The Ascendancy of the American Thought Police

Dana Priest and William Arkin, at the Washington Post, have compiled and documented in a three-part series the elaborate web of quasi government-corporate agencies, that are ostensibly engaged in intelligence gathering for various factions within the US government.  Multiple agencies have been created to enhance and supplement the vast information gathering capabilities of the state since the 11-September attacks.  The size and scope of the operations is unlike anything available to any other government across the globe.  As a result, a vast and unaccountable network of corporate entities masquerading as government intelligence resources, information technology experts, and foreign security forces have been added to the government's payroll, with in most cases little or no oversight.  The military, intelligence agencies, profit driven corporations, and government/ civilian personnel are all integrated into a nebulous monstrosity that monitors and collects unprecedented levels of information on Americans and foreigners alike and acts with maximum brutality in executing the objectives of its masters.

A bullet point summary of the two-year investigation is listed below:

• Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
• An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
• In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.
• Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
• Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

Implications

The overwhelming conclusion that can be drawn from these news reports is how unbalanced the entire post-9/11 world in Washington has become.  A virtual shadow government that has integrated for-profit corporations and hundreds of thousands of civilians to manage state-secrets with little congressional or internal controls has been created. 

The amount of data being accumulated by the state and its corporate accessories is unprecedented.  For example,

Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases.

The central faults prior to 9/11 were that various levels of government were not cooperating and vital information to prevent an attack were not being aggregated efficiently.  Today, that system is even more unwieldy and inefficient.  More agencies, personnel, and data are flowing through the system.  Few people are capable of understanding or controlling the multiple factions, some working with oppositional goals, within the shadow government.  Overlapping missions and unclear lines of authority and accountability remain the norm.  As proof, each of the major incidents that have emerged in the past year including the lone vigilante attack at Fort Hood, the Times Square bomber, and the underwear-bomber were all missed.

Many critics of the sprawling shadow government describe how as in the case of the Iraq war, corporate agendas for maximizing government largess to benefit individual profits coupled with the revolving corporate-government employment situation, is undermining government control and decision making.  The level of secrecy and unaccountable power that has been transferred into the hands of corporations is equally troublesome to an open and democratic nation.  Historically the military and the intelligence gathering agencies that emerged after the second World War, have been profoundly inefficient, ill-managed, and corrupt.  Thus, It is both naive and irresponsible to imagine that this new outgrowth of the military-industrial complex is a sound use of limited resources and is being used optimally.

Similar to the manner in which defence corporations selectively place themselves in every congressional district, so that budgetary 'pork' is fed to them, the third article in the series outlines the ubiquitous nature of the shadow government.  In the guise of national security, the shadow government's presence has increased across America.  In traditional military towns, entire business districts have been converted to serve special-operations contractors.  Massive sprawling mausoleums concentrating specific agencies have been erected to serve the growing demands of the US government.  Whole cities are now dependant on the secret actions of the shadow government.

The American republic has collapsed in a silent coup and has been usurped by a shadow government.  Corporations, whether they reside on Wall Street or hidden within the national security maze outside of Washington DC, control entire sections of the US state; including legislative, financial, and war-making authority.  The nation is now a de facto plutocracy, precariously sliding everyday into the authoritarian arms of the thought-police.