Surveillance Blimps are Big Brother's Eye in the Sky

The laundry list of gross injustices that have been perpetrated upon the American people by Emperor Barack Obama is long and growing by the day. While most of the sound and fury will be directed at Dear Leader’s stunning surprise 'normalization' of relations with Cuba the corrupt media continues to ignore the most enduring damage of all. That would be the vast expansion of the surveillance state under the Obama regime.

The NSA Stasi has engaged in an unprecedented attack on civil liberties and privacy rights by conducting warrantless spying and data-mining on millions of law-abiding American citizens. The mass surveillance should be as much as an outrage as Obama’s use of the IRS to go after political enemies and both are common traits of a totalitarian fascist state. Go and read up on some accounts of Stalin's Russia in the early years, the similarities are downright eerie.

Now get ready for Big Brother’s eye in the sky with the rollout of giant surveillance blimps in the domestic United States. As reported by the website The Intercept in a story entitled “Billion Dollar Surveillance Blimp to Launch Over Maryland”:

In just a few days, the Army will launch the first of two massive blimps over Maryland, the last gasp of an 18-year-long $2.8-billion Army project intended to use giant airships to defend against cruise missiles.

And while the blimps may never stave off a barrage of enemy missiles, their ability to spot and track cars, trucks and boats hundreds of miles away is raising serious privacy concerns.

The project is called JLENS – or “Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.” And you couldn’t come up with a better metaphor for wildly inflated defense contracts, a ponderous Pentagon bureaucracy, and the U.S. surveillance leviathan all in one.

Built by the Raytheon Company, the JLENS blimps operate as a pair. One provides omnipresent high-resolution 360-degree radar coverage up to 340 miles in any direction; the other can focus on specific threats and provide targeting information.

Technically considered aerostats, since they are tethered to mooring stations, these lighter-than-air vehicles will hover at a height of 10,000 feet just off Interstate 95, about 45 miles northeast of Washington, D.C., and about 20 miles from Baltimore. That means they can watch what’s happening from North Carolina to Boston, or an area the size of Texas.

The JLENS program is the latest expansion of the high-tech Orwellian surveillance state and as it has been since the government went totally rogue after September 11, 2001 the two things that are certain is that there will be no oversight and it will all be top secret. The Army Times confirms the launching of the spy blimps in an AP story from their website “Army's blimp-like airships get East Coast test” which quotes Major General Glen Bramhall who is commander of the 263rd Army Air and Missile Defense. The General offers the reassuring words that: "the mission is not to spy on U.S. citizens. It is not designed for that".  Considering the information already available about NSA-FBI surveillance programs I would no sooner believe General Bramhall than I would buy a used car from former NSA boss Keith Alexander or any other of the big government apparatchik.

It has taken many years but it is now clear that George Orwell was an optimist.

Systemic Resistance to NSA Scrutiny Digs In

Like an immune system responding to the attack of a pathogen the body of the 21st Century American fascist state is rapidly working to repel growing threats to its existence. Like so many white blood cells the state media and the corrupt agents of a completely compromised political system are swarming. As the outrage grows (at least outside the borders of this cloistered colony of idiots and sheep) the responses from the protectors of the establishment react to neutralize the threats. While Congress is expected to “grill” surveillance state leaders on the rancid hill will summon the high command of Obama’s Stasi - General Keith Alexander, Director of National Intelligence and known liar James Clapper and others for a staged display meant to put on a jolly good show that there still exists a system and checks and balances. Such concepts are quaint remnants of a past in which we were probably never truly as “free” as advertised but more so than in the surveillance/police state of the post 9/11 Homeland. That the very offenders of the system, who have shat upon the Constitution are to testify before a committee that is lead by the ultra-fascist Mike Rogers, after he just spent his weekend touring the media outlets and defending the same NSA is an obvious and blatant farce.

