'Deep State' USA - Mike Lofgren Article

'DEEP STATE' - USA Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State February 21, 2014 by Mike Lofgren Link:  http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/ Below are key points /extracts / summary (as learning aid for blogger): Visible government & the Shadow government Without due processes, President can: liquidate American citizens  detain prisoners indefinitely without charge conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people (without judicial warrant) engage in witch hunts against federal employees (the so-called “Insider Threat Program”) In USA, power is typified by: displays of intimidating force by militarized  federal; state; &  local; law enforcement.  Overseas, US can: start wars at will; & engage in virtually any other activity whatsoever  without Congress approval. 2011 political warfare over the debt ceiling, WA allocated funds on: overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi’s regime in Libya overt & covert assistance to French intervention in spill-over Mali $115 million to keeping a civil war going in Syria £100 million (min) to UK's GCHQ (spy agency) $1.7 billion constructing mammoth structure in Utah -- for NSA to archive digital surveillance data Meanwhile, in USA:  bridges carrying interstate highways have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure. Shadow Government (the 'Deep State') is a "hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country" and this shadow government is only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose." The Deep State government has its failures: Iraq Afghanistan Libya and is therefore not invincible.   The Deep State protects inept higher-ranking personnel. Cultural assimilation  >  “Groupthink”  - adoption of views of superiors & peers. Executive Office of the President via National Security Council CO-ORDINATES the activities of the Deep State, which is a hybrid of the following: national security  law enforcement agencies Department of State Department of Homeland Security Central Intelligence Agency Justice Department Deep State key areas of Judiciary: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Vital federal trial courts (eg Eastern District of Virginia & Southern District of Manhattan) - where NSA cases conducted. Department of the Treasury (financial flows; international sanctions; SYMBIOSIS with WALL STREET) 'Rump' Congress - congressional leadership & some (but not all) members of the defence &  intelligence committees.  Rest of Congress "submits to a few well-chosen words from the State’s emissaries". Eg. Passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008: retroactively legalised Bush’s illegal & unconstitutional surveillance and indemnified telecommunications companies for their cooperation in these acts. No problems: submission & passing of bill leveraged with trump card :  “terrorism” "What is euphemistically called “private enterprise” is an integral part of its operations." Now "854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances — a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government." The Corporate Arm of the Deep State Membrane between government and industry is highly permeable:  See National Security and Booz Allen Hamilton, (one of the government’s largest intelligence contractors, 99% dependent on govt business).  Contractors now set: political and social tone of Washington; and  increasingly setting the direction of the country and are "doing so quietly, unrecorded in the Congressional Record or the Federal Register, and are rarely subject to congressional hearings." Wall Street -- the cash -- keeps the political machine dormant & "operating as a diversionary marionette theatre." "The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity": " ... institutions so mammoth that prosecutions would have "negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy". "Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward ..." Harvard: Ivy League is .. the preferred bleaching tub & charm school of the American oligarchy.  [LOL] White House advisers contractor-connected think tank experts economic gurus (pro-globalization and deregulation) preferred pose is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering .. profound expertise "deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class" Domestically:  invariably believe in the “Washington Consensus”: financialisation, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labour. Internationally, they espouse 21st-century “American Exceptionalism”: the right and duty of the US to meddle in every region of the world with coercive diplomacy and boots on the ground Silicon Valley is a vital node of the Deep State (Snowden exposure) Important engine of the nation’s economy Indulged by Washington: “jailbreak” smartphone (ie modify for use with other service provider)> receive a fine of up to $500,000 + several yrs prison "... libertarian pose of the Silicon Valley moguls, so carefully cultivated in their public relations, has always been a sham" Silicon Valley - commercial purposes - tracking activities of electronic device users. Deep State - emulate the Valley -- for own purposes.  Deep State conscripts the Silicon Valley’s assistance. 21st century:  drone strikes data mining secret prisons Panopticon-like (all-seeing) control Yet, visible parliamentary institutions of self-government declining to status of a banana republic amid gradual collapse of public infrastructure. [ summary incomplete ]