Already back in October, the only example they presented in detail of supposed successes in stopping terrorist plots turned out to be one where human intelligence did the job. It turned out NSA surveillance had nothing to do with catching the suspects in that case.



If that was the best they could do - you gotta wonder how they couldn't manufacture anything better, but it was basically an act of contempt, another fuck-you to us, like: We're full of bullshit but people believe us anyway, what are you going to do about it?



But that prompts a key question:



So what is the NSA for?



(Spontaneous notes)



(1) Among other things, it's an industrial policy. For ideological reasons, the U.S. pretense is that the government does not subsidize technological development, that this is one of the worst Sins Against Capitalism. Now this is a tough one, since of course government has always subsidized R&D and that's how most R&D happens in the capitalist and imperialist powers, whatever our myths of lone geniuses and courageous private entrepreneurs. So we have outfits like NSA and DARPA to develop computing and telephony (going back to the Bell Labs days) and eventually spawning (directly or indirectly) the basis for www, Oracle, Google, Facebook, etc.



And so industrial policy, an indispensable component of modern capitalism (which according to ideology is a European-Chinese sin only, we just have a "market" do everything by magic) is implemented in the form of a so-called "security agency" that subsidizes industries but does not actually provide any security. (In fact, it's part of a larger apparatus that makes enemies, and if it doesn't make enough of those, it makes them up.)



And what is the particular technology that is being developed?



(2) A general surveillance apparatus of Americans, Earthians and all of their businesses and corporations, with all of the power and benefits for those who have access to it that such an apparatus implies.



While:



(3) Making a lot of money for the contractors and, importantly, their executives and consultants, who are recruited through the revolving door after an early retirement from "service," so that it becomes a massive self-licking ice-cream cone, the equal of Wall Street in corruption and self-deceiving justifications - and, fatally, power, fully unaccountable power - plus all those wonderful jobs jobs jobs to justify it.



And



(4) Because like any institution it's got to have an internal morality or religion, and because this is going to have to be a lie (since it is a primarily superfluous and parasitic institution) it turns into, along with the rest of the "intelligence" and "security" and "homeland" "communities," a dictatorship over a separate, extraconstitutional realm of government -- a parallel state that provides "security" against "enemies" and is expected to break the rules and "Do business with unsavory characters." With a nearly totalitarian ideology in place that most of them always believe and usually become fanatic about. Everything they do is justified and much worse will be justified besides, because all this is for America to survive through a perpetual death-match with World Communism.



Sorry, terrorism. I meant world terrorism. Communism, where did that come from?