12/03/12 – Thomas Hedges – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
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And our final guest on the show today is Thomas Hedges from the Center for Study of Responsive Law.
And he's the author of this new piece at truthdig.com, Three Men Who Wouldn't Let the NSA Get Away With It.
Welcome to the show, Thomas.
How are you doing?
Thanks.
I'm doing pretty well.
How are you?
I'm doing real good.
Appreciate you joining us today.
Great piece here.
I guess, do you want to sort of give us the shorthand version of who these three are that you're spotlighting here and why we should be so thankful for what they've sacrificed?
Yeah, sure.
So these three, I guess they were brought together at the Cow- they were the recipients of the Callaway Awards here in Washington, D.C.
Two of them are former employees for the National Security Agency, Kirk Wiebe and William Binney.
And then the third one is John Kiriakou, who is a former CIA agent and is being prosecuted.
He's going to jail for 30- or prison for 30 months.
He's losing his government pension.
And these are three whistleblowers who came out and kind of exposed what was going on with American intelligence and just two main things.
One, wasteful government spending.
And in the end, it's not really wasteful.
It's just that these private contracts that are unnecessarily huge amounts of dollars that are going to these private industries, intelligence industries.
And then the second, just a violation of privacy rights.
And that, you know, there's trillions upon trillions of emails, phone calls, Internet domain visits that are just being recorded illegally.
And that's why they left the NSA and the CIA, respectively.
Hmm.
And now, are each and all these men being persecuted by the Department of Justice for this?
No, just John Kiriakou.
The other two, William Binney and Kirk Wiebe, they tried to prosecute them.
And they already failed.
They failed.
They came up with false charges.
And Wiebe and Binney were threatening to do a counter prosecution.
And so the government didn't go ahead and do that.
They stripped them of their security clearance.
And they raided their homes a couple of times.
I mean, William Binney in 2007, they raided William Binney's home and held a gun to his head as he was stepping out of the shower.
And so they've, you know, they've gotten their fair share of abuse.
But they're not, they haven't had any charges brought against them.
Well, that's lucky because that's pretty hard to get out from under as Kiriakou's case testifies, right?
Yes.
And he's being charged with the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
That's exactly what it's called.
Like Cheney did to Blaine.
Mm hmm.
That's what they're accusing this guy of doing.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So, you know, exactly.
So he, you know, he gave this interview with the New York Times.
New York Times, CBS.
And within the New York Times article, they say, you know, he gave certain names away, which you're not allowed to do.
And so that's how they're charging him.
That's how they're putting them in prison.
And he was facing up to 16 years, got away with 30 months, which is still awful.
But I mean, you know, what he was facing was really, is really terrible.
And he's losing his government pension.
And so, yeah.
And now I know that he there's a, you know, it's almost a joke the way no torture from the Bush years has been held accountable at all.
But this guy who's accused of naming a couple of torturers is the one who gets in trouble, you know, under the right.
Well, I mean, this is going to create a huge chilling effect.
I mean, because he's the only one being charged.
I mean, the person who steps forward to uncover the Bush era, you know, the Bush torture program is the only one being prosecuted.
So, I mean, this is really not only is it just, you know, it's just not a real form of justice, but it also is going to keep other whistleblowers from stepping forward.
That may change because Obama just signed the new whistleblower protection laws.
But I mean, I really doubt that's going to do too much.
Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president his administration has than any other administration in history, I think, with the exception of one administration.
But he's just Obama's been very harsh on whistleblowers.
And yeah, I mean, I think this is especially with the this is a really interesting case with the intelligence, American intelligence, just because it involves, you know, it involves that level of secrecy, which you it's not a place where whistleblowers really can step forward and uncover what's going on because it is classified.
And, you know, so, for example, they want to say, you know, that's wasted billions of dollars, but, you know, it's classified how much money they spend and who they're dealing with and what the programs do exactly and how much information is actually being recorded and all this kind of stuff.
