"Top Secret America": this is exactly source of extended excerpts + graphics I wanted to post on DU.

[Leopolds Ghost]

See "Top Secret America" The 2011 FRONTLINE documentary based on reporting by the Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin, and discuss the ongoing whistleblower revelations by Edward Snowden.

I just wanted to say that I got this in the mail from a friend, I have never heard of this group before or where it's located but it sounds cool!

I wish I lived there, I could go and see it!

I saved the article in 2010 with an eye to scanning in the extensive graphics from the original Washington Post article, but it took me forever.

Then I scanned in the graphics over the course of a weekend after the Snowden scandal broke,
with an eye to posting an "I told you so" thread ...



It being an issue that I was harping on all the time, one of the reasons I stopped posting as much on DU back in 2008-2010 because of Obama's support for this issue ...



But then there was such a vicious reaction against Snowden here on the forums for awhile (what with the die-down of Occupy, it seemed like all the angry progressives had disappeared) that I thought it would just get trashed for posting about it. However it seems people have woken up recently on DU, and realize that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

So, should I post my original message that I was going to do containing all the graphics from the original Washington Post article?

It's also available online here, since it's an actual journalism project to map out the extent of America's top-secret surveillance state.

A hidden world, growing beyond control | washingtonpost.com

But now it's an actual movie, and you can see it. The group showing the movie is also doing this, see the link up above for more information:



Note that I wouldn't be surprised if the group in question is under surveillance, since they were at the center of a prior warrantless surveillance scandal where a certain governor and future Democratic Party leader defended the right of his state troopers to cross state lines in order to spy on little old ladies. So if I lived in that area I probably would be worried. But you know me, I never worry about stuff like that! Why would I? But if you live nearby a place where it is being shown, go see it!

[Leopolds Ghost]

1. Be sure and click the link in the OP for more information.

[Octafish]

2. Bill Moyers noticed something was very wrong during Iran-Contra...

The Secret Government

The Washington Post's series got little coverage in Corporate McPravda.

What surprised me was how little attention it got on DU in 2010.

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. Good thing I didn't take the time to scan the article in then

Considering that anything I post on DU3 drops like a stone.

[Octafish]

6. Not your fault, Leopolds Ghost...

...Please keep posting and fighting the good fight. Lots of DUers love to read and are interested in adding to what we need to know. Truth: It's what Democracy craves.

Regarding the National Security Agency and its ability to eavesdrop on all communication (before the World Wide Web made it easy):

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

"I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

http://www.thenation.com/blog/frank-church-and-abyss-warrantless-wiretapping#axzz2fSzNznKS

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. Yeah, discussions about this drop like a stone whenever it's not on teevee and thus on people's lips

The New York Times called it the Pink Police State.

Who needs total tyranny when people are willing to police what they think?

[Mnpaul]

24. Yes, it is a good thing you didn't post it

Since the original article is still available online.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

Colleen Rowley used some of the charts from that article at the protest at FBI HQ in Minneapolis back in 2010.

[Leopolds Ghost]

25. Why not post it tho?

[Leopolds Ghost]

37. I'm gonna look at the article and see how much of the graphics are available.

I'm not sure scans are a copyright violation though.

This system for enforcing page views does not work. Nopony clicks on these sorts of article link... except for people who already know and care about the issue. Which is why no education of the public ever happens. You can't simply hand someone a newspaper online. Actually scratch that, the same is true in real life. Unless you clip it out for them, no one reads an article if you saved a whole newspaper for them. Including me...

[Chiquitita]

12. Thank you Octafish!

This is great stuff and interesting to compare to journalism today. He just lays it all out there. Gotta love Bill Moyers.

[xfundy]

30. Thank you for posting this.

I watched the whole thing. I must have missed your posts ten years ago. Sorry, I was dealing with my own catastrophes.

That video made me sick, though I'd known little bits of what happened back then. We have become a people who treat others as less than human, lower, insects. It sickens me.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. Comments...?

[div style="width:200px; background-color:black; text-align:center"][font face="Times" color="white" size="1"] [/font]

[font face="New York" color="white" size="4"]KNOWLEDGE[/font]
[font style="background-color:black" color="white"][font face="Arial Narrow" size="2" color="white"]"I WARNED you, but did you listen? Oh,
it's just a harmless little BUNNY, isn't it?"[/font][/font]

[snooper2]

5. poor photoshopping?

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. They're raising money to do the bus ad. Click on the link and give them some!

Snooper, didn't you say you have an interest in this sort of thing?

[Leopolds Ghost]

26. Here's the details on the Snowden Bus Ad idea...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023705148

[bvar22]

9. DURec,

and a kick for further investigation.
If I lived in the area, I would be there early.


Thanks for posting.

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. Given so few replies and I don't know if anyone clicked on the link, I'll post the preview here.

From the blog in the OP:

[font face="New York"](snip) ...a free showing of the original 2011 FRONTLINE documentary “Top Secret America: The Hidden Legacy of 9/11.” The documentary is based on the seminal 2010 Washington Post series reported by Dana Priest and William Arkin.

The event is the latest documentary showing to provide context for the ongoing revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the challenges the NSA and other agencies pose to civil liberties. (Others have included “War on Whistleblowers”) The movie will be followed by a discussion updating viewers on the latest revelations about NSA/FBI surveillance practices and the “black budget” for intelligence operations.