The stories of the NSA spying on foreign leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel in particular carry more clout than just playing peeping tom on millions of law-abiding American citizens who are largely viewed as useless eaters by the elite who run the system for their own benefit. International leaders, especially “allies” who are pissed off that they are being spied on can potentially muck up lucrative trade pacts and cost the pigs on Wall Street money so their concerns must be addressed, at least cosmetically. While the Obama administration continues to lie, obstruct and change the subject to the Obamacare website clusterf**k it is of more than of passing some note that none other than Dianne Feinstein, a hard core militarist who has served as a firewall of cellulite when it comes to NSA snooping programs has come out now and expressed obviously fake concern over the international surveillance. But of course she is full of crap and anyone who has been watching her fully understands this.

Feinstein, moving to cover her own ample backside is much making noise about a review of NSA programs – don’t hold your breath over what is to be a standard whitewash. There will be some form of Orwellian pushing of intelligence “reform” which of course will be just another big government lie. Like with the September 11, 2001 attacks, no heads will roll over this debacle because all involved are protected by the system. Sure, General Alexander will be stepping down but the damage has already been done with the implementation of this monstrosity of a high tech surveillance behemoth. He will suck the tax payer funded teat for a huge retirement package, free health care and supplement that income with gigs as an “expert” guest on FOX or CNN where he will make big money defending the snooping cash cow and the trillions of dollars that are funneled into campaign contributors by it. Americans should be pretty much used to paying for their own enslavement by now, the humiliating body searches by government TSA thugs in airports and the constant beat of FEAR and surrendering civil liberties to be kept safe has pretty much become internalized - and keep in mind, the youngest generation has never known a world other than this one.

The fabricated hearings aside the pocket media machine is busily churning out excuses and distractions, some of which are Can Merkel really be Surprised that the NSA spied on her? which covers the ‘everybody does it’ line of thinking. There is also the at least partially believable ‘out of the loop’ stories about Obama just not knowing what was really going on. While I personally think that one is total bullshit I also find Barry to be an abject incompetent, detached and content to float above it all while leaving aides like Valerie Jarrett to control access. The same excuse was used to insulate dear leader from the Obamacare website fiasco but this line would seem to mean that he is incompetent, that the emperor indeed has no clothes yet serves as a valid defense against what should be an impeachable series of offenses over the rogue NSA Stasi. It is all spin however and the spinning continues as it always does when the beltway elitists and their courtiers circle the wagons.

While I have yet to see it seriously brought up (but have no doubt that  it’s coming soon) other than by NSA Commandant Alexander there will be a propaganda front opened suggesting that the government criminalize reporting. What better way to defend actual criminals than to use the hijacked system to make any challenge of them the real crime? This is already being advanced rapidly across the pond with our friends over in the U.K. Brit leader David Cameron joins Generalissimo Keith Alexander in declaring war on the press over NSA reporting. In a Guardian story about the red coat vendetta against the Guardian Cameron issues a warning that going forward that the media must self-censor itself (much like the corrupt U.S. based counterpart does) and  that “if they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."  The piece also includes this statement from another Brit paper –“The Sun quoted a "top surveillance source" as saying that terrorists had "gone quiet" after the publication of details about NSA and GCHQ operations.”  It is lamentable that Americans of today can't make the simple historical connection in that the founding fathers had a reason for rebelling against those bastards in the first place.

The excuse that “terrorists” had “gone quiet” is asinine, any real terrorist already understands that they are under constant surveillance and at the end of the day the phony war on terror has always been a war against those free citizens who dare to challenge a corrupt and out of control power structure. Maybe Cameron’s government should just begin attracting sycophantic, egomaniac careerists with access to high state cocktail parties and preferential treatment – it has done wonders in The Homeland, just look at a guy like David Gregory. Back in the day of Operation Mockingbird where it was revealed that the CIA had plants at most influential news outlets in the country one agency employee famously commented that – “You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl”. With todays presstitutes the price is likely far less. Thirty pieces of silver is so passé when all that a lapdog really desires is an occasional scratch on the belly by his owners.