So so I mean, it's just very hard to actually go against these intelligence agencies when they have this level of secrecy.
I mean, it really protects them pretty well.
Yeah.
I mean, hey, that's a pretty serious threat.
You know, your secrecy agreement there.
If you if if a government employee who wants to tell the people of the country the truth about what his boss is doing is told or is led to believe that whistleblower protections are meaningless and will not protect you and what really is going to happen is you're going to spend decades in a cage away from your family.
That's the kind of thing that gets a lot of people to shut their traps and keep them shut and never talk, never even dream of talking to a reporter about what they know, because forget that.
Right.
Who's going to do that?
Right.
Other than Daniel Ellsberg or something who's saying, fine, lock me up for decades.
I don't care, which is hardcore.
No one's like that, you know?
Right.
And, you know, comparing Kiriakou's case to Daniel Ellsberg, I mean, Kiriakou and Bradley Manning actually to Julian Assange.
I mean, it's sort of backwards.
These whistleblowers are really being abused more than Daniel Ellsberg was.
I mean, Bradley Manning just being in solitary confinement and, you know, being stripped naked and all this kind of stuff.
So the other scary part is just the level, you know, how technologically advanced we are.
I mean, this is a tool, you know, all the other resources and the programs and, you know, data collecting systems and all this kind of stuff is the KGB would have loved to have all these tools that the NSA has and the CIA has.
So at this point, I mean, you really could indict.
I mean, you could catch whistleblowers before they even go public.
And it's just there's such a level of, you know, tyranny that comes with this program, with all these programs, which I'll explain for a bit what they're exactly.
What's going on in the NSA right now, they are just recording trillions and trillions of emails and phone conversations and this sort of stuff.
The problem and William Binney and Kirk Wiebe, who are two of the top code writers that the agency has ever had, were able to come up with a program that took all that information and was able to sift through all of it and find what was relevant or important for the government.
Right now, they have to automatically search all that information.
So whether they want to find, you know, they have to type into a search bar, you know, they type in whatever word they're looking for or the date, they have to do it manually.
The system that Wiebe and Binney designed is automatic.
And the government never really got its hands on that program.
That's why, and they created this after they came forward with complaints about, you know, lavish spending and giving these contracts to private industries and the agency failing to actually carry out its mission.
So they had this program.
The government, the FBI raided their homes.
I think Binney says they were trying, he thinks they were trying to find the program he created on his computer, which he hadn't saved on his computer.
So they still don't have it.
But they want it because when they get it, then they can actually, they're not lost with all this information.
They can actually narrow down and automatically search what they think is important and what's relevant and catch people who are, you know, quote unquote, a threat to national security.
Whether it's whistleblowers.
I mean, they can do anything they want.
Whistleblowers or actual, you know, terrorists as they call it, you know.
So that's the danger right now is that they have all this information.
It's stored in huge facilities like in Utah, for example.
And they have not intercepted it yet.
Their definition of interception is not actually collecting it.
It's when somebody actually listens or reads the message.
So that's the way they get the public say, we don't, you know, we haven't intercepted any phone calls, anything like that.
Really what they're doing is they're storing all this stuff until they can pass another law or get permission, you know, whether it's the Patriot Act or, you know, another step, take another step forward where they can finally unlock some of that information once they get their hands on this automated, you know, data analysis system.
And then we're in real danger.
All right.
But wait a minute, though.
Here's the thing.
I'm sorry.
I got to interrupt you, Thomas, because I'm afraid that someone would just tune in and think they're listening to crazy town.
But in fact, what you're saying is actual just documented journalism here that they literally do have the ability, as Julian Assange is saying the other day, to download, to save the entire Internet.
So they don't have to have a J. Edgar Hoover, you know, weirdo following you around and taking notes on your sex life.
They just have to do is hit the enter key and they know everything about you.
They can assemble everything that they already have about you instantaneously if they implement it as as far as they could.
It's worse than George Orwell could have ever had a nightmare about.
Yeah.
Oh, of course.
