By Truth In Media The AntiMedia March 24, 2018
Chart of interlocking connections of the Deep State added by Rise Up Times.
(TIM) — Famed whistleblower Edward Snowden was recently interviewed by Italian publication La Repubblic. The publication noted the 5-year mark of Snowden’s historic act of blowing the whistle on the NSA’s expansive surveillance programs and that “many thought he would end up very badly, but when he connects via videolink for this interview with la Repubblica, he seems to be doing very well: the frank smile and peaceful face of someone who is easy in his mind.”
In an excerpt from the exclusive interview, Snowden explained how the presidencies of both Obama and Trump are shaped by the Deep State following an illuminating question by journalist Stefania Maurizi.
Stefania Maurizi: We saw that President Obama, who was an outsider to the US military-intelligence complex, initially wanted to reign in the abuses of agencies like the CIA and the NSA, but in the end he did very little. Now we see a confrontation between president Trump and so-called Deep State, which includes the CIA and the NSA. Can a US president govern in opposition to such powerful entities?
Edward Snowden: Obama is certainly an instructive case. This is a president who campaigned on a platform of ending warrantless wiretapping in the United States, he said “that’s not who we are, that’s not what we do,” and once he became the president, he expanded the program. He said he was going to close Guantanamo but he kept it open, he said he was going to limit extrajudicial killings and drone strikes that has been so routine in the Bush years. But Obama went on to authorize vastly more drone strikes than Bush. It became an industry.
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As for this idea that there is a Deep State, now the Deep State is not just the intelligence agencies, it is really a way of referring to the career bureaucracy of government. These are officials who sit in powerful positions, who don’t leave when presidents do, who watch presidents come and go, they influence policy, they influence presidents and say: this is what we have always done, this is what we must do, and if you don’t do this, people will die.
It is very easy to persuade a new president who comes in, who has never had these powers, but has always wanted this job and wants very, very badly to do that job well. A bureaucrat sitting there for the last twenty years says: I understand what you said, I respect your principles, but if you do what you promised, people will die. It is very easy for a president to go: well, for now, I am going to set this controversy to the side, I’m going to take your advice, let you guys decide how these things should be done, and then I will revisit it, when I have a little more experience, maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years, but then they never do.
This is what we saw quite clearly happen in the case of Barack Obama: when this story [of Snowden exposing the NSA’s mass surveillance] came forward in 2013, when Obama had been president for five years, one of the defences for this from his aides and political allies was: oh, Obama was just about to fix this problem! And sure enough, he eventually was forced from the wave of criticism to make some limited reforms, but he did not go far enough to end all of the programs that were in violation of the law or the constitution of the United States. That too was an intentional choice: he could have certainly used the scandal to advocate for all of the changes that he had campaigned on, to deliver on all of his promises, but in those five years he had become president, he discovered something else, which is that there are benefits from having very powerful intelligence agencies, there are benefits from having these career bureaucrats on your side, using their spider web over government for your benefit.
Imagine you are Barack Obama, and you realise – yes, when you were campaigning you were saying: spying on people without a warrant is a problem, but then you realise: you can read Angela Merkel’s text messages. Why bother calling her and asking her opinion, when you can just read her mind by breaking the law? It sounds like a joke, but it is a very seductive thing. Secrecy is perhaps the most corrupting of all government powers, because it takes public officials and divorces them from accountability to the public.
Ben Garrison cartoon added by Rise Up Times
When we look at the case of Trump, who is perhaps the worst of politicians, we see the same dynamic occurring. This is a president who said the CIA is the enemy, it’s like Nazi Germany, they’re listening to his phone calls, and all of these other things, some claims which are true, some claims which are absolutely not. A few months later, he is authorizing major powers for these same agencies that he has called his enemies.
And this gets to the central crux of your question, which is: can any president oppose this? The answer is certainly. The president has to have some familiarity going in with the fact that this pitch is going to be made, that they are going to try to scare him or her into compliance. The president has to be willing to stand strongly on line and say: ‘I was elected to represent the interests of the American people, and if you’re not willing to respect the constitution and our rights, I will disband your agency, and create a new one’. I think they can definitely be forced into compliance, because these officials fear prison, just like every one of us.
stefania maurizi@SMaurizi
EXCLUSIVE: @Snowden tells @smaurizi@repubblica how the #DeepState shapes presidents,whether he wants to see all his files published,how he looks at #Skripal and at the increasingly close relationships #Facebook,#Amazon,#Google and the intel (English) http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2018/03/19/news/snowden_how_the_deep_state_shapes_presidents_-191619170/?ref=RHPPLF-BH-I0-C8-P8-S1.8-T2 …
Edward Snowden: “Poisoning people who are long out of their service is contemptible”
In an exclusive interview, Edward Snowden tells La Repubblica what has changed in the five years since he blew the whistle on the NSA… repubblica.it
Rise Up Times 
I’m astonished Snowden hasn’t seen through the Deep State’s framing of Putin over the Skripal case. Skripal was poisoned by MI6 for what he knew about his boss Christopher Steele’s dodgy Trump dossier, which he was about to trade for a ticket home.
