A Quote by Edward Snowden
The chairs [in Congress] are part of the "Gang of Eight." They get briefed on every covert-action program and everything like that. They know where all the bodies are buried. At the same time, they get far more campaign donations than anybody else from defense contractors, from intelligence corporations, from private military companies.
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There is no part of the executive branch that more exists on the outer edge of executive prerogative than the American intelligence community - the intelligence community, CIA, covert action. My literal responsibility as director of CIA with regard to covert action was to inform the Congress - not to seek their approval, to inform.
As far as leftists are concerned, nobody should have to pay more than anybody else. Nobody should make more than anybody else. Everything is supposed to be the same. It's the only way it's fair. It's the only way feelings don't get hurt. So when circumstances like that exist, they call that anti-competitive. Anti-competitive means they can't afford it.
The programs that have been discussed over the last couple days in the press are secret in the sense that they are classified but they are not secret in the sense that when it comes to phone calls every member of Congress has been briefed on this program. With respect to all these programs the relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized by broad bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006.
The spy boom has been a beautiful windfall for architects, construction companies, IT specialists, and above all defense contractors, enriching thousands of private companies and dozens of local economies hugging the Capital Beltway.
When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the 'fantastic' get-out-the-vote program... some of this borders on RICO violations.
You know in Hollywood, everything is more talk than action. Every project takes a long time to get off the ground.
Most of the men and women who vote in Congress each year to continue subsidies have taken campaign donations from big energy companies.
Being briefed only once is a quaint defense. You're either briefed or not briefed.
The domestic war against "terrorists" [code for young protesters] provides new opportunities for major defense contractors and corporations who are becoming more a part of our domestic lives.
As the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.
The thing that really struck me was how many firms that we think of as strictly civilian had ties to the Pentagon. Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Oakley the sunglasses manufacturer. Even Google, and a lot of big corporations like PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, and Nestle, that you don't normally think of as defense contractors.
Look at the way liberals name things. "Net neutrality." It's like Switzerland! They don't take sides, everybody's fair, everything's the same. It's not what it is. Net neutrality rules are anti-consumer and anti-competitive. By definition, liberals don't believe in competition, and you know that. Competition is the root of all evil, as far as leftists are concerned, 'cause there are winners and there are losers, and the losers are sad and disappointed, and that's unacceptable. So everything must be the same. Nobody can have more than anybody else.
When corporations get special handouts from the government, subsidies and tax breaks, it costs you. It means you have to pay more in taxes to make up for these hidden expenses, and government has less money for good schools and roads, Medicare and national defense and everything else you need.
I don't want to get people nervous falling off their chairs, but Social Security is a socialist program. It's a program by which the United States government has said that when you get old you should have a steady source of income.
I wouldn't even know - and I spent three years in the CIA - I wouldn't even know how you'd start a covert action program in a place like Iran. It would be extraordinarily difficult.
It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.
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