We keep trotting out heart rendering tales of starving children, rat
infested slums, crumbling schools and roads and bridges, and single mothers
burning their second hand furniture in order to keep some heat for their
children. Because most of us have a sense of compassion, and care for those
less fortunate than ourselves, we think that the Ruling Class have the same
compassion. When will we learn that the Ruling Class is held captive by Greed
and His lieutenants Lust and Envy? They have no time in their grubbing lives
for compassion. Compassion is a sign of weakness, to them. We, the People,
are held in contempt. Even as these professional pirates smile and tell us
what we want to hear, in their private conversations they sneer and spit upon
us and our beliefs. It's all a big game to them. Winner take all. And we
think we can discuss issues and talk sense into these alien minds? We try to
believe we can compromise with them, even as the only outcome in their minds is
to conquer us. Some of our leaders say we need to listen to all sides. But
how do we listen to all sides when one side is hiding behind lies and
misconception? Take the time today to go
to:
democracynow.org
Listen to who owns Trump, and much of America. These snickering, sneering
privateers are not role models. They are the real Terrorists in our midst.
They are monsters. They have no ability to show compassion. It is not in
their genes.
Am I coming through yet?
Carl Jarvis
On 3/23/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Have you heard of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency? (photo: U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District/Getty Images/Foreign
Policy)
James Bamford | The Multibillion-Dollar US Spy Agency You Haven't
Heard Of
By James Bamford, Foreign Policy
22 March 17
How President Trump might turn an all-seeing spy apparatus on innocent
American citizens.
In a heavily protected military base some 15 miles south of
Washington, D.C., sits the massive headquarters of a spy agency few
know exists. Even Barack Obama, five months into his presidency,
seemed not to have recognized its name. While shaking hands at a Five
Guys hamburger restaurant in Washington in May 2009, he asked a
customer seated at a table about his job.
"What do you [do]?" the president inquired. "I work at NGA, National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency," the man answered. Obama appeared
dumbfounded. "So, explain to me exactly what this National
Geospatial." he said, unable to finish the name. Eight years after
that videotape aired, the NGA remains by far the most shadowy member
of the Big Five spy agencies, which include the CIA and the National
Security Agency.
Despite its lack of name recognition, the NGA's headquarters is the
third-largest building in the Washington metropolitan area, bigger
than the CIA headquarters and the U.S. Capitol.
Completed in 2011 at a cost of $1.4 billion, the main building
measures four football fields long and covers as much ground as two
aircraft carriers. In 2016, the agency purchased 99 acres in St. Louis
to construct additional buildings at a cost of $1.75 billion to
accommodate the growing workforce, with 3,000 employees already in the
city.
The NGA is to pictures what the NSA is to voices. Its principal
function is to analyze the billions of images and miles of video
captured by drones in the Middle East and spy satellites circling the
globe. But because it has largely kept its ultra-high-resolution
cameras pointed away from the United States, according to a variety of
studies, the agency has never been involved in domestic spy scandals
like its two far more famous siblings, the CIA and the NSA. However,
there's reason to believe that this will change under President Donald
Trump.
Throughout the long election campaign and into his first months as
president, Trump has pushed hard for weakening restraints on the
intelligence agencies, spending more money for defense, and getting
tough on law and order. Given the new president's overwhelming focus
on domestic security, it's reasonable to expect that Trump will use
every tool available to maintain it, including overhead vigilance.
In March 2016, the Pentagon released the results of an investigation
initiated by the Department of Defense's Office of Inspector General
to examine military spy drones in the United States. The report,
marked "For Official Use Only" and partially redacted, revealed that
the Pentagon used unarmed surveillance drones over American soil on
fewer than 20 occasions between 2006 and 2015. (Although the report
doesn't identify the nature of the missions, another Pentagon document
lists 11 domestic drone operations that principally involved natural
disasters, search and rescue, and National Guard training.)
The investigation also quoted from an Air Force law review article
pointing out the growing concern that technology designed to spy on
enemies abroad may soon be turned around to spy on citizens at home.
"As the nation winds down these wars . assets become available to
support other combatant command
(COCOM) or U.S. agencies, the appetite to use them in the domestic
environment to collect airborne imagery continues to grow."
Although the report stated that all missions were conducted within
full compliance of the law, it pointedly noted that as of 2015 there
were no standardized federal statutes that "specifically address the
employment of the capability provided by a DoD UAS (unmanned aircraft
system) if requested by domestic civil authorities." Instead, there is
a Pentagon policy governing reconnaissance drones that requires the
secretary of defense to approve all such domestic operations. Under
these regulations, drones "may not conduct surveillance on U.S.
persons" unless permitted by law and approved by the secretary. The
policy also bans armed drones over the United States for anything
other than military training and weapons testing.
In 2016, unbeknownst to many city officials, police in Baltimore began
conducting persistent aerial surveillance using a system developed for
military use in Iraq.
Few civilians have any idea how advanced these military eye-in-the-sky
drones have become. Among them is ARGUS-IS, the world's
highest-resolution camera with 1.8 billion pixels. Invisible from the
ground at nearly four miles in the air, it uses a technology known as
"persistent stare" - the equivalent of 100 Predator drones peering
down at a medium-size city at once
- to track everything that moves.
With the capability to watch an area of 10 or even 15 square miles at
a time, it would take just two drones hovering over Manhattan to
continuously observe and follow all outdoor human activity, night and
day. It can zoom in on an object as small as a stick of butter on a
plate and store up to 1 million terabytes of data a day. That capacity
would allow analysts to look back in time over days, weeks, or months.
Technology is in the works to enable drones to remain aloft for years
at a time.
The Department of Homeland Security has been at these crossroads
before. In 2007, during the presidency of George W. Bush, the
department established an agency to direct domestic spy satellite
stakeouts and gave it a bland name:
the National Applications Office. But Congress, concerned about a "Big
Brother in the Sky," cut off funding. In 2009, it was killed by the
Obama administration.
Still, unlike domestic electronic surveillance by the NSA, which has
been closely scrutinized and subjected to legislation designed to
protect civil liberties, domestic overhead spying has escaped the
attention of both Congress and the public. The Trump administration
may take advantage of that void.
Initiating a new age of "persistent surveillance," Trump could use the
spy world's overhead assets to target Muslims or members of Black Lives
Matter.
The president has spoken in favor of increasing the scrutiny of
mosques; aerial assessment would allow him to track worshippers.
Drones could aid in the mass roundup of illegal immigrants intended
for deportation, and Trump has said he may send federal forces to Chicago to
quell the violence.
Drones
could offer the city the unblinking eye for 24/7 vigilance.
Of course, all that would require a significant expansion of the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to analyze the domestic
imagery. Before that can happen, Trump, like Obama, has to discover there is
such an agency.
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