The Order

After nearly a year of being in seclusion, Edward Snowden broke his silence about what exactly he did for the government and how he was prompted to speak up when he realized that government overreach had most certainly violated constitutional rights of the citizens.

As CNN reported, “The U.S. government, Snowden said, is using the threat of terrorism “to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don’t need to give up and our Constitution says we shouldn’t give up.””

He sees himself as a patriot whistleblower.

However, the government does not see it that way and the country is divided on whether or not he is a traitor or a patriot.

ABC News Radio said, “Edward Snowden said in a recent interview he tried to go through internal channels to raise his concerns about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs before he slipped out of the country with a trove of secret documents. The NSA disagrees and says it has the email exchange to prove it.”

The NSA’s quick moves appear to be an effort to discredit the interview that he gave to Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News.

Again, ABC News reports that, “Today the NSA posted online the email exchange to which the government agency says it believes Snowden is referring. The exchange released by the NSA took place in early April, months after Snowden reportedly contacted journalists in preparation to expose the secret programs.”

According to the documents posted online, Snowden wrote to the NSA’s Office of General Counsel on Friday, April 5, 2013 asking for legal clarification about whether Presidential executive orders can supersede federal statute, and whether Department of Defense (DOD) or Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) regulations get “greater precedence.”

According to Snowden, “the response more or less was you should stop asking questions.”

Snowden is the poster child for derision by the NSA and others because he exposed the fact that not only was there a domestic spying program, but an expansion of that program which literally is a declaration of war against the American people and holds them all as suspects as enemies of the states.

It wasn’t long ago that domestic spying programs were only used in countries like Soviet Russia and other countries that used the threat of subversives to justify a leviathan dragnet against a domestic enemy.

Now in the United States we see that this is no longer a violation of constitution but an imperative for the continuity of government.

It also is important to inform the American people that while we are assured that all of the spying is being done under the rule of law, the standard proof required for obtaining a warrant to listen in on phone conversations and monitor internet activity is a lot lower than a normal criminal warrant.

In fact, warrants in many cases are written and produced like bad checks under the defense of probable cause, something that you would probably see happen in Cuba or in some other country that is being controlled by a fascist dictatorship.

The courts also rarely turn down these requests for the spying warrant. Recently the fight to make such activities unconstitutional was brought to the courts. A judge ruled in favor of the Fourth Amendment and another judge ruled in favor of the national security state.

This is unprecedented and makes it evident that America has changed.

While navigating the security state of the nation it is important that we expose the fact that the media and even many other outlets that report about so called classified information realize what constitutes something that is “top secret.”

There are people who recklessly toss around the term “top secret” for lack of a better term. Things that are considered secret or that we are told are secret may not really be all that secret. There is classified material that varies in degrees of importance.

National security statutes are mostly defined by executive order.

The most recent executive order regarding security measures and what is deemed classified is numbered EO 13526. This outlines that there are three basic levels of security, top secret , secret and confidential.

According to Presidential Executive Order 13526, “‘Top Secret’ shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”

There are clearance levels above top secret, such as SCI (sensitive compartmented information), SAP (special access programs), and CNWDI (critical nuclear weapon design information).

As Bob Toxen wrote, “There are a number of security methods the NSA could have used that would have stopped Snowden. Many of these have been in use for a decade or more, yet the NSA did not use them.”

The question is why?

Was this an intentional leak that really wasn’t top secret? After all many Americans were already aware of the illegal wiretapping that took place during the Bush administration and no one took the fall for the so called “rumor” that most certainly made its way onto conspiracy theory blogs across the country.

What Snowden revealed was not important enough to be withheld for more than half a century. So the arguments over super sensitive information being revealed in the documents he released may be an over-manufactured story for talking points.

There have been a number of documents, leaks and mistakes with intelligence briefs and documents that all one has to do is know how to recover the information and you can pretty well understand what is exactly is happening in the United States right now.

This brings us to the story that we are opening up tonight that is a follow up to last night’s show.

As Bill Gertz wrote for the Washington Times in his article, ‘Inside the Ring: Memo Outlines Obama’s Plan to Use the Military Against Citizens’:

“Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”

“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.

“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.

The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.

Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.”

The full directive can be obtained by going here: http://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2014/05/28/ring-document.pdf

Last night, a police officer from Texas called into the show and revealed that many local police organizations now have a federal agent on staff in order to handle all criminal activity on a federal level. I wanted to investigate this further and found that yes, this is happening. However, there is much more to the issue of federal involvement in local police agencies.

