In the United States we have the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA collects all available metadata on almost all electronic devices worldwide that can be reached. Access to that database underpins the “Fourth Branch of Government,” the most powerful branch, the U.S. Intelligence Branch.

In addition to a global scraping of metadata, the NSA also collects the domestic private information of all Americans.  This was the essential background story that NSA Contractor Edward Snowden broke several years ago.   We now know this to be an accepted fact.

The United States internal political debate shifted from ‘should they do this’ to ‘how can we manage the people who do this‘?

The results over the last ten years of trying to manage the exploitation of this database have been a case study in failure.

Year after year, the NSA admits their control over the database is structurally flawed, essentially non-existent.  The fourth amendment protections of U.S. citizens have been erased, and now even U.S. government contractors are using the NSA database to monitor whoever and whatever they want.  Again, I repeat: ‘The Fourth Branch of government is a public-private partnership”.

However, beyond domestic exploitation, the NSA database is presumably only used by, accessed by and available to, the foreign allies that make up the “Five Eyes” partners. The U.S., U.K, Australia, Canada and New Zealand make up the allies within the Five Eyes intelligence apparatus. These allies have access to the same NSA database as U.S. operatives.

Putting aside how the NSA database is exploited inside the U.S. for a moment – if you are a government outside the Five Eyes system; and you wanted to spy on your own citizens and political enemies the way the NSA conducts surveillance on its own citizens; you would need some other access point to spy on your opposition. That’s where an Israeli company called NSO comes into the picture.  {Guardian Report}

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I’m working on a rather comprehensive outline to put all of the actions within the larger political operation together; things in sequence will make much more sense. However, in the interim, here’s former Trump campaign adviser Sam Clovis discussing his encounters with the CIA controlled intelligence agent Stefan Halper.

[*Note* For the sake of context, intellectual honesty and narrative transparency, it is important to note that Sam Clovis is legally represented by Victoria Toensing, wife of Joe diGenova. The reason for this understanding will become more obvious at a later date.] WATCH:

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Note how the thread/relationship connecting Stefan Halper and Carter Page is surfacing with growing clarity.

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There’s something unfortunately familiar in the pattern of explosive controversies and headlines-that-go-nowhere…  The DC UniParty always defends itself.  The latest scandal du jour seems to surround the criminal enterprise known as “Uranium One”.
There is indeed a scandal within the entire construct of a payoff to the Clinton’s via a corporation connected to Russians and bribes, kick-backs, and ultimately a payoff; and there are some newly outlined details from within the FBI investigating the companies and entities associated with the deal.  However, all of these “BOOM” headlines are not new.
Example (Via Circa):

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Now consider this from The Daily Caller (April 2015 – well over two years ago):
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Those who enjoy the deep weeds of politics, especially White Hat/Black Hat intrigue, will find this Reuters Story popcorn worthy.

The Back Story – Admiral Michael Rogers, not to be confused with former House Intel Chair Rep. Mike Rogers, is the Director of the NSA (National Security Agency) and U.S. Cyber Command.
Admiral Michael Rogers met with President-Elect Trump, somewhat quietly, last week (Thursday).

It has been reported that Admiral Rogers did not inform his “superiors” of the meeting with President-Elect Trump. President Obama is out of the country. Def Sec Ash Carter and DNI Chair James Clapper, both loyalists to President Obama, do not necessarily align with Admiral Rogers (they would also be the “superiors” per se’).
Many pixels are still needed to bring clarity to the picture. However, reasonable spidey senses indicate the libertarian sensibility side (smaller intrusion of government, less snooping and more freedom liberty etc) of President-Elect Trump (think R and R Mercer here too) is antithetical to those who made the Patriot Act a hammer instead of a scalpel.
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This has been an interesting story since it first surfaced in May of 2013.  Sharyl has been tight lipped since she announced knowing who had bugged her back in June of 2013.  
The exfiltration and bugging was extensive and highly professional.  Her Skype program was used as a bugging tool for government agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI) to listen in to her conversations, and electronic classified documents were planted in her computer system in case blackmail leverage was needed… This was done while Sharyl was investigating Fast-n-Furious and Benghazi.
(New York Post) A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer.
In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed.
“This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America,” Attkisson quotes the source saying.
She speculates that the motive was to lay the groundwork for possible charges against her or her sources. (more…)

If your children are old enough to be in college, they probably think the country they were born into is falling apart.  If you’re a Baby Boomer like myself, you know the country you were born into is already gone.  It’s a hard thing to thwart the general feeling of optimism shared by most Americans during a beautiful summer season.  But, if you stop and take a thoughtful assessment of the disasters currently befalling our world, perhaps you’ll see that the fall might be closer than you think.

