Yeah sounds like some really paranoid kookery but it’s true. Mostly it’s in high tech or finance and that “fellow student” asking to borrow your notes just might be a commie spy. There have been foreign spies detected by the FBI in American universities. Strange but true. Or is it? Espionage is after all the worlds second oldest profession. What is the impact? To what end?
So why am I telling you all of this? We’ll it set’s us up for whats next. In order to “protect” us we need domestic counter espionage. Although some agencies actually do the work (rooting out foreign spies) , not all agencies are created equally. So when did these agencies stop hunting evil commies and terrorists and start switching to spying on the folks they are supposed to be helping, you know the regular folks. Why are we being targeted? Various leaks from the Intelligence Community give us some insight as well as hackers and investigative researchers. Recent revelations about the NSA (ie PRISM) and its various programs have come to light and lets just say its pretty fucking intrusive. Good parody site but VERY illustrative into just how intrusive our own governments are into our everyday lives.
But is this really a recent thing? Many know about life under the various communist systems especially the notorious East Germany and it being a paranoid Big Brother hell world. Or was it? As it turns out we are facing more scrutiny and surveillance now in “the West” than East Germans did during Communism. Also of interest former East German Stasi work in the U.S. now, think Operation Paperclip 2.0.
We may pine for the good ole days but just how good were they? Where in the hell did this NSA come from? How long have we been spied on by our own? Turns out for quite awhile!
PROJECT SHAMROCK-(and MINARET)
Project (do not confuse with OPERATION SHAMROCK– a very different operation) Shamrock was started by the precursor to the NSA (post World War 2) called Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA- during WW2) and wasn’t really brought to light ( for violation of civil liberties and The Constitution ) until the 1970’s. Wow seems like we’ve been here before. Except this time there is no Church Committee stepping in! During the war it was used to intercept communications coming and going from the U.S. (the idea being that it would intercept spies talking to their handlers) but like many “good ideas” it got corrupted and turned into spying on everyone in the U.S. through the phone networks. MINARET was the sister project and was the dissemination of data captured by SHAMROCK to be given to various agencies.
Sounds like something from the old Get Smart shows. This isn’t the international organization of evil though (well maybe it is…) but the CIA operating domestically ie illegally (yeah they aren’t supposed to be able to work domestically!) to target citizens that weren’t going along with the big picture. The worst part of it was that OPERATION CHAOS branched into many other projects (illegal-MK ULTRA,etc) in its initial mission was to investigate possible foreign influence then later turned to discredit and spy on domestic civil rights groups and activist groups (wow sounds familiar) alongside the FBI‘s COINTELPRO. Seems there was more energy and time spent on worrying about American citizens than foreign spies. So long story short the idea (when not enough foreign enemies were found) was to create enough chaos (yeah really original operation name lol) that any activists or those who spoke out against increasing militarization would be demonized (remember voices of reason speaking out against the Iraq invasion?!) like post 9-11. On top of that the chaos created would also create a demand for increasing “security” and surveillance for our own protection.
Seems that many programs are initiated to deal with a perceived threat (whether it is a real one or not) but are soon turned against the citizenry it was meant to protect. Whats old is new…again. So it turns out that yes ,your workplace,school,government,town has spies! Sadly it’s our own and they aren’t after foreign enemies, they’re after us! The Business Plot has not disappeared and is alive and well , just craftier.
Thanks for tuning in- Evil von Scary
P.S. stay tuned for upcoming Electronic Self Defense article!! -EvS