The NSA is spying on everybody.
That includes a major, major, prime
target: Congress.
So imagine this conversation taking
place, in a car, on a lonely road outside Washington, late at night.
The speakers are Congressman X and a
private operative representing a covert unit inside the NSA:
“Well, Congressman, do you remember
January 6th?
A Monday afternoon, a men’s room in
the park off—”
“What the hell are you talking
about!”
“A stall in the men’s room. The kid.
He was wearing white high-tops.
A Skins cap. T-shirt. Dark hair.
Scar across his left cheek.”
“Jesus.”
“We have very good audio and video.
Anytime you want to watch it, let me know.”
Dead silence.
“What do you want?”
“Right now, Congressman?
We want you to come down hard on
Snowden.
Press it. He’s a traitor.
He should tried and convicted.”
The Congressmen pulls himself
together:
“Yeah, well, there’s another side to
this story.
If Snowden gets enough support, if
the wave rises high enough, the NSA could take a hit.
I know a dozen Washington players
who’d like that very much.
They’re pissed off. They don’t like
to be spied on.
It’s possible Snowden was their guy
from the beginning. I couldn’t say…”
Let’s make a deal. That ends up
being the topic of this and other similar conversations inside the Beltway.
“Senator, we know about the underage
cheerleader in Ohio. Your trip there in 2012, just before the election.”
“Look, you’ve brought this up
before.
But now I’ve got a trump card to
play. Ed Snowden.
This whole scandal can escalate like
a tornado in Kansas, or it can die down…”
Let’s make a deal.
If you want to see this starkly played
out in a fictional series, watch Netflix’s House of Cards.
For House Majority Whip, Frank
Underwood, substitute the NSA.
Track what happens to Congressman
Peter Russo, and you have a rough approximation.
Here’s another vector. A Congressman
gets a visit from his favorite lobbyist, who works for a private defense
contractor in the Congressman’s home state:
“Congressman, here’s the thing. The
NSA is an integral part of our nation’s defense system. Right?
This Snowden thing is messy. We want
it to go away.”
“It may not go away. I’m not some
kind of traffic cop who can put up his hand and stop the tide.”
“We understand that. I was just
talking to XXX at NSA, and he’d really appreciate your help on this.
Slam this bastard Snowden.
Make him into the worst scumbag in
the world.”
“And if I do?”
“Your offshore account in Panama
will remain protected.
That’s what XXX wanted me to tell
you.”
Calling in markers. Putting on
pressure. Let’s make a deal.
If you’re a Congressman or a
Senator, and you know NSA is spying on you, because it’s spying on everyone in
the Congress, who’s your potential best friend?
Somebody who can go up against the
NSA.
And who might that be?
The CIA.
It’s not perfect, but it’s the best
you can do.
For years, the CIA has been watching
the transformation of intelligence-gathering.
The CIA been participating in that
transformation: from humans using sources to obtain crucial data, to computers
doing blanket-spying.
That’s the trend. It’s inescapable.
The big problem for the CIA is: their
specialty is human intell.
And when they go to computers,
they’re second rate, behind the massive NSA machine.
Federal budget money for spying has
been flowing in greater amounts to NSA and away from CIA.
This is one of the key elements of
the turf war between CIA and NSA.
So if you’re a Congressman, you go
to a friend in the CIA and you have a chat about “the NSA problem.”
How can you get NSA off your back?
Your CIA friend has his own concerns about NSA.
He tells you in confidence: “Look,
maybe we can help you.
We know a lot about the NSA. We have
good people.
You might say one of our jobs is
watching the watchers at NSA, to, uh, make sure they don’t go too far in their
spying.”
This sounds interesting. If you have
to sell your soul, you’d rather sell it to the CIA than the NSA. It’s a
judgment call.
And now…you read about Ed Snowden
blowing a hole in the NSA.
You take note of the fact that
Snowden worked for the CIA.
He worked for them in Geneva.
Then he left for the private sector
and got himself assigned to the NSA.
Hmm. Maybe you have some cause for
optimism.
You, the Congressman, don’t give a
damn about the NSA spying on all Americans all the time.
You couldn’t care less about that.
You just don’t want NSA looking over your own shoulder.
You know the incredibly naïve
American public would never imagine what’s going on behind the scenes, with
CIA, NSA, and Congress.
The yokels and rubes in America
actually believe their Congressional representatives are, well, representing
them in Washington.
This fact is good. It means privacy
for you: you can try to work out your problems without public scrutiny.
You can play all the necessary games
to hide your own secrets and crimes, and you can do it in back rooms.
Unless those bastards at NSA decide
to leak one of your embarrassing secrets. That’s why you need your friend at
CIA.
And now, again, you look at the
recent article and see that Ed Snowden worked for the CIA.
You hope he still is. You hope this
a signal from the CIA that they’re taking a battering ram to the NSA.
Some schmuck reporter asks you about
the current NSA scandal and you say, “Of course we have to protect classified
data, in order to prevent terrorist attacks.
But at the same time, we need to
respect the Bill of Rights.
People can’t go around spying on
anyone for no reason.”
You’re sending your own signal.
You’re tipping your CIA guy. You
appreciate his help, if in fact he’s helping you.
You can’t ask him directly. If you
did, he’d never give you a straight answer.
But just in case…
As for the naïve rubes in your home
state, the voters, you don’t give them a second thought.
They’re not on your radar. They’re
merely clusters of polling data, and you’ll look at the data when election
comes around again.
They don’t have a clue about how the
game is played, and they never will.
You’re representing two defense
contractors, a pharmaceutical company, a big AG corporation, and a bank.
Those are your only true
constituents. You give them all the time they need.
To keep those relationships on
track, you only need to hide your peccadillos from embarrassing exposure.
The hooker in DC, the bank account
in Panama, the influence you used to move a sizable donation to a university
where you intend to teach when you retire.
There are only two things you really
need to think about in your job.
First, what happens when your Party
leaders come down the hall and tell you which way you’re going to vote on a
bill—and you know your vote is going to upset one of your key constituents back home.
That’s a tricky situation. But
you’ve been successful in keeping feathers from being ruffled.
That pharmaceutical company
understands you can’t side with their interests every single time.
You’ve got to go with your Party.
The Pharma boys don’t like it, but they get it.
The other thing you’ve got to think
about is darker.
Nobody is going to give you stats on
it, because stats don’t exist. Here’s how it shakes out:
How many people in Congress are so
controlled by the NSA that they’d never try to break out?
How many people, with how many
secrets, are so blackmailed, they’d never dare go up against NSA?
This is an important calculation.
The battle might already be lost.
You might not stand a chance. Maybe
nobody can help you. Maybe you can’t escape.
Maybe you shouldn’t even hint that
NSA has overstepped its legal boundaries by spying on Americans.
That’s the conundrum that keeps you
up at night.
What if the spies spying on their
own government are running the government beyond the ability of anyone to stop
them?
You don’t give a damn about what
this would mean for America. You only care about what it means for you and your
secrets.
Maybe this is the jail you’re in for
the rest of your life.
When you’re back in your home state
showing your face and giving speeches, and a voter comes up to you and voices a
concern about his dwindling paycheck, his house payment, his endangered
pension…and when you nod and gaze out at the horizon, as as if to pluck a magic
answer from the aether, you’re really thinking about the conundrum.
You’re thinking about the life
sentence you’re serving in the Surveillance State.
And that night, in your hotel room,
you get down on your knees and pray that Ed Snowden is still working for the
CIA.
~Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX
REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional
seat in the 29th District of California.
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an
investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine,
and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other
newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.
Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global
politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You
can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
