The sly devil that is Emperor Barack Obama has drawn criticism over his proposed $4 trillion budget that has more shit in it than a Chinese manufactured sausage. While establishment Republicans thump their chests and wail about tax hikes on the wealthy and liberals laud his denouncing of more “mindless austerity” the thing is a Trojan horse containing something much more odious. As has already been predicted by many who are onto the big con game, Dear Leader’s budget also includes within it the funding for even more of the Big Brother type of warrantless government snooping that Americans have been subjected to under Obama’s NSA Stasi.
While the Obama budget may please many by hitting corporations that squirrel away their profits overseas – which doesn’t benefit America – it delivers by providing immunity to companies that work hand in hand with the government on mass surveillance. As Reuters reports in the story “Obama seeks $14 billion to boost U.S. cybersecurity defenses”:
President Barack Obama's budget proposal for the 2016 fiscal year seeks $14 billion (9 billion pounds) for cybersecurity efforts across the U.S. government to better protect federal and private networks from hacking threats.
Federal cybersecurity funding has steadily increased in recent years, reflecting the intensity of threats U.S. companies and government agencies are facing from cyber intruders, both domestic and foreign.
The budget, released on Monday, calls for deployment of more intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, greater sharing of data with the private sector and other countries and more funding to beef up the government's ability to respond to attacks.
The funding would support several specific programs, such as monitoring and diagnostics of federal computer networks, the EINSTEIN intrusion detection and prevention system and government-wide testing and incident-response training.
"Cyber threats targeting the private sector, critical infrastructure and the federal government demonstrate that no sector, network or system is immune to infiltration by those seeking to steal commercial or government secrets and property or perpetrate malicious and disruptive activity," the White House summary said.
The cynics among us have questioned whether all of the ruckus over alleged North Korean involvement in the Sony hacking was just another big lie to get the cybersecurity bill passed. While Americans have very short memories and even shorter attention spans these days, it was only in December that the media was shrilly warning of alleged “terrorist” threats against theaters showing the movie The Interview. The threats were never substantiated and independent cybersecurity experts have questioned government claims that North Korea was responsible but the movie became a holiday patriotic rallying cry. Ironically, doper and liberal Seth Rogen, the star of The Interview who sang the praises of freedom for Americans to go and see his film is the same guy who was denounced by conservatives when he compared the movie American Sniper to Nazi propaganda.
Don’t expect any resistance from Republicans either because Barry has broken out the fear club and is going to beat them into submission with it. It is also being reported that Obama is going the full Göring by accusing the GOP of putting the American people in danger. According to the Reuters story “Obama proposes $3.99 trillion budget, draws scorn from Republicans”:
"I know there are Republicans who disagree with my approach. And I’ve said this before: If they have other ideas for how we can keep America safe, grow our economy, while helping middle-class families feel some sense of economic security, I welcome their ideas," Obama said.
"But their numbers have to add up. And what we can’t do is play politics with folks’ economic security, or with our national security."
Obama’s push for the new cybersecurity measures should chill Americans in that it is just the latest and greatest reincarnation of the zombie bill CISPA which has drawn opposition from civil liberties groups. In the climate of fear and dread that is early 2015 after the media overkill over the Sony hacking and then the Charlie Hebdo slayings look for Obama to continue to accuse opponents of exposing Americans to danger. So much for that election year threat to partially defund the Department of Homeland Security to stop Obama’s amnesty decree.
Fascism is the merger of state and corporate power and we are well on our way there already. If Obama is able to successfully sell Americans on sweeping new surveillance capabilities along with the corporate immunity from oversight that his cybersecurity proposals provide then we will be even closer to it.
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