The reason they are there is because of the fact that within the United States are several tactical teams that are on standby for counter terror operations on a federal level and counter narcotics agents that are available, as well. These groups all have their own trained tactical weapons teams.

From this information, we learn about why federal agencies have stocked up on ammunition and food stuffs. The answer is simple, every agency now is authorized by the Obama administration to have at their disposal their own SWAT or tactical unit in order to enforce laws or to confiscate and protect property.

The following federal agencies are known to have their own private SWAT or paramilitary units: “…the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service…”

Even the Department of Education has their own SWAT Team.

As John Fund writes in ‘The United States of SWAT’:

“The proliferation of paramilitary federal SWAT teams inevitably brings abuses that have nothing to do with either drugs or terrorism. Many of the raids they conduct are against harmless, often innocent, Americans who typically are accused of non-violent civil or administrative violations.

Take the case of Kenneth Wright of Stockton, Calif., who was “visited” by a SWAT team from the U.S. Department of Education in June 2011. Agents battered down the door of his home at 6 a.m., dragged him outside in his boxer shorts, and handcuffed him as they put his three children (ages 3, 7, and 11) in a police car for two hours while they searched his home. The raid was allegedly intended to uncover information on Wright’s estranged wife, Michelle, who hadn’t been living with him and was suspected of college financial-aid fraud.

The year before the raid on Wright, a SWAT team from the Food and Drug Administration raided the farm of Dan Allgyer of Lancaster, Pa. His crime was shipping unpasteurized milk across state lines to a cooperative of young women with children in Washington, D.C., called Grass Fed on the Hill. Raw milk can be sold in Pennsylvania, but it is illegal to transport it across state lines. The raid forced Allgyer to close down his business.”

Many of us were exposed to a battle ready federal agency when the BLM came to call on the Bundy Ranch—these things do not surprise us; however, now we are seeing a battle ready federal government that is ready to declare war at any time on its citizens.

Again, from John Fund, “Since 9/11, the feds have issued a plethora of homeland-security grants that encourage local police departments to buy surplus military hardware and form their own SWAT units. By 2005, at least 80 percent of towns with a population between 25,000 and 50,000 people had their own SWAT team. The number of raids conducted by local police SWAT teams has gone from 3,000 a year in the 1980s to over 50,000 a year today.”

American citizens are now being forced to pay taxes to actually cede their Fourth Amendment rights and, as the police state continues to grow without any oversight, we are on the road to a very dangerous destination in America.

What Snowden has exposed is quite simply the game changer and the knowledge that the government’s security state not only includes spying on every citizen, but arming against every citizen.

The powers that be are expecting us to get used to the “order” of things and to remind every citizen that they are not exempt from being monitored or even killed if it is necessary to further the progress of this “new order.”

The new order really does not have a constitution, just a charter of rules that the powerful expect you to be aware of. The most important rule that we as Americans have to learn now is that whoever you are and wherever you live you are a potential target.

Much of the ensuing outrage from the U.S. intelligence community against Snowden – including calls for his head – the nonsense accusations of treason reflect outrage over the fact that Snowden basically turned the tables on the NSA and as he was showing them he was able to expose the hypocrisy of an administration that plays on American exceptionalism and yet treats them as potential enemies of the state.

Reality can be ugly, especially when an administration is exposed as being ugly, sloppy, and paranoid.

All of the spying, and the threats of military action against its citizens illustrates that this administration now is in not only in the oppression business, but also in the business of blackmail and coercive tactics.

Intimidation seems to be the tool of choice now against American citizens and this is no conspiracy theory, but a true conspiracy that has the potential of creating an environment where citizens can go rogue and begin to eat themselves from within until the government has no choice but to justify their actions and harden their resolve of a more corporal approach to keeping the peace in America.

If anything, Edward Snowden has exposed the new order and how it operates as a stealthy spying and militarized enforcement entity. What Snowden has done is given us a glimpse of the ever-changing architecture of U.S. global power and how it will not only present but a security state that will hold everyone in stasis and fear, but how those “spying” tools will be crucial in activating the world army to enforce compliance.

Even if you think you have nothing to hide, all of us have a good reason to be awake and concerned about the contradictory and self-defeating actions that our government has undertaken.