And and I mean, it sounds crazy.
It sounds like, come on, don't be ridiculous.
They can download the whole damn Internet.
What it does.
Yeah, but I mean, that really that really is what they're doing.
I mean, they have huge facilities where they actually are downloading trillions of interactions every day, trillions of interactions every day.
And I mean, it's scary because once they can they finally get permission and hopefully they don't get permission, but, you know, they get permission to actually intercept to actually finally listen to and read emails and listen to phone calls and that sort of stuff, they can they'll be able to go back in time because they already have they have all this information stored right now.
It's just a matter of being able to to actually look at it.
So they, you know, you know, it's just it's it's scary.
And, you know, Benny said described it as the car is already built.
The car, I think he called to, you know, the to dictatorship or tyranny or something like that is already built and all they need to do is turn the key.
So, I mean, all the workings are in place and it's only a matter of time as Benny and we describe it and, you know, and no matter how the government is always going to say, well, you know, all this technology is not meant to we're not we're not using it against the American public and, you know, and they might change slight definitions of intercept and all that kind of stuff.
But in the end, you know, the other day I was reading an article that Joe Salka was a comic journalist, a graphic journalist wrote in 1998, which was about the trial hearings of the war criminals and the Balkan wars and the genocide against the Muslims and Croats.
And, you know, there's a he was sitting in the trial and and Radovan Karadzic, I think it was Radovan Karadzic who, you know, who was one of the one of the political leaders who was in charge of the genocide said, you know, we never meant they organize these camps for the Muslims and the Croats.
And he said, we never meant for them to turn into concentration camp.
You know, they were they really were supposed to be camp.
And it's just that when we created the camp, it turned into a concentration camp just because that's how kind of human behavior works.
Got to provide security for them, right?
Right.
So so I think it's the same case here.
I think no matter how much we try to create a system that is so invasive, we can say as much as we want, we can say it's not meant to we're not meant we're not going to prosecute you go after whistleblowers or dissenters or anything like this.
It's purely meant for I think that in the end, you know, we're going to say that kind of stuff, but it's just going to take its own path without anybody really forcing it to take its own path.
It's going to turn into exactly what we dread and, you know, something that the terrorists could have never, ever done to us.
We've done to ourselves.
Yeah, well, and I guess it really is the terrorist threat that is responsible more than anything else for the American people's attitude about all of this, because I'm afraid that, you know, all this is happening with but a whimper.
I mean, there is Truthdig.com and, you know, there are people who, you know, read James Bamford and then tell others.
And that's important.
But as far as the masses of the people, it seems like they're just yielding.
I mean, what the hell are you going to do?
Yeah.
So they have the Orwellian totalitarian surveillance system all around us that keeps track of every dollar we spend and every step we take.
But what are you going to do?
You know, vote Democrat.
What good is that going to do you?
You know what I mean?
It's already over.
The battle's already been won, in a sense.
Like you said, the car's built.
You're just all you're waiting for is a worse president than the one we got now.
Yeah.
And, you know, Weeby and Denny, the two former NSA employees who left, who eventually left in 2007-2008, you know, they say that Obama is worse on this kind of stuff than Bush was, surprisingly, and that, you know, the torture program that started under Bush, you know, Patriot Act, the Stellar Wind, which got a lot of heat when it was illegally spying.
That was the first kind of program that started illegally spying on American citizens.
But that Obama has not only continued that program, but he's expanded it and prosecuted more, even more whistleblowers, that he's expanded the drone program, you know, immediate assassinations in Yemen and Pakistan, and that, you know, it's sort of a joke.
I mean, Obama's just a complete image that he's more progressive than Bush, but it's not, you know, he actually engages in a lot of the same stuff that Bush does.
You know, I think he gets away with it.
I mean, it's funny, right?
When Bush was claiming the powers of the emperor or God or whatever, it's plenary and inherent that he can break any law and do whatever he wants.
He was actually like a little bit afraid still of breaking the law.