FACT: Skripal was recruited and run by MI6 agent Pablo Miller. Miller now lives in Salisbury and works for Christopher Steele’s company Orbis Business Intelligence. Skripal after the spy swap renewed his acquaintance with Miller. Miller helped Steele with his dossier, commissioned by the US Democratic Party to dig up dirt on Trump. It contained stories about Trump and Moscow prostitutes which allegedly gave the FSB a hold over Trump, turning him into a Russian agent.
HIGH PROBABILITY: Miller called on his old agent Skripal to help with the details. Skripal knew exactly how fake Steele’s dodgy dossier was.
FACT: Yulia Skripal went back to Russia and started dating an FSB agent. His mother is a high-up FSB officer. HIGH PROBABILITY: They asked Yulia to persuade her father to come home again to his family and ageing mother and share what he knew about the dodgy dossier with the FSB. FACT: Discrediting the dodgy Trump dossier would be a blow to the anti-Russia party in the US.
HIGH PROBABILITY: Sergei Skripal began showing signs of homesickness and thinking about returning to see his dying mother. Steele panicked: he foresaw a summons before Mueller and prison for lying to Congress. He had to stop Skripal returning. He applied to his CIA friends for a nerve agent that could be blamed on Russia. The CIA sent it over, stuff they got when dismantling the factory in Uzbekistan that made it. A bit old, they said, but it should still work. Just smear it on their front door handle.
PREDICTION: Yulia, now awake, will be murdered before she can tell her story. They’ll let the Russian consul in to see her the day they do it, then frame him and start a boycott of the World Cup, and more. Wake up, people. This Russia shit is more of the Deep State’s lies.
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Sorry, but the deep state is not just the intelligence agencies and career bureaucrats — first and foremost, it’s the corporate heads who dictate policy and the military leaders who carry it out. In other words, the deep state is the ruling class — and until liberals get a better grasp of class politics, they will forever keep going after the pathetic puppets of the deep state (like Trump), but they’ll never touch the actual powers who are pulling the strings.
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I think that the chart I included shows the interlocking circles of The Deep State, so yes, it is more than the intelligence agencies and the career bureaucrats. And more even than the corporate heads and military leaders. Still, I think Snowden’s article is useful, because many do not understand even the basics of the intelligence agencies and bureaucrats as part of The Deep State and that they do influence the president. In my article on Psychological Warfare ( a link is included as Related at the end of Snowden’s article), the development of the many aspects of The Deep State after WWII is discussed, based on the book
“Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare 1945-1960” by Christopher Simpson. The Deep State is an intricate web of relationships that includes the mainstream corporate media as well, along with foundations and NGOs and the many interlocking circles both in and out of government. A reading of Simpson’s book explains in detail how The Deep State developed, including the establishment of the intelligence agencies, but also of other aspects that shows the relationships with the foundations, the elite colleges and so on, that educate the elite ruling class whether they are in government, including the military, or in corporate America or in institutions of higher education, foundations, Wall Street, the mainstream corporate media etc. I recommend Simpson’s book to those who are interested in a deeper understanding of how The Deep State functions. It is not a conspiracy; that is not the way it works. And it is not an attempt to destroy Trump per se or the presidency as argued by Judicial Watch (www.judicialwatch.org), who see it as a conspiracy. Snowden does not see it as a conspiracy, but sees how it is set up to influence presidents and how the bureaucracy works to sustain that influence over a series of presidents and in doing so he discusses one very important aspect of The Deep State. Simpson documents the development of how that influence came to be and is carried forward from president to president. Note: Simpson’s book is available via Kindle or by interlibrary loan. A hardcover copy is in the $100 range and more on Amazon and other websites. A digital edition with a preface by Christopher Simpson and an introduction by Robert McChesney is available on the web: New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2014 .
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Another Dodgy British Dossier: the Skripal Case by Gareth Porter https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/21/another-dodgy-british-dossier-the-skripal-case/
for background on the Skripal Case.
Michael, it sounds like you agree that the deep state is a conspiracy as described on http://www.judicialwatch.org to topple Trump and destroy the presidency (their description). That is a red herring of sorts.
I do not agree that is the all of the The Deep State. The Deep State is as I have described it is the legacy of the Psychological Warfare and is therefore not a conspiracy per se. And is much broader than the immediate politics of taking Trump down.
First, I refer you to Snowden’s article
SNOWDEN EXPLAINS HOW THE DEEP STATE INFLUENCES PRESIDENTS
That The Deep State is involved in attempts to get rid of Trump I do not deny. He is a rogue president, unpredictable and uncontrollable by The Deep State, so obviously along with the Democrats they are attempting to get rid of him. They cannot control him as they have controlled other presidents in the so-called interests of national security. But The Deep State will not go away once Trump is gone from the presidency. It’s roots are deeper and more extensive than a conspiracy to get T gone. So I enourage you to read my articles on Psychological Warfare and even more to read Christopher Simpson’s book Psychological Warfare to understand how The Deep State operates..
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