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Can the Modern Security State Prevent Terrorism?

Who Watches the Watchers?



On May 30th in Bluffdale, Utah, a discreet and understated ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by a select group of politicians and dignitaries to mark the opening of the massive new National Security Agency (NSA) data collection center.
The event received scant coverage in the mainstream press, and those outlets which did cover the ceremony relegated it to the back pages and perhaps a few lines of print. However, the official opening of the data center – which is expected to be fully-operational by September 2013 – marks the beginning of a new era, for the Utah Data Center, as it is called, is not merely another in a long line of drab government facilities with an obscure mission of interest only to national security wonks. If reports on the new facility are accurate, the data center, which is heavily-fortified, will be able to collect all forms of electronic communication on a world-wide basis in real time, everything from e-mails to phone calls to electronic credit card transactions to satellite transmissions. If the information is conveyed electronically – at least in theory - the center will be able to intercept/ capture, store, decrypt and analyze it. Bluffdale is said to be capable of storing one trillion terabytes of information in its vast server farms. The function of the data center is, however, not simply the collection of intelligence; since much of the data collected is encrypted, Bluffdale will have the capacity to break even the most-securely-encrypted transmissions. Using its banks of super computers and an army of crack code-breakers, Bluffdale will be able to read the sensitive contents of diplomatic cables, financial transactions, legal documents, confidential banking records, private personal communications – and much more besides.

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Used to operating in the shadows, NSA has been thrust into the spotlight by the actions of whistleblower Edward Snowden, who broke ranks with his former colleagues to raise the alarm about the NSA’s activities, especially the extent to which the agency is being used domestically to surveil the electronic activities and communications of ordinary Americans, such as e-mails, cell phone calls, and internet usage patterns. In addition to being a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, such activities run counter to the charter and mission of NSA, which is the collection/analysis of foreign signals intelligence – not the surveillance of American citizens on U.S. soil. Snowden also disclosed the existence of the PRISM program, through which NSA has direct access to the servers of Goggle, Apple, and Facebook, among many other internet entities and corporations. PRISM has been up-and-running since 2007.

Crossing the Rubicon

Even the most dispassionate observer can sense that a point of no return, a crossing of the Rubicon, has occurred. Despite official assurances that the Utah Data Center will be used only for benign purposes and only for the protection of the nation, a vague sense of unease lingers - if not outright alarm. Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World” no longer seem the stuff of fiction but of present-day reality. Along with the uneasiness, there is anger at what the National Security Agency and other shadowy elements of the government are doing. Comprehensive surveillance of the kind now being practiced by the NSA grossly violates long-standing American traditions, customs and laws pertaining to privacy and being left alone to live one’s life. There is also well-justified fear that the NSA’s vast storehouse of information can and will be used for unscrupulous and immoral ends. The potential for blackmail and other crimes is obvious. The kind of information asymmetry enjoyed by such agencies practically guarantees that abuses of this vast trove of information will occur. Information asymmetry describes a condition in which a party to a relationship or transaction has an information advantage over other participants. In this case, the NSA and its political bosses have a near-total monopoly on information about the people being surveilled, whereas the people being watched know almost nothing about those watching them. This is a recipe for tyranny. In relationships built upon trust, information is generally shared freely and flows to and from those individuals involved. Transparency and reciprocity are the norm. This behavior is characteristic not only of individuals who trust one another, but within organizations – including governments – operating with a high degree of trust. In contrast, in relationships based upon suspicion and mistrust, the flow of information is drastically reduced or even cut off; transparency is nil, and reciprocity and cooperation are not the norm. Tyrannies and police states are infamous for exhibiting this pattern of behavior. Because dictatorial and totalitarian governments are based upon a foundation of lies, those who head them fear the free flow of information. Information asymmetry is commonly-employed as a weapon against critics or enemies of the state - to browbeat, intimidate or blackmail them into submission. In Hitler’s Germany, it was said that Heinrich Himmler, the notorious head of the dreaded SS-Gestapo, had a dossier on every single prominent German, not only potential enemies but friends and associates as well. Even the most-powerful members of the party dared not cross him, knowing of his vast and detailed files and the secrets within them. In the U.S.S.R., Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s head of the NKVD secret police, kept similar dossiers on prominent Soviets for much the same reasons as his Nazi counterpart. In the United States, J. Edgar Hoover ran the Federal Bureau of Investigation with an iron fist for more than half a century; around Washington, D.C., it was known that one didn’t cross Hoover except at considerable risk and unless one wanted his most-intimate secrets splashed across the front pages. The unifying factor of such powerful and secretive men was their access to closely-guarded, often very personal information. Holding such sensitive information conferred great power upon men like Himmler, Beria and Hoover – not to mention their respective bosses. Today, the former Soviet Union – now known as the Russian Federation – has become what some observers have called the first “intelligence dictatorship” – an authoritarian dictatorship run by the former head of the Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti or KGB (now known as the FSB), Vladimir Putin. Allowing agencies of the federal government, such as the NSA, nearly unlimited power to surveill, track or otherwise collect information on the private lives of ordinary citizens – risks turning our constitutional republic into a police state. Indeed, some would argue we are already there. Defenders of the status quo point out that there are many responsible, patriotic Americans working at such agencies as the NSA - there are, but that is entirely beside the point. There may be responsible people there today, but who is to say they will be there tomorrow or in the future?

