By redefining the term “national security” to include spying on foreign competitors of prominent US corporations,.the intelligence agencies found a new justification for their surveillance capability in order to protect their power and their bloated budgets..This new fascist partnership sped up the creation of the Office of Intelligence Liaison within the US Department of Commerce as the venue through which the intelligence agencies forward intercepted materials to major US corporations. This incestuous relationship is so strong, that sometimes this intelligence information is used to push other American manufacturers out of deals in favor of these mammoth US defense and intelligence contractors who frequently are the source of major cash contributions to both political parties.
Those 'contributions' and other 'benefits' are the carrot part of the control system intelligence agencies exercise over Congress - the supposed watchdog protecting the constitutional rights and liberties of the American people. But stick part is even more scary.
As the article 'ECHELON' by Patrick S. Poole explains the FVEY ECHELON apparatus was quickly turned around on the Congressional officials in order gain advantage for the intelligence agencies and insure that these agencies would never actually be under the control of our elected representatives. The NSA and its ilk simply adopted the FBI's methods based on the fact that everyone has skeletons in their closet.
The skeletons stick is far more powerful than material bribes. If a group attempts to use just bribes to control politicians there's always the chance there could be a higher bidder/briber or in the slim chance a politician might turn honest. But by using the threat of ruination, of a career ending, shame filled future along with a bit of sugar coated bribery the intelligence community has their overseers completely throttled [as of now anyway].
Headquartered at Fort George Meade, located between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, Maryland, the NSA boasts the most enviable array of intelligence equipment and personnel in the world as well as being the largest global employer of mathematicians. Since the close of World War II, the US intelligence agencies have developed a consistent record of trampling the rights and liberties of the American people. But the rise of post-modern warfare - terrorism - gave the powers that be all the justification they needed to develop an even greater ability to spy on its enemies, its allies and its own citizens to suit its own prerogatives independent of oversight. This unbridled power allows the illegal targeting of political opponents, business competitors, dissidents and churches which, along with the redefinition of 'national security interests' to include espionage committed on behalf of powerful corporations, has pushed all of us over the brink and into free fall, into tyranny.
