Marv Gandall wrote:
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> On 2013-06-12, at 1:44 PM, JOANNA A. wrote:
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>> 5. And then there's the question of expense; with schools and infrastructure falling apart, do you think the best the govt can do with money is to spend it on this sort of operation?
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> No doubt someone like Edward Snowden could have been be more productively employed in the education sector and other US public services and infrastructure badly in need of repair.
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> The national security apparatus, like the prison system, has become a huge private boondoggle based on hundreds of thousands of employees and so-called independent contractors like Snowden paid by big government contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton to collect information on other Americans - information which is almost never actionable.
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> Yesterday's Democracy Now had a good piece on "Digital Blackwater: How the NSA gives private contractors control of the surveillance state".
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> http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/11/digital_blackwater_how_the_nsa_gives
^^^^ CB: In terms of the internet, the state has to get the basic data from private companies, like Google and Yahoo, too. Private coming and going. Monopoly National Security State Monopoly Capitalism