Meet PRISM / US-984XN – The US Government’s Internet Espionage Super Operation | ZeroHedge

click to go to original post at ZeroHedge

The disclosures involving this (and the prior) administration’s Big Brother surveillance state, which would make Nixon blush with envy are now coming fast and furious (one wonders – why now: even that bastion of liberalism the NY Times, has turned against Obama). Although while the Guardian’s overnight news that Verizon (and most certainly AT&T as well among others) was cooperating with the NSA on spying on US citizens, so far at least the internet seemed, if only to the great unwashed masses, immune. That is no longer the case following news from the WaPo exposing PRISM, a highly classified program, which has not been disclosed publicly before. “Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy.” What PRISM does is to allow the NSA and the FBI to tap directly “into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.”

The secrecy is so deep we expect even the president himself may not know about it (but he does):

 The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy.  Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues…. go here for the rest

An Orwellian America | Zero Hedge

….ORWELL’S 1984 IS HAPPENING.  We are one crisis away from a police state. All the powers are in place. Someone will flip the switch. Whether a Cyber Attack, escalating Currency War tensions or a ‘terrorist’ attack by indebted college youth, it is only a matter of time and circumstance.

click the pic to read the entire dsytopic tonic on this topic at ZeroHedge

via An Orwellian America | Zero Hedge.

Inflation Since The American Revolution | Zero Hedge

As is clear by this chart, inflation was virtually unheard of until the Creature from Jekyll Island the Federal Reserve took over. However, more importantly, things didn’t really start to get bad until the 1970?s right after Nixon took the nation off the gold standard in 1971. Since that time, America has seen a period of non-existent real wage growth and a huge gap grow between the rich and the poor ever since. Nothing like livin’ the debt slave dream!

via Guest Post: Inflation Since The American Revolution | Zero Hedge.

Doug Casey: The US Is Now The United (Police) State Of America | ZeroHedge

click here to jump to Zero Hedge

…the US Constitution was essentially a coup; the delegates to what we now call the Constitutional Convention were not empowered to replace the existing government – only to improve upon the Articles of Confederation between the then-independent states.  The framers of the Constitution drafted it with the notion of a national government already in place, but calmed fears of loss of state sovereignty by calling the new government the “United States of America” – a verbal sleight of hand that worked for over half a century.  Then the southern states decided to exercise what these words imply, their right to leave the union… and as the government becomes more powerful, it’s completely predictable that everything – including the justice system – will become ever more politicized… As great as a US citizen’s risk is in the marketplace these days, the greatest single risk to their wealth and health is the government... via ZeroHedge

MUST READ! “Dear Person Seeking a Job: Why I Can’t Hire You” | Charles Hugh Smith via ZeroHedge

Potential employers have to respond to the incentives and disincentives that exist in today’s world, and those do not favor conventional permanent employees.  I know you’re hard-working, motivated, tech-savvy and willing to learn. The reason I can’t hire you has nothing to do with your work ethic or skills; it’s the high-cost Status Quo, and the many perverse consequences of maintaining a failing Status Quo.

The sad truth is that it’s costly and risky to hire anyone to do anything, and “bankable projects” that might generate profit/require more labor are few and far between. The overhead costs for employees have skyrocketed. So even though the wages employees see on their paychecks have stagnated, the total compensation costs the employer pays have risen substantially.

Thirty years ago the overhead costs were considerably less, adjusted for inflation, and there weren’t billboards advertising a free trip to Cabo if you sued your employer. (I just saw an advert placed by a legal firm while riding a BART train that solicited employees to sue their employers, with the incentive being “freemoney” for a vacation to Cabo.)

The Criminal Banking Cartel’s End Game: A 100% Digital Monetary System | ZeroHedge

There is no doubt that the elite have always sought to carefully manufacture news and to control the beliefs of the masses through their interests in funding education and in owning media distribution channels for centuries. There is a wealth of history that chronicles the elite’s desires to control and sway public opinion by manufacturing news versusthe honorable journalism pursuit of reporting news in a fair and accurate manner. For example, in 1917, Congressman Oscar Callaway stated, as documented in the Congressional Record:

The Benefits Of A College Education | ZeroHedge

The Benefits Of A College Education | ZeroHedge.

Money As Debt | ZeroHedge

… Cash is created out of thin air by the central bank of the country which is often privately owned. The central bank can just have it printed for the cost of printing, by the government or privately. The central bank then uses this cash it creates out of thin air to buy interest-bearing public debt in the form of government bonds.Government debt is perpetual and thus interest paid on it is perpetual. Therefore a good definition of cash might be: evidence of public debt on which taxpayers will be paying interest forever…

via

Money As Debt | ZeroHedge.

America: A government out of control | ZeroHedge

Something odd and not quite as planned happened as America grew from its “City on a Hill” origins, on its way to becoming the world’s superpower: government grew. A lot...

go here – via ZeroHedge

Charting The Price Of Gold… All The Way Back To 1265 | ZeroHedge

… We have often seen requests to show the price of gold going back as long as possible. Tonight we can oblige, with a gold price chart, indexed in 2010 British Pounds, going all the way back to 1265. To the surprise of many, the early 1980s gold price surge is not the only time in history when gold exploded as America’s game with inflation was almost lost. It appears that based on the surge in gold back in the late 15th century, there was actually quite a serious need for Columbus to go forth and find a source of gold, because last we checked Ferdinand and Isabella did not have Bernanke’s money printers back then. And yes, as Goldman says, there were no ETFs back in the 16th century to draw demand away from the real deal and into make believe exposure…

via Charting The Price Of Gold… All The Way Back To 1265 | ZeroHedge.

Obama Signs Legislation Killing Bill of Rights | ZeroHedge

“…Detaining citizens without a court trial is not American. … Justice Scalia said the very core of liberty, secured by our anglo-saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the executive. Justice Scalia was, as he often does, following the wisdom of our founding fathers. … As Franklin wisely warned, those who give up their liberty for security may wind up with neither…”

posted at:Obama Signs Legislation Killing Bill of Rights (NDAA 2012) | ZeroHedge.