So he only violated FISA like, I don't know, 100 million times or something like that.
Whereas the Democrats then legalized it all.
And so now it's like, just forget about there's not even even George W.
Bush had a little bit of worry about whether he was going to get away with it or not.
Now it's perfectly legal.
It's just fine.
All bets are off.
The FISA court's only job is to approve general warrants for entire hemispheres at a time, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
And the Democrats have really done something remarkable where they are able to kind of silence people who call themselves progressive, you know, leftist Democrats, liberals, that when Bush was in office, there was a kind of there was still I feel like there was a little more reaction and there was a little more accountability, you know, that that Democrats were, you know, were opposing were actually opposing somewhat opposing Bush and the Republicans.
Whereas when Obama came into office, there was sort of this kind of, you know, latitude where Americans all of a sudden gave up and they said, great, you know, we won.
Obama is in office and I'm sure that he has the best of intentions.
So they stepped back.
And I think that's really what's given Obama a lot of power is, you know, kind of laziness, complacency that Americans assume that since there's a Democrat in office, everything is going to be different, which is not true.
I mean, you just you got to look at the record.
You got to look at, you know, he ran on an anti-war platform and and he's expanded the wars and, you know, the surge in 2010 and, you know, the drone program of, you know, he put the same people back in charge to ruin the economy in 2008.
And I mean, it just the list goes on.
He really didn't do anything different.
And so people have to realize that it's the same kind of thing with the you know, there was this uproar after the Patriot Act and people have to realize that that it's gotten worse since then.
You know, since Obama's come into office, things haven't gotten better.
It's he's expanded these programs and, you know, he's he's giving these private and district contractors who are very inefficient and, you know, are are basically looking to just milk money from the government that he's still giving them billions and billions of dollars when, you know, we have this deficit and, you know, when we're cutting off, flashing all sorts of social programs and all this kind of stuff.
So I think I think people have to realize that that the Democrats is just a different brand, but it's still a part of the same system, you know?
Yeah, well, you know, it's a small comfort when the lawless police state takes down the CIA director, but at least we get that, you know what I mean?
And, you know, that's kind of what Julian Assange wrote in that big manifesto, right, was if we can get a lot of leaks, then we can force the empire to clamp down on their own information systems in order to plug the leaks.
But the result of that will be they won't be able to maintain their empire without being able to tell its parts what to do.
And so the whole thing will fall apart finally.
Yeah, I think I think that's right.
I think that you have to attack one.
I think the strategy is to attack one pillar at a time and to kind of prove to I think it has to the system has to kind of crumble on itself for people to start stepping out like William Binney and Kirk Wiebe and John Kiriakou that these pillars have to fall.
People have to start stepping out from under the structure and actually, you know, saying what these whistleblowers were saying and exposing what's actually going on in the government, which not enough people do.
Yeah, you know what?
I'm really too pessimistic and I think it's rubbing off on you a little bit.
But the point of this article is that there are people who are willing to stick their neck out and tell the truth.
And and, you know, the rest of us owe them a little bit of thanks, if not outright help, you know, for, you know, risking themselves to tell us the truth under the premise we can do a little something about it, whether it's Bradley Manning or Wiebe or Binney or any of these guys.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I think I think if you look hard enough as a reader, you know, which people don't really do enough nowadays of reading.
But I mean, it's still on the Internet.
You can find these people and you can find what's actually going on with these alternative news sources.
I mean, and in this case, the the mainstream media actually did a fairly good job of covering, you know, what was going on at the NSA and the CIA and New York Times, CBS and ABC.
But the problem was that as soon as Kiriakou was, you know, being was indicted, they severed all contact.
I mean, they just forgot about him.
You know, he was working with John Kerry, described John Kerry as a very good friend.
And John Kerry hasn't talked to him since he's been since these charges have been brought against them.
ABC, CBS, he contacted these news organizations to do follow up stories and none of them responded.
So, you know, I don't think that the answer lies with the mainstream media.
