Big Brother
Surveillance on civilians keeps increasing, but it is hidden from us. The following report on the National Security Administration's latest “listening in” station is from Wired Magazine:
"Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being
built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle
assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s
communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of
international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in
September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy."
But now the Big Brother Listening Project is back on track!
"Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being
built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle
assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s
communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of
international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in
September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy."
But now the Big Brother Listening Project is back on track!
Money to Kill
One in three drone attack victims are civilians
More and more money keeps going to the military-industrial complex. It goes up each year, even in times of “peace.” Spending for “Defense” has ballooned over the past 10 years (well after the “great Russian threat” was over). Between 2001 and 2011 the Department of Defense’s base budget (which does not even include
war and nuclear weapons funding), grew from $390 billion to $540 billion, an increase of 38 percent. (The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were kept off the books, but the total costs may be an additional $3 trillion, according to Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.) Then there is the BlackBudget— an amount that is top secret, never divulged.
We are sending drones to other countries to do our killing for us. If drones were aimed at our neighborhoods in the U.S., we would be living in constant fear. Shahzad Akbar, who represents Pakistani civilians killed by U.S. drones had this to say to Amy Goodman:
war and nuclear weapons funding), grew from $390 billion to $540 billion, an increase of 38 percent. (The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were kept off the books, but the total costs may be an additional $3 trillion, according to Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.) Then there is the BlackBudget— an amount that is top secret, never divulged.
We are sending drones to other countries to do our killing for us. If drones were aimed at our neighborhoods in the U.S., we would be living in constant fear. Shahzad Akbar, who represents Pakistani civilians killed by U.S. drones had this to say to Amy Goodman:
Shahzad Akbar
"It took me 14 months to get a visa to get to U.S., because. .. I, on behalf of the victims in Pakistan, wanted to reach out to Americans so that they can make an informed judgment on drones. Their opinion matters, and it’s going to matter in the next elections, as well. So they need to know what drones are doing to humans in Pakistan, many of them civilians. And it has been said by independent groups and journalists, as well—a higher number of civilian victims. And that has to be reported to the American public so they can make an informed judgment on drones, that if American government should be allowed to kill people overseas in their name.
On 30th of October Tariq Aziz is killed in a drone strike while he was driving his mother to a clinic. Fortunately, he was able to drop his mother to the clinic, but his cousin, Waheed, who was younger than him, probably 13 or 14 years old, he was also killed in the strike. We have ample proof that Tariq was not a militant. . .
And there are many other victims just like Tariq Aziz. There is another child victim we are representing,
Sadaullah, whose house was attacked in 2009. And this attack was immediately reported having killed an al-Qaeda
target. And later on we found out that al-Qaeda target wasn’t killed and that that house was Sadaullah’s house,
where his family members were killed. Four of his family members were killed. And Sadaullah, who was only 14
years old, he lost both of his legs and an eye. He was a school-going child, but now he doesn’t even go to school, because there is no one in his family who can take him to school. He cannot walk. And there are many others. . ."
On 30th of October Tariq Aziz is killed in a drone strike while he was driving his mother to a clinic. Fortunately, he was able to drop his mother to the clinic, but his cousin, Waheed, who was younger than him, probably 13 or 14 years old, he was also killed in the strike. We have ample proof that Tariq was not a militant. . .
And there are many other victims just like Tariq Aziz. There is another child victim we are representing,
Sadaullah, whose house was attacked in 2009. And this attack was immediately reported having killed an al-Qaeda
target. And later on we found out that al-Qaeda target wasn’t killed and that that house was Sadaullah’s house,
where his family members were killed. Four of his family members were killed. And Sadaullah, who was only 14
years old, he lost both of his legs and an eye. He was a school-going child, but now he doesn’t even go to school, because there is no one in his family who can take him to school. He cannot walk. And there are many others. . ."