J.G. Michael and I had a zesty conversation on NSA, illegal spying, Tucker Carlson, and the Deep State on Wednesday. Here is his summary of our exchange and the 39 minute audio file of his Parallax Views show:
On this edition of Parallax Views, controversial Fox News personality Tucker Carlson caused an uproar recently when he alleged that he has been spied on by the NSA (National Security Agency). Pointing aside one’s opinions of either Carlson or his allegations, Parallax Views wanted to delve into the issue of domestic surveillance program and how the could potentially be abused in way that could target activists of the left and right. Are there ways in which the real issue of domestic extremism can be exploited to unsavory ends? … Joining us to unpack all those issues is libertarian gadfly James Bovard, author of such books as Attention Deficit Democracy, Public Policy Hooligan, and The Bush Betrayal. We talk about all the aforementioned issues as well as the dual problem of the Imperial Presidency and secretive entrenched bureaucracies often referred to, for good or ill, as the “deep state”. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views. This conversation was inspired by Jim’s latest article in The Daily Caller, “Why NSA Vs Tucker Carlson Is An Alarm Bell For All Americans”.
Always a pleasure to listen to one of your interviews.
Re the NSA vacuuming up so much it makes it harder to find needle(s) in the haystack: initial screening is done by computers, which work very quickly (of course producing no better results than the program they’re running is capable of), so it’s easy enough to turn the filters down to a level that humans aren’t overloaded with things that have been flagged. Perhaps more importantly from the government’s point of view, once they identify a name of someone they don’t like, they can immediately review that person’s entire public communication history, looking for something to use against him. And who among us has nothing which could potentially be used against us? I think the gov’s strategy of vacuuming everything makes perfect sense — from the point of view of the evil criminal entity that government is.
Thanks for listening. I am wondering how many years it will be until we learn how much NSA is vacuuming up nowadays.
I appreciate hearing Mr. Bovard. People still can learn.