I think, you know, you got you really got to look for that kind of information on your own.
But I mean, it's out there.
And then and then also the other thing is just in terms of what's being covered, you know, I think cover it.
Media coverage changed very much after Occupy Wall Street when you had a group that was focused, you know, it wasn't so much a political movement.
It didn't support a political leader.
Instead, it was focused on community building.
You know, these initiatives to buy foreclosed houses for families and the Occupy Sandy effort.
Yeah, it might as well be Branch Davidians saying that there's an alternative to the way it works now.
That's not allowed.
Right.
And and and the mainstream media isn't reporting on that alternative culture on that alternative.
It really is an alternative economy where communities are slowly being abandoned by Wall Street, by, you know, big business, by and that's the way capitalism works, is that it sheds itself the labor force that doesn't need and then manipulates them and uses them.
And you see, you definitely see that with the prison system taking taking advantage of a large reserve of labor that's that's ultimately useless now.
But these communities are focusing on self-sufficiency and really the guilty conscience of the state, you know, and of the media that's in bed with it, that, you know, to to define those people as the enemy and to deploy these weapons that they develop, these weapons of surveillance that they develop under the excuse of hunting Zawahiri, who's still on the loose, by the way, and turn all that stuff against us.
It's not that they have anything to fear from the Occupy movement as far as actual violence goes, but they assume so because they're so lawless and violent that they just figured that would be the reaction to them.
You know, so there they stand in all their gear, just waiting for something to happen, maybe hiring somebody to try to get something to happen.
Yeah, well, I think that's kind of the irony is that and this is definitely what something that, you know, Marx understood that capitalism in the end kind of crumbles on.
It always will crumble on itself.
And there's a great documentary that just came out by Eugene direct that Eugene directly directed called The House I Live In, which is about the prison system in the US.
But it's also it's about much more.
It kind of takes a look at how the how prisons and are taking advantage of the prison industrial complex is really taking advantage of this huge labor force.
You know, that's just been, you know, all these unemployed people, the American citizens that that they're sort of what they do.
They go these these, you know, these private contractors will go and build.
They'll say, listen, you know, we'll build you this facility or excuse me.
Well, you build us this facility and then we'll rent it out from you and we'll, you know, add a lot of revenue to your town.
And so the taxpayers agree what they don't understand is that the prisons have to get the prisoners from somewhere.
So, you know, all these people who are all of a sudden out of work and now the big target is meth, which a lot of Americans in the Midwest, poor Americans are, you know, white and black.
It doesn't really matter using.
And that's the new drug that's kind of being targeted because that's the new labor reserve that's been laid off that that is now useless because a lot of manufacturing has moved out of the US.
So they take a bit.
They're squeezing the last bit of value out of every single human being who is out of work.
But in the end, I mean, it's not it's not self-sustainable.
I mean, you can't build.
And the problem is that these these contractors, the people who are the companies that are benefiting from, you know, supplying the prison, building the prisons and while renting out the prisons and, you know, the food and all this kind of stuff.
I mean, they don't they don't care whether it's self-sustainable or not.
It's a lot.
It's short term profit.
And that's that's a very good picture of capitalism.
That capitalism does the same thing.
It feeds on itself, makes as much short term profit as it can.
And then it crumbles.
And, you know, that that's what that's where we're headed.
And so you have this marginal, you have this community to occupy Wall Street kind of community or community culture that is that is in opposition.
But it's not getting any any kind of coverage because it's not a part of that mainstream culture.
And I think people have to realize that that I you know, that that is something that might emerge after, you know, after the U.S. kind of weakens and crumbles on itself, that there is this alternative culture and that there are people who understand what's what's going on.
It's just that they're not being put in The New York Times and CBS and ABC and MSNBC and Fox News and all these other publications.
So that was sort of that was I got on a tangent there.
But I think that's relevant to, you know, looking at this issue.
Yeah, sure.
You know, it's just like the conversation about the Congo earlier with this guy from the nation in a way on any of these issues.