The Fix is In: Cass Sunstein to Review Obama’s Stasi

The Obama administration, still dissembling about the true magnitude of big government’s domestic surveillance and data-mining programs has chosen to just whitewash it all. In a move that should surprise nobody who has been watching the shifty bastard, El Presidente is about to pack his promised NSA review board with cronies and insiders. While Obama couldn’t quite get away with letting the perjuring pimpernel James Clapper head his dog and pony show he is going to go one better. It has been reported that none other than longtime crony from back in the pre-Harvard Chicago days Cass Sunstein, a dangerous fascist ideologue will have a prime seat on Barry’s crackerjack team of ‘outsiders’ tasked with what promises to be an outrageously bogus fraud. It is like having the proverbial pack of wolves put in charge of guarding the hen house. Sunstein is the author of the manifesto on Conspiracy Theories that touted the infiltration of those groups that questioned shady government conduct – COINTELPRO anyone?

Joining Sunstein will be such prominent establishment hacks as former Clinton-Bush bureaucrat Richard Clarke, he of the “hair on fire” fame who brought down the house during the 9/11 Kean Commission hearings by proclaiming to Americans that “your government failed you”. Clarke managed to parlay his star making turn into a minor celebrity status as one of those ‘experts’ who is always in front of the cameras and appears on such gauche television shows as HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, the smarmy, religion bashing anti-Muslim bigot that liberals adore. Clarke should be an accomplished expert in government failure, I guess that is his ante money to get into this game. In addition to Sunstein and Clarke the Obama dream team will be filled out by former CIA placeholder Michael Morell and Peter Swire a White House insider who is being touted by the Washington Post as “a measured but critical voice of post 9/11 information-gathering practices”.  With a recommendation like that from the beltway’s preeminent megaphone the finely tuned horseshit detectors of those who actually care about any of this stuff in an existential sense are screeching. Hell, this is as legitimate as when virulent Kennedy hater Allen Dulles was placed on the Warren Commission.

I suppose that it could be worse, after all Obama did not appoint former DHS honcho Michael Certoff now of The Chertoff Group who used his insider influence to parlay the failed Christmas Day “underwear bomber” plot into big time mega bucks. Chertoff’s firm at the time was representing a security industrial complex company by the name of Rapiscan which was able to use the ridiculous and highly suspect ‘terrorist’ plan to sell hundreds of those wonderful naked full-body scanners to the TSA.  However Rapiscan was recently dumped by the TSA and government but not until after Chertoff  made his millions. Obama I suppose also deserves some ‘credit’ for not including authoritarian nutjob Michael Hayden to his NSA investigative crew. Former NSA top dog Hayden has been spending a lot of time in carrying water for Obama’s Stasi as of late and made the following ridiculous statement that shows that the phony war on terror has always been about a war on all of us:

“If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?” said retired air force general Michael Hayden, who from 1999 to 2009 ran the NSA and then the CIA, referring to “nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in five or six years”.

“They may want to come after the US government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States,” Hayden said, using a shorthand for US military networks. “So if they can’t create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for al-Qaida.”

Complete and utter nonsense and yet it gets credibility and airtime which is indicative of a lying and on the dole state media. As I believe I previously mentioned Hayden reminds me of the nerdy, nondescript neighbor who one day is found to have the remains of dozens of missing children buried in his backyard  Incidentally Hayden is a member of guess who? – The Chertoff Group. There is one hell of a lot of coin to be made in keeping the American sheeple terrified, distracted and obedient while their own tax money is extracted to enslave them. Nice work if you can get it. So it’s just another day in the United States of Scared Shitless and the corporate-state media is fixated on poor doomed Bradley Manning’s gender issues. Chelsea Manning is as popular as Lady Gaga on the electronic crackpipe, too bad that none of the vile networks, papers, websites nor their paid shills gave a rat’s ass when “Chelsea” was tortured and dragged before a Stalinist style show trial for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

And today The Guardian has also just broken yet another new story on NSA rottenness in that the U.S government was using your money to subsidize tech corporations compliance costs. The British government can continue to send their goons into news organizations as though they were the finger men of V For Vendetta’s Norsefire party but it all continues to come out. I personally cannot wait until the day that the shoe drops that all of this surveillance has been being provided to the same big Wall Street racketeers who crashed the economy and then were bailed out by Barry and the Boys.

Perhaps it will finally be the day when we roll out the guillotines.