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Podcast    H3'ed 3/21/12

NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake: The US Is Becoming more and more a Security State like E. Germany

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Broadcast 3/21/2012 at 9:07 PM EDT (23 Listens, 42 Downloads, 934 Itunes)
The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast

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Interview notes (very rough)

Thomas Drake

NSA Whistleblower

talking about new developments, with background, on what's going on with the Obama Administration and NSA and the USA's move towards a security state. 

related article: 

Thomas Drake and I on Democracy Now Discussing NSA's Warrantless Spying

NSA is the most highly funded security agency. 

Also has military connection-- central security service. 

The most secretive of the agencies. 

Came about in 1952 during Truman administration. 

First three months post 911 were the basis for the whistle blowing that took place later. 

After 911 serious questions were being raised b congress, particularly about how it happened. 

Tom specialized in weapons of mass destruction, specializing in SW Asia-- 

Another desk he sat on was the terrorism desk. In late 90's he got to know and understand Al Qaeda. 

The first attempt on the WTC didn't seem to wake up an appropriate response. 

became aware that the whitehouse revealed had created a super secret program "Stellar Wind" an arrangement between Cheney and the Whitehouse. -- 

details of that program are one of the most secret in the US today. James Bamford wrote about it in an article in Wired Magazine-- Inside the Matrix. 

NSA began spying on Americans. 

I asked, and others asked, "What are we doing focusing the vast resource of the NSA on citizens of our country. 

Special counsel told Tom that the Whitehouse had ordered this and that it was all legal. 

i realized that the NSA had set itself on a course that had both intended and unintended consequences. I could not stand by and watch the subversion of the constitution-- 

was a material witness for two congressional investigations. 

Spin thread?

Trailblazer"  violation of FISA.

combine secrecy with power and it's ripe for abuse. 

In the last six months?

This administration is prosecuting and charging whistleblowers under the espionage act. 

You are an enemy 

You are seeing the continuing expansion of the national security state under this administration. it's anathema to the constitution. 

They dropped all the charges. 

negotiated 240 hours of community service. 

I was told internally that Cheney gave the orders to "find and fry" the leakers. 

What can people do/

Press Wyden and Udall about section 215 of the patriot act, which is being abused to get electronic records. 

Can we really afford spending trillions on the nation security state. 

The big elephant in the room is the military industrial, cybersecurity. It raises the spectre of a true police state. 

The country I specialized in during the cold war was  E. Germany, where one out of four citizens were spying on each other. DO we really want an expanding surveillance state. That's the direction we're heading in. 

Today's era makes the Nixon era look like pikers. 

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Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

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