This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.
This shadow government, which "operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power," makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.
So how do you recognize the Deep State when it rears its ugly head?
It's the militarized police, which have joined forces with state and federal law enforcement agencies in order to establish themselves as a standing army.
It's the fusion centers and spy agencies that have created a surveillance state and turned all of us into suspects.
It's the courthouses and prisons that have allowed corporate profits to take precedence over due process and justice.
It's the military empire with its private contractors and defense industry that is bankrupting the nation.
It's the private sector with its 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances, "a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government."
It's what former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to as "a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies": the Department of Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a handful of vital federal trial courts, and members of the defense and intelligence committees.
It's every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government's power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.
These are the key players that drive the shadow government.
This is the hidden face of the American police state.
Just consider some of the key programs and policies -- manifestations of the police state complex -- that continue to be advanced by the shadow government with the full support of its latest accomplice in the White House:
Domestic surveillance. The National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, continues to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. Yet the government does not operate alone. It cannot. It requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of our massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental bureaucracy. For instance, through its vast telecommunications network that crisscrosses the globe, AT&T provides the U.S. government with the complex infrastructure it needs for its mass surveillance programs.
On any given day, whether you're walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Local police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike -- including homes. Coupled with the nation's growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Global spying. The NSA's massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion "espionage empire," is still spanning the globe and targeting every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA's Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone in the government's attempts at political and corporate espionage.
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