Can the Modern Security State Prevent Terrorism?

The vast size, scope and secrecy of the national security apparatus begs the question of whether or not these tremendously expensive and powerful agencies are even fulfilling the missions to which they have been assigned. This is the rub of the matter. Statists, both within and without of the government, have labored long and hard to craft the narrative that terrorism is a grave threat to the security of the republic, and that in consequence, the people should not protest as government vastly expands its powers far beyond the traditional constitutional boundaries which once circumscribed its power. Terrorism - more properly fourth-generation warfare (terrorism is one method of 4GW) - is analogous to a virus which rapidly evolves to evade whatever defenses mounted by the host, always staying one step ahead of the immune system. At best, such a contagion can be controlled - but not eliminated. The government is incapable of preventing terrorism or assuring the population of absolute safety; yet the fiction that these things can be accomplished is allowed to persist because it is good for the business of government, which is first and foremost assuring the survival and prosperity of the permanent bureaucracy. Granting agencies such as the NSA virtually unlimited power to wage the "war on terrorism" only assures that our remaining liberties will be further reduced in the name of an illusory safety and security.

Who Watches the Watchers?

There is a final question that the supporters of the NSA and other secret agencies have yet to answer satisfactorily, namely - who watches the watchers? In theory, the vast and secretive NSA (dubbed "No Such Agency" by some wags inside the beltway), CIA, DIA, and other such agencies are supposed to be subject to oversight from the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as well as from appointed officials within the executive and judicial branches, in addition to members of the federal national security, law enforcement and intelligence/counter-intelligence bureaucracies, but in practice, such oversight is nil. National security statutes have become so overused and draconian that very few people have access to the complete picture of what these agencies do. Those that do have access are insiders, and thus generally do not make themselves accountable to the electorate. The permanent political establishment – the elites who run Washington, D.C. and the country regardless of which party is in power – have agreed amongst themselves that the public is not to be told of what is happening behind the curtain. The “Ruling Class,” as Angelo Codevilla so aptly-termed them, do not hold the public worthy of being told the real business of agencies like the NSA. Instead, the public is fed misinformation and propaganda designed not only to mislead America’s enemies, but its citizens as well. At present, a small cadre of faceless professional spies, soldiers and bureaucrats runs the vast, unaccountable security super state. They know virtually everything there is to know about us – the people they allegedly serve – but we know virtually nothing about them. “Trust us – we’re professionals” is the message; “leave us alone, we know what we are doing.” Once, that answer was enough; it isn’t any longer. Thus, the question stands - who watches the watchers?


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Peter Farmer -- Bio and Archives

Peter Farmer is a historian and commentator on national security, geopolitics and public policy issues. He has done original research on wartime resistance movements in WWII Europe, and has delivered seminars on such subjects as political violence and terrorism, the evolution of conflict, combat medicine, and related subjects. Mr. Farmer is also a scientist and a medic.


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