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The summer of 2014 will go down in history as the season when America fell apart. Let’s take a tour of the disasters…

(Townhall)…Germany in 2008 enthusiastically hosted candidate Barack Obama for his so-called “Victory Column” speech. Now, Germans suddenly sound as if they are near-enemies of the U.S. Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly was furious that her cell phone was tapped by American intelligence agents. She just kicked the top CIA official out of Germany, further enraged that the U.S. had recruited at least one German official to provide intelligence on the German government. Polls show that Germans find Vladimir Putin’s Russian tyranny almost as popular as Barack Obama’s America.
Japan is becoming similarly frustrated with the U.S. It is rearming like crazy to confront an aggressive China. Both Asian powers apparently assume that Obama won’t guarantee the security of the Japanese as America had in the past. (more…)

“Reporters Without Borders”,  a watchdog organization headquartered in Paris, France and known by its French acronym, “RSF”, has published its annual “World Press Freedom Index”.

Liberty Blitzkrieg brings to our attention that in the great march FORWARD!, the US was a front runner in the stakes for greatest loss of press freedom in year over year results – slipping an impressive 13 slots  from #33 last year to #46 on the 2014 world ranking, after Romania but before Haiti.

There were some “non-surprises”, such as North Korea and Eritrea remaining at the back of the pack, but also some pleasant surprises with tiny Belize clocking in at an impressive #29, hanging out in the “free press” band with Australia at #28.

Clearly, much work remains to be done before the US can be satisfied that the people’s work is completed and it can comfortably hang in the 100’s with its pals in the middle east and Africa.  Maybe that will provide the necessary incentive to Dirty Harry in the Senate to get working on that innertubes kill switch.  In the meantime, those pesky bloggers keep bringing up stuff like Benghazi, or Warrantless Wiretaps, or the ever expanding use of technology to spy on and monitor its own citizens.

The 2014 World Press Freedom Index spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists. The ranking of some countries has also been affected by a tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner to the detriment of the right to inform and be informed. This trend constitutes a growing threat worldwide and is even endangering freedom of information in countries regarded as democracies. Finland tops the index for the fourth year running, closely followed by Netherlands and Norway, like last year. At the other end of the index, the last three positions are again held by Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, three countries where freedom of information is non-existent.

The New York Times has a lengthy article about the evolution of Obama’s ideology and perspective regarding NSA spying.    However, inside the article there is this admission from White House advisor/campaign director David Plouffe that everyone appears to be overlooking (emphasis mine):

[…]   “When you get the package every morning, it puts steel in your spine,” said David Plouffe, the president’s longtime adviser. “There are people out there every day who are plotting. The notion that we would put down a tool that would protect people here in America is hard to fathom.”

At the same time, aides said Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, just how far the surveillance had gone. “Things seem to have grown at the N.S.A.,” Mr. Plouffe said, citing specifically the tapping of foreign leaders’ telephones. “I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing.”

Yet it is hard to express indignation at actions of the government after five years of running it, and some involved in surveillance note that it was Mr. Obama who pushed national security agencies to be aggressive in hunting terrorists.  (read full article)

Representative Peter King is a fully vested Decepticon.

However, after listening to King’s descriptions of NSA phone spying data use, one could be left with a rather curious consideration.

If what Rep King says is true, couldn’t the al-Qaeda affiliates wreak havoc merely with ownership of several yellow page books?

All they would have to do is start down the list of random U.S. phone numbers making calls and not only would the NSA would be bogged down, but thousands of U.S. citizens would be automatically subjected to terroristic stalking by their own government.

…. and how do we know they’re not?