I'm afraid of any real media spotlight on it, because what if people just like it and want it to be worse or they just use that as an excuse to intervene and make it worse and in an even worse way?
What if Gallup did a poll on?
Do you think that the state ought to hire private companies to run all the prisons and that they ought to be able to force people to make goods at less than Chinese wages at gunpoint all day?
And what if the people in their supermajority say, yeah, and they shouldn't even get jury trials anymore either?
Then, you know, let's just stop polling.
Stop doing the news.
Just don't even include the people in this anymore, because they're even worse than the fascists who run this place.
And that's just my opinion.
I mean, seriously, like we're talking about with the Congo.
Well, what if there really was a bunch of news about the Congo?
Would they tell the truth that America backs both sides in a bloody civil war that killed five million people because they're evil?
No, they would say, well, we need intervention to begin tomorrow in order to stop the killing.
It's like they're saying in Syria now.
They've been backing the rebels in Syria for a year and a half ago.
You know what?
At some point, how many dead people is too many dead people?
How long before we finally intervene to save them?
You know, why not?
Why not get it just as wrong when it comes to private prisons or any of the rest of this or NSA surveillance?
Well, of course, you should have to share all of your email content with the government.
How else will we know that you're safe and not a terrorist?
Yeah.
And, you know, the other thing about the you see, democracy is just as bad as capitalism, maybe worse.
They're the ones with the guns, the Democrats, the capitalists to sell them the guns.
You know, they don't hold them.
Yeah.
And I think the thing about the real is that the NSA is, you know, the whole this case is that we'd be Benny and Kiriakou were I mean, they came out of the establishment.
They were huge.
I mean, they'd been working for decades for these agencies and had a kind of loyalty to the NSA and the CIA and assumed that these agencies were interested in actually protecting the American public and working, you know, to strengthen national security.
But as soon as you know, after 9-11, I think they were they you know, they said that they they felt betrayed because they felt like the government had taken advantage of that fear after 9-11 to pump as much money as it could.
Inflate budgets for the sake of making a profit, for the sake of, you know, when the NSA, when these intelligence agencies, they like to compete by having the biggest budget.
If you have a big budget, it means you have more prestige and the NSA has the biggest budget among among the intelligence agencies.
So that, you know, these contracts that they get and, you know, the big one after or actually right before 9-11 was called Trailblazer.
It was the NSA was trying to was choosing between a Trailblazer and another program called Thin Thread, which Benny, another former employee named Ed Loomis, and we're working on had designed, which was cheap.
It was it was they made it using off the shelf equipment.
It was not contract that I was done within the agency.
It was better designed.
And the NSA chose Trailblazer because it inflated its budget and it gave, you know, all this money to private contractors.
And that, you know, that was sort of the first time they did.
That's not what they left.
But that was the first time they came up and complained and said that, you know, there was all that with all this mismanagement and sort of points to an interest in money and prestige rather than and reputation rather than actually fulfilling its goals.
And that after that, you know, they saw that all this new equipment was coming in for a new program that the government was was it was sort of molded.
The thing to understand is that Trailblazer, Turbulence, you know, Stellar Wind, Thin Thread, these are all they're not like individual kind of programs that you can say, OK, you know, that it's sort of code because you're not allowed to talk about what's going on in the NSA.
So they talk about these projects, but they blend all they kind of blend together.
And Trail Thin Thread was an automated program, which means, you know, you didn't you didn't have to manually search through all this information.
It could find the information for you.
So but it had this this code on it that kept citizens identities, you know, secret.
And the government started using that without the encrypted code to spy illegally on American citizens.
And that's when we be and, you know, people like Thomas Drake, an executive there, director and William Binney and Ed Loomis left was after that incident.
But, you know, it's a combination of of not only abusing the American public, but also making a profit, trying to make a profit on the way.
And, yeah, on the rip off.
