Glen Greenwald and a number of other reporters I've respected for a long time have just opened up a new website which talks about national security issues that ought to concern all of us. I feel really insecure knowing my government is spying on me, and that some of the spies are sociopaths or fanatics who might misuse information or even invent information. I grew up near Fort Meade, and admired the NSA since I first read about it's origins with the Bletchley park folks fighting the Nazis. I have no personal trouble with spying on foreign countries. It helps prevent nasty surprises. But I do have a problem with the security state, which I've followed back to 1914 and the passing of the Espionage act and the rise of the Army War College, VanDeman and his bunch all the way through the rise of J. Edgar Hoover to the present. So I used to love Fort Meade. The Place wasn't always such a secret. I used to be able to drive through it, visit military friends who lived or worked there. But now it is completely different. It's been turned into a Soviet Style Secret city, and I can't even get close enough anymore to try to remember what it looked like before it was turned into a Frankenstein Monster. Here's a picture from Greenwalds' site of what the NSA looks like now. I'm surprised the person who took it didn't get shot down.
It's turned into a bureaucratic Frankenstein's Monster. American Bureaucracy is a frightening thing of Catch 22's, privateers and profiteering. Not sure how dangerous they are to our external enemies, but they sure are dangerous to our survival as a Democratic Republic. I'm Glad Froomkin, Greenwald and the others are creating a private effort, but that also means they are being divorced from the major media, which is culpable too.
I keep telling them to investigate the Fusion Centers and FBI links, but they seem focused on the NSA. Oh well. It's worth following them here:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept
Anyway Happy Valentines day, and I hope you aren't keeping any secrets. Please send a valentine to whoever is reading your websites or email too.
Happy Valentine's day NSA
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