What you think is news is more about damaging the President

[intaglio]

You think it is news that the US Government is carrying out mass surveillance on its nationals? Well, it is not and that is the only reason I can see for the current flood of outrage over this story is the damage it does to the Obama Presidency. I am actually surprised that DU has given in to the delirium considering that stories about this have been discussed at length on this board in the past.

Let me introduce you to a place, it's called RAF Menwith Hill

By Matt Crypto (Own work) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
[a title="By Matt Crypto (Own work) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons"


This is where surveillance of phone calls and faxes and data communications by US nationals to persons overseas has been carried out for at least the past 50 years.

Nominally it is an RAF base but the majority of the personnel are (by 3 for 1) from the US forces and intelligence services. It is also rumoured to be one of the main clearing houses for communications between drones and their "pilots".

It is a British base because, officially, the US cannot regulate what their dreadful allies can do; so they agreed to "part" fund the construction and so have a watching brief on what the terrible British have intercepted (and most definitely NOT the NSA, really-o truly-o double pinky swear, Congressman). Of course as this is intelligence "gathered" by US allies the US does not have to reveal the extent of this data gathering to Congress because doing so would shatter the delicate relationship and so restrict the US oversight of the data collection.

Excuse me I need to take a break after typing that paragraph of bovine fertilizer


You might think that this has little effect on the current shock shown by the US media except that nearly all data communications out the USA passes through choke points; notably Britain, Spain, Australia and Japan; and I believe there are similar installations to Menwith Hill in the last 3 countries as well. What is more, because any data (even digitised voice comms) do not have to travel in a straight line even internal US data packets could easily go halfway round the world before it gets to the intended recipient. My suspicion is that that packet copying and re-routing also is far more common than we know.

Now if there has been such a massive growth of digital traffic you would expect that Menwith Hill and similar satellite interception centres would have shrunk except they have expanded along with the growth of digital traffic - funny that.

So ask yourself, "Why, now, has the US media suddenly started playing the fainting dowager over this?"

[freshwest]

1. Excellent. Truly.

[SkyDaddy7]

9. Just imagine...

If the media focused on all the violations of civil liberties committed by local law enforcement like they are doing about MUCH LESS OF A THREAT, NSA data collection!!!

[Cha]

2. Oh, please don't be surprised by those on

DU going all down in Delirium, intaglio. they're always just waiting for the next big scamdal to emerge(Greenwald has MORE to Come!!!11).. it's been going on for years.. the same with the US corpmediaWhores. Around 4 and 1/2.

So ask yourself, "Why, now, has the US media suddenly started playing the fainting dowager over this?"

RATINGS!

[Mojorabbit]

20. As I have said before. I will take it if it opens a national debate

on the subject and hopefully results in some action to curb these practices. I hope it is on every media channel for the next year. Obama can handle himself just fine. He is a great politician. He does not need me or anyone who feels as I do to shut up on this subject.

[Mustellus]

3. Agreed. Its about damaging Obama...

Carnivore. Total Information Awareness... those were apparently the previous code words.

If they were really really listening in on all of it... we'd be way past full employment. That was always the hitch in Orwell's 1984: where do you find enough watchers?

And of course, its ok when that information feed goes to Karl Rove's desk. But not to Obama's....

[4bucksagallon]

4. This place is becoming more like ATS, or GLP, of which I find I am banned. LOL!

Has Alex Jones got his minions here ready to pop out and strike a blow for conspiracy nuts? It sure sounds and looks that way.

[cantbeserious]

5. Because It Is No Longer About Talking To Foreign Nationals - It Is Now About Talking With Grandma

eom

[fasttense]

6. Exactly right cantbeserious.

[BrainDrain]

7. DITTO!!

Those installations (cause I used to work on one) were for keeping tabs on fureners, not on American citizens. And while there is a bit of legal wiggle room about spying within the CONUS, since some of the signals may actually originate there, the founding charter of both the CIA and the NSA clearly state, "NO spying on US citizens."

So, I call BS on ANYONE saying this is not on Obama's plate, because the HONEST truth is, ummmm yup it is.

[intaglio]

13. If you were in that world then you know the following,

Who was communicating? Often Americans.

And who was doing the snooping? The British - officially.

There is no US judicial or representative oversight of how much spying Brits or the Australians do on the American nationals. Obviously they would pass any actionable intelligence about such communications to their US "assistants" and non-Americans would pay close attention if told not to do it.

[ReRe]

8. Question...

Do you think that Snowden is a plant? Like a "false" whistle blower? And that this whole thing was dreamed up to damage the President? Just wondering. Thanks for the terrific info in this op! Rec'ed!

[intaglio]

17. No, I think that the impetus behind the coverage has changed

Remember that similar stories to this emerged in during Dubya's occupancy and died, as far as mainstream media coverage was concerned, within one or two weeks.

[cali]

10. Really? You think the ACLU, Senator Sanders and Wyden and many more on the left

are all about damaging the President?

[treestar]

11. I agree - why does Greenwald get so much attention?

Why is an issue so allegedly big because he started something? The media is just looking for this type of thing.

[Enrique]

12. Clapper denied it under oath

Wyden: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

Clapper: "No, sir."

[intaglio]

14. The Americans do not

That is the point of these stations being run, nominally, by close allies.

[Enrique]

15. if it were truly as widely known as you claim

the DNI is not going to commit perjury to keep it a secret.

And if it were so well known, then they wouldn't be going after Snowden so hard for revealing it.

[intaglio]

16. My story was first revealed by Paul Foot (?) back in 1988

The status of Menwith Hill and GCHQ with together with a couple of other sites has been documented at length.

What is new is the attention paid to this story by the US media. Why now? What has changed?

[ForeignandDomestic]

18. tssk...

It's news that President Obama who campaigned to be in exact opposition to Bush's warmongering policies and trampling on our rights with police state rhetoric, is in fact continuing those policies and they have actually expanded under Obama.

It's news that someone from the inside has come forth and spilled the beans on the size and scope of this orwellian surveillance being targetted at the American people.

It's news that the President who is against ID requirement for voters would signing off on the NSA profiling and basically creating dossiers on American citizens who have broken no laws. How Liberal of him.

And how "liberal" of the people who are defending theses actions, I'm sure these same "liberals" had absolutely no problem when Bush and his cohorts pushed through the Patriot Act.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

19. In Personal Responsibility World, Obama royally screwed his own political agenda by spying on us

His political agenda can come to a grinding halt. This is far more important, and if Obama didn't think so, he shouldn't have expanded the largest secret domestic surveillance program in the history of ever.