Hello, Central? Get Me Everyone

6/20/2013

I was going to title this piece of nonsense "Letter to an Unknown Terrorist" but of course I'm paranoid enough to think that as soon as I type "letter" and "terrorist" certain red lights flicker in a locked room somewhere and I get the attention of a 20-something high school dropout who is a whiz at code and donkey-kong (well, that dates me) and I finally get me a real subscriber/reader

(actually I think those that have "signed-up" and its free by the way, all use a Polish e-mail address for some reason, unknown by me of course, but I enjoy the irony as one of my great-grandfathers was from Warsaw and my bubbe on my father's side was from Bialystok, so...I can just imagine the disappointment on my eavesdropper's monitor when those funny-sounding foreigner names appear to be reading my cleverly inept postings, at least I can imagine, and the speed at which you can seemingly put something out into this cyber-ether and get a response from someone somewhere in a swift second and now I realize the Ad Companies have been doing things like this for years, viewer analyses, listener patterns, and, of course, the Government, our government in the guise of the NSA and CIA and FBI and DIA; nobody talks about them or about the Navy and Army Intelligence, The Brits, of course,  and how many others - there is a whole other world -or not, of Corporate America intelligence business-

"Classified top secret documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by US Attorney General Eric Holder, published by The Guardian on Thursday, show that US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) judges have approved sweeping general orders authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor US communications data without individual warrants."

 and all this has been going on for some time-longer certainly than the Internet's been around, probably since the Truman Administration which put an imprimatur of sorts on our National Security State- and probably way before that, that being 1947- I better close parenthesis or I'm liable to drone on) so in my silly and oh so profound tweetings I can crack wise about an article I read in IN THESE TIMES about us older (and wiser?) Americans looking for work (and not finding it) and within a minute-perhaps two at the most- an e-mail arrives asking me if I was "looking for a job". Scary.

Sam Enderby @stwise75 15 Jun

I GOT THIS ROCKING CHAIR I'D LIKE TO SELL- A Dream Deferred for Older Americans Struggling to Find Work - inthesetimes.com/working/entry/

Wenona Truxler
@stwise75 We see you are looking for a job we want you to work for us To join our team now go to @YouAreHiredNow
08:39 AM - 15 Jun 13

I live for these responses to what I proclaim in the cyberether but still it was pretty fast- as if "they" were anticipating my very move. I can just imagine what my Polish subscribers make of this although I just bet that if I made another bad Polish joke or unflattering reference to Poland I would have another dozen subscribers, now go figure. But I'm digressing here as the concern here was to be brief and

He gets to pick all the judges

and all the time seems to be
suppressing a laugh

"The FISA Court, the administration has claimed, provides oversight and “transparency” over the process. The actual procedures that the secret court has authorized have, until now, remained concealed from the population of the United States and the world. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) authorizes the NSA to engage in bulk data collection. Under this authorization, the NSA is supposedly only allowed to obtain communications without a warrant from “non-US persons.” This includes any communications between people outside the US, and any communications from someone outside the US to someone within the US—if it is the “non-US person” who is the target of the snooping."

- well, irreverent or is that irrelevant? You're Most Wanted Terrorist, an influential leader and hater of all things American and Western and Non-Muslim- probably a NYYankee hater, too- and you have a not too vast coterie of followers and co-evildoers at your beck and call- Why would you have their names ,coded or not, addresses, coded or not and phone nos., coded or not on a smart phone or on your Mac or whatever else is handy and cool and can store a million gigabytes of your favorite Debby Boone tunes. Why would you send out your deathtinged messages via the Internet knowing that there is some 20-something high school dropout taking down your every word? You have personnel and potential targets and all kinds of explosive techniques to buy and distribute and pay for and coordinate and you're going to jeopardize all that by logging in? Unless you're as lame as our Republican Party you will not. And with apologies to the late Jimmy Cannon, you will not even bother with an old manual Underwood (no carbon copies, please).

Nobody asked him, either, but

In a recent issue of STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE published (online!) by the NSA a Mr. Mike Sulick, described as a former Assistant Deputy Director of Operations at CIA, wrote, " ...terrorist groups operate like intelligence services. Terrorists spy before they terrorize" or as WaltKelly may have said they case the "jernt". Like us they gather info about their enemies soft spots, watch their comings and goings, get to know the lay of the land and every other Hollywood B-movie bit of spy dialogue-literally. They also, Mr. Sulick continues, " vet potential recruits by rigorous screening procedures (high school dropouts with a taste for code and Hunan may apply).

"Appearing at a Senate hearing, Patrick McFarland, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, said USIS, the company that conducted the background investigation of former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden, is now under investigation itself. McFarland declined to say what triggered the inquiry of USIS or whether the probe is related to Snowden. But when asked by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., if there were any concerns about the USIS background check on Snowden, McFarland answered: "Yes, we do believe that there may be some problems."***

Materials found in al-Qaida safehouses in Afghanistan (and what house isn't?) and other countries include training manuals on espionage tradecraft (they're like a worldwide club or a guild) such as identification of clandestine meeting and dead-drop sites, technique to recruit sources, covert communications, reporting on targets. U.S. forces also discovered -in Afghanistan- HANDWRITTEN NOTES - with guidance on operating undercover, including tips on traveling in alias, pocket litter to carry (yes, he wrote pocket litter) and types of clothing to wear down to details about the proper underwear to don in a foreign land." Of course, you're a Most-wanted Terrorist leader and you know to use HANDWRITTEN notes - to be eaten later we presume, or burned and instead of sending a secretly coded text via the magic of internet-space you whisper your command into the ear of a hopefully trustworthy comrade - because as all terrorist/intelligence organizations the world over know the best way to get over on your enemy is to have one of yours planted (embedded, if you will) right along side them in the enemy's own house or camp or book club. And knowing full-well that all electronic, satellite communications are being read

and listened and decoded and checked and double-checked -and by now who doesn't know it - why chance it? Its hard enough trusting the ear closest to you which begs the question now posed to the freedom-loving- liberty-or-death-American public and their cracked representatives - does vigilance still require the Government in which every dept-NSA, CIA, Homeland - to snoop on all our texts and e-mails and phone calls and googling and such, knowing full-well, as I say, that the Most Wanted Terrorist is NOT using any of that because the Cat's out of the bag -  are you still listening to us ?

Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access "confidential and secret" government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a January report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher "top secret" access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.***

The demands of eternal vigilance will be forever busy and profitable  because this "war on terrorism" is an even better scam than Soapy Smith's Soap Bar racket. Its the gift that keeps on giving. Its hard to know whether the outrage over the extent of this surveillance program is real or memorex as quite frankly, my dear, it appears most of us don't give a damn. Nevertheless, we are still dealing with nefarious evil-doers who remember to stock up on "pocket-litter" and know even what kind of underwear to "don" while visiting foreign lands ( now that underwear bomber was donning his Ralph Lauren 100% cotton boxers with the Lauren trademark on the left bottom side or were those the doublestitched briefs with the soft elastic band and the convenient large slit over the crotch )

(To Be Continued)

*** NSA Can Keep Data On U.S. Citizens Indefinitely: Report   

By RICHARD LARDNER and KIMBERLY DOZIER 06/20/13 09:18 PM ET EDT