The continued ascent of the surveillance state

Recently Dana Priest and William Arkin of the Washington Post published another chapter into their ongoing investigation of America's secretive information gathering operations.  In the past series, they discussed the emerging nexus between corporate entities, clandestine information services, and the government.  A system so large that "Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications."  No single entity within the government is capable of understanding the totality or scope of the enterprise; not even the president's own top officials on the subject.

The most recent chapter to this story, involves the involvement of state and local police agencies.  Across the nation terrorism task forces have been created to capture information related to domestic threats that may arise in each jurisdiction in America.  The federal government has provided grants to this regional governments and police forces to purchase high-end military surveillance systems and communication networks to monitor and manage local populations.  In those cases where no terrorism related activities are identifiable, the new task forces are used to monitor criminal classes and/or any person or group the state deems of interest.

The most contentious aspect of the government surveillance lies in the collection of data on individuals who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing.  A Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, or SAR, has been established to collect data (personal, commercial, financial,...etc) upon any person the state determines suspicious.  Unlike the conventional system, where the state does not have the right to collect and horde every minuta of data about your life, the new terrorism laws and surveillance state network, casts a wide net.

As of December, there were 161,948 suspicious activity files in the classified Guardian database, mostly leads from FBI headquarters and state field offices. Two years ago, the bureau set up an unclassified section of the database so state and local agencies could send in suspicious incident reports and review those submitted by their counterparts in other states. Some 890 state and local agencies have sent in 7,197 reports so far.

The objective of the system is to amass as much information on each person within the United States as possible. The federal state has had a long and sordid history of monitoring, infiltrating, and undermining civilian populations engaged in nothing less than constitutionally sanctioned criticism of government practices. The following examples confirm the misuse of the current security state powers:

• In Virginia, the state's fusion center published a terrorism threat assessment in 2009 naming historically black colleges as potential hubs for terrorism.
• From 2005 to 2007, the Maryland State Police went even further, infiltrating and labeling as terrorists local groups devoted to human rights, antiwar causes and bike lanes.
• And in Pennsylvania this year, a local contractor hired to write intelligence bulletins filled them with information about lawful meetings as varied as Pennsylvania Tea Party Patriots Coalition gatherings, antiwar protests and an event at which environmental activists dressed up as Santa Claus and handed out coal-filled stockings

In America, the public has generally accepted the rise of the surveillance state. Trivialities such as civil liberties, the abuse of constitutional freedoms, the invasion of individual privacy, and the monitoring of lawful public assemblies, are glossed off by the mainstream media and the population as minor irritants that only affect those swarthy and obviously guilty dark-skinned persons with funny names. Glenn Greenwald expands on this asymmetric information relationship:

One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government is its fixation on hiding everything it does behind a wall of secrecy while simultaneously monitoring, invading and collecting files on everything its citizenry does. Based on the Francis Bacon aphorism that "knowledge is power," this is the extreme imbalance that renders the ruling class omnipotent and citizens powerless.

The cabal of corporate fascists has extended its tentacles into every aspect and function of every person in the nation. Big brother is not just a metaphor, he is the state.