Man Up

In 1971 John Kerry appeared before a Senate hearing on the Vietnam War and opened with the following paragraph; "I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do." His statement and testimony about war atrocities earned him the title of 'traitor' for the pro-war establishment, who were outraged by his calling US troops 'baby-killers' and the Silent Majority were shocked by his throwing his medals over the White House fence. They demanded an apology from the former Navy officer, since the massacre at My Lai was an isolated incident in the eyes of many Americans rather than a common occurrence in the Pentagon's Scorched Earth strategy against the Viet Cong, their supporters, and the Vietnamese civilians. John Kerry never apologized for his statements, but last week the US Secretary of State phoned fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden to ask him to 'man up' and face the music in the USA. "If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States, we'll have him on a flight today. A patriot would not run away. Eric Snowden said during an NBC interview, "I don't think there's ever been any question that I'd like to go home. Now, whether amnesty or clemency ever becomes a possibility is not for me to say. That's a debate for the public and the government to decide. But, if I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home." I counsel Mr. Snowden to stay away from this country. The court system is unjust. He will be subjected to abuses same was Peyton Manning, the US solider, who leaked tens of thousands of secret transcripts to the press. 24-hour suicide watch, 24 hour a day lights, stripped naked in a cold room. But these tactics are not torture in the New America. As for Kerry's hypocritical 'man-up' request? Better to be a man elsewhere, because in this country anyone 'manning-up' ends up on a water board or solitary confinement in prison. To read Kerry's full Detroit Statement, please go to this URL http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/VVAW_Kerry_Senate.html

Big Ears

The NSA has existed as an electronic intelligence organization since World War I. The Cipher Bureau sought to analysis the coded messages of the German High Command for the naval convoys seeking to evade U-boats in the North Atlantic. According to Wikipedia on July 5, 1917 the unit consisted of Herbert O. Yardley and two civilian clerks sitting in a townhouse on East 37th Street in New York City.

M-18 or the Black Chamber was disbanded in 1929 by the Secretary of State.

"Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."

The Communist threat changed the moral code.

American agents listened to everything with interest.

The NSA backed up the allegations of a North Vietnamese attack on the American destroyer USS Maddox during the Gulf of Tonkin incident as well as illegally wiretapped the phones of Senators Frank Church, Howard Baker, and Dr. Martin Luther King.

They learned nothing.

After 9/11 the NSA was given carte blanche to investigate the world.

Eric Snowden blew a whistle on the agency.

He gave his files to the Guardian.

We learned that the NSA listened to everyone. No one really cares about this intrusion of privacy. They have nothing to hide. Communications over the cellphone are bullshit judging from my eavesdropping on inane monologues of mobile phone users.

I regard them as victims or potential zombie food.

All their senses have collapsed into an atrophied coma.

See nothing.

Hear nothing.

Feel nothing.

Same as the NSA and the US Government.

No one can see the light when they stare into the darkness.

All Ears

According to Wikipedia the National Security Agency is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence. The NSA employs 40,000 people at various locations and its annual budget is a secret, although intelligence analysts have estimated the per annum outlay at $10 billion plus. The NSA has excelled at maintaining at low profile since its creation in 1949, although the agency's mission was expanded after 9/11 to include illegal wire taps under GW Bush and data-mining through its PRISM project. Criticism against War on Terrorism has been considered treason by most Americans and the government has vigorously punished or minimize whistle-blowers and reporters endangering the NSA's veil of secrecy. Early this month The Guardian published accusations from Edward Snowden, a Central Intelligence Agency employee who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, that the NSA had ordered various telecommunication companies in the USA to provide data for all telephone calls within the United States, including local telephone calls” and all calls made “between the United States and abroad.” I make approximately twenty calls a day. There are over 300 million phones in America, meaning that the NSA processes six billion calls per day along with 1.7 billion e-mails. In 2012 NSA employees dealt with over trillion calls, which I have calculated to be a 2.5 billion calls each year. Massive supercomputers assist the harried intelligence operatives, but I suspect that millions of calls are dumped into delete files much like the post office employee dumped junk mail in the trash. Even worse was the report from the BBC that the billions of dollars spent on PRISM ended up revealing information on fewer than 300 phone number in 2012, meaning that the PRISM program is another cash cow for the military-industrial complex and its effectiveness is as meaningful as catapulting every elephant in the world to kill a single mouse. The NSA refutes the worthlessness of data-mining by arguing that "dozens of potential terrorist plots here in the homeland and in more than 20 countries around the world". The NSA provided no details, donning their cloak on secrecy, proving the best secrets are those that aren't really secrets. Mumble, my fellow Americans and strutters have a party. The NSA knows nothing. And Eric Snowden knew that. He has now vanished from Hong Kong. And there are plenty of