While the report naturally focuses on the actions of Bush administration officials, it also makes important points about the way “Top Secret America” has eluded and/or corrupted control by their successors in the Obama administration. Bush administration CIA lawyer John Rizzo:

“With a notable exception of the enhanced interrogation program, the incoming Obama administration changed virtually nothing with respect to existing CIA programs and operations. Things continued. Authorities were continued that were originally granted by President Bush beginning shortly after 9/11. Those were all picked up, reviewed and endorsed by the Obama administration.”

Call it what you will — “Top Secret America,” the “national security state,” the “surveillance state” — is deeply entrenched and seems to be growing beyond the capacity of any person to even understand it, let alone control it. Dana Priest is pessimistic; pointing to the sheer amount of construction involved, she remarked:

…if you really think about what a building is, and the symbol for me of looking at the buildings is that these are permanent; they’re here to stay. It’s not like they’ve got mobile trailers that they’re up in, and then when the floods recede they’re going to take them away. These are gigantic edifices that are going to stay here. So it will be very difficult for anybody politically to rein that in.

Difficult, surely, but not impossible — and highly necessary. Secrecy and fear are the natural enemies of accountability, the rule of law, and meaningful democracy. It’s time for Americans to decide: which side are you on?

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

For more “Top Secret America” material, visit the Washington Post or PBS/FRONTLINE web pages.[/font]

[LuvNewcastle]

11. K&R

[BelgianMadCow]

13. Link to the docu on PBS

It has two pieces, both close to a hour. For people not living nearby

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/topsecretamerica/

Thanks for posting. Will be next to the equally excellent "The Untouchables" by Frontline in my bookmarks.

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. Thanks for the link.

[woo me with science]

14. Thank you for posting this. Huge K&R

[navarth]

15. kicking. hope it helps. nt

[navarth]

16. I will definitely watch that Frontline, thank you for posting.

Frontline is amazingly good. I'm glad PBS isn't completely ruined by the need for contributions, hence the Koch money. I for one would prefer my taxes went to sustaining public media rather than unsustainable empire maintenance.

[L0oniX]

17. Obama and both parties now own all this shit...

and that is why the worshippers attack ...because this shit is hurting the Dem party. You don't hear them take sides against all the domestic spying do ya?

[LuvNewcastle]

18. That's why these intelligence agencies are so entrenched.

They have so many allies in both parties that it doesn't matter which party gets elected; their funding is secure.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. I hear a lot from certain party leaders digging us a deeper hole

By siding in favor of endless war. What do they have on these people? Let's not forget the allegations that Rove was trying to compile a little black book on Bush's enemies.

[zeemike]

21. K&R and thank you for posting this.

I don't have TV so I miss a lot of stuff, most of it bad but also some good stuff, and I will watch it.

[Fuddnik]

22. Kick and Rec!

I saw the show when it aired. I'm surprised even Frontline broadcast it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. Would it be kosher for me to post a thread with scans of the graphics from the original article?

I was going to make a thread about that back in July but I didn't know if it would receive much complaint.

They're pretty big graphics. I dunno how many of them are on the Post website, I could go look.

I actually had no idea this WashPost special was still online, now I know PBS has made a documentary on it.

The article series itself talks about how security figures called the Post to complain that the article revealed too much.

[leveymg]

27. I only wish I could give this post and the thread 1000 recs. DU, like it used to be.

Has something interesting to say about the world, without the apologists hijacking the thread.

[hootinholler]

33. It's odd how that works these days

First a thread is ignored and allowed to drop, but if others kick it then it is swarmed. It's almost like a hive mind pheromone gets set off on certain threads.

[leveymg]

34. We've seen PR and single-issue posters come and go here. Now, it's a lot of DNC wannabes.

Not sure it's just local colonies of interest that get aroused by certain topics. There seem to be several F/T social media DC staffer types active on this board. Some of them quite hard working and have accumulated staggering post counts, so as a practical matter, they're part of this place. They're obviously tracking and responding in a coordinated fashion to their issue areas.

Some are also quite well-informed, and I enjoy hearing what these individuals have to say and have learned from some of them. That was particularly true right after the Fukushima and the BP disasters occurred when there were (what seemed to be) some real experts with scientific training thrown into the fray. But, even they were opinionated louses whose bad-mouthing of critics got to be tedious.

We also get our assortment of foreign posters and regional regime change boosters here. I think they contribute a great deal by posting videos and articles that few of us would otherwise see. If for no other reason than "know thine enemy", they play a constructive role, even if the content is largely transparent agitation propaganda and disinformation. Same thing for some DNC/WH/3rd Way bloggers.

It's the nasty little thought-followers, ideologues, creeps and cretins who swarm in behind them -- with nothing of any substance or originality to add -- who should get 86ed.

[KoKo]

28. Recommend!

[Uncle Joe]

29. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Leopolds Ghost.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. *peace*

Mine countenance whereupon no peace smiley

[Enthusiast]

31. Kicked and recommended.

Way to go, Leopolds Ghost!

[woo me with science]

35. kick

[rusty fender]

36. K & R

Thanks for posting!

[rhett o rick]

38. k&r thanks for posting. nm

[Leopolds Ghost]

39. It's being shown tonight in

the dc area per the link in OP