Yeah, I mean, it's just I think the point basically is just that one of these people who were part of the establishment, when they actually kind of got a true taste of what the institution actually cared about, were forced to leave because they understood that the institution was not interested in actually fulfilling its mission and wasn't interested in actually protecting national security.
I mean, it was totally corrupt.
And and it used this period of fear after 9-11 to to for its self-interest.
And these are people who have been with the institution, with the government for you for decades.
So I think that's really telling.
And I think that's really got to be seriously considered.
Well, yeah, it's a bit hopeful to write that like, you know what, there are people in there who are still patriotic and idealistic enough where they go, hey, wait a minute, you can't do that.
And if it's bad enough, some of them will even tell the truth about it.
Then it's up to the rest of us.
Well, like you in this article, me having you on and everybody listening to, I don't know, do something, hassle their congressman about it or something.
I don't know.
At least there's you know, what really counts is that everybody knows that the American people by their super majorities are completely against this and think that it's got to be stopped immediately.
If that much was true, then we could work on actually getting something done about it.
You know what I mean?
But we got to it has to be the case that everybody knows that that every famous person is all people, all decent people denounce the surveillance state and want it rolled back immediately.
You know, that's really the goal here.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I don't know how to do that any better than I'm doing, which ain't very well.
You got to delete your Facebook account then.
I mean, we and Benny said that these intelligence agencies are, I mean, are ecstatic that, you know, there is this website that Facebook exists.
I mean, people are putting in, are putting their, are filling out information, creating all these networks for free.
You know, they do it for free.
I mean, then Facebook sells this information to, you know, advertisers and all this kind of stuff.
Although, and I'm sure you're the same way, you know, for us activist types, we already know that this whole Internet was created by the military for the purposes of controlling people.
And we all know that we're just doing our best to use their sword double edged in a manner back against them as best we can.
But there's no secret to, you know, can the NSA march into Microsoft or march into Time Warner or march into Facebook or Google and get whatever the hell they want?
Of course they can.
And we all know that up front.
I, my goal is like, hey, what if everyone who was really hardcore like you and me about these issues, everybody had more than the limit of friends on Facebook.
And they, and from the NSA's point of view, all they know is from all their data mining is that the American people hate their guts and want them to stop and are going to make sure that they are stopped.
You know, let them find that on Facebook.
Holy crap, boss.
Did you see what said on Facebook today?
Revolution is not.
Yeah, well, unfortunately, I don't think I don't think they really care about that kind of stuff.
I mean, I think they're just, you know, sifting through and finding people who can actually threaten, you know, their autonomy and or their authority and sort of taking them out.
I mean, not taking them out, but but targeting.
And I think that's a real danger with Facebook.
And, you know, I think that the next kind of step in this, in the whole intelligence, you know, this intelligence issue is when they are finally able to replicate that program that Benny and Ed and Ed Loomis were able to to put together in three months, which automatically searches through all the information.
I think that's sort of the next step.
And once they can sift through all that big data, what they call big data, then we're in real trouble because then they can look through all the trillions of interactions in their, you know, in their facilities and, you know, in Utah and around the country and start really, you know, targeting Americans who are who undermine their authority, which they can't do right now just because of, you know, how much information they have.
You know, it's just overwhelming.
So as soon as they can sift through that, I think that'll I think that'll change a lot of things.
And I think that the secret, I think we just Americans are just, you know, the legislation that's been passed is just horrendous.
I know the Patriot Act and, you know, FISA and all this kind of stuff.
It's these there needs to be legislation passed and there needs to be a Congress that actually, you know, cares about protecting legally, protecting Americans from these companies that are giving their information away for free to the NSA and to the CIA.
All right.
I'm sorry.
We got to leave it there, Thomas.
We're way over time here.
But a great interview.
Great work here at Truthdig.com.
Three men who wouldn't let the NSA get away with it.
I really appreciate your time today.
Great.
Thank you very much, Scott.
Thomas Hedges, everybody from the Center for Study of Responsive Law at CSRL.org.
CSRL.org.
See you tomorrow.
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