NSA: Mentally Diseased Agency

The NSA’s response to the Snowden disclosures show that it doesn’t get it, and probably won’t be getting it any time soon. This is bad news for Democracy, Capitalism, Freedom, and the American People.

By cracking down on staffers and taking draconian measures to reduce the possibility of future disclosures, the NSA is demonstrating that it has no intention of changing its ways, and wants to ratchet up its activities, if anything.

If the U.S. Federal government were an individual, and to be psychologically evaluated, there is no doubt what the conclusion would be: sociopathic paranoia and schitzophrenia. In short, mentally ill.

There, I said it. But I’m not alone. The Guardian is saying it too, and more eloquently than my low-budget allows for. In case you’ve missed it:

We have learned that in pursuit of its bureaucratic mission to obtain signals intelligence in a pervasively networked world, the NSA has mounted a systematic campaign against the foundations of American power: constitutional checks and balances, technological leadership, and market entrepreneurship. The NSA scandal is no longer about privacy, or a particular violation of constitutional or legislative obligations. The American body politic is suffering a severe case of auto-immune disease: our defense system is attacking other critical systems of our body.

 

First, the lying. The National Intelligence University, based in Washington, DC, offers a certificate program called the denial and deception advanced studies program. That’s not a farcical sci-fi dystopia; it’s a real program about countering denial and deception by other countries. TheĀ repeated misrepresentations suggest that the intelligence establishment has come to see its civilian bosses as adversaries to be managed through denial and deception.

 

– The Guardian

For more, see: Time to tame the NSA behemoth trampling our rights