US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Jan Klimkowski]

Another asepct of this, which is hardly being discussed, is that private military contractors appear to have unfettered access to search for anything they want (subject to the fig leaf of a single "dodgy" connection at any stage in a person's history).

So, in addition to the ability of intelligence agencies to use illegally obtained information as leverage over a person, private military contractors also now have the ability to blackmail or blacklist anyone they like.

Good point! And it is not being explored anywhere that I can see. As well as blackmail it can also be used for insider trading and other stock market type system gaming as welll as taking out competitors. Most of the intel corporations have other business interests like media holdings and aerospace.

The military-multinational-intelligence complex and the false Church of Free Market Capitalism are now so dominant that it is assumed as an article of unquestionable faith that:

Public Service = bad, inefficient and wasteful

Private for Profit = good, efficient and lean

Of course in reality the Private for Profit model will lie, cheat and charge exorbitantly for every transaction in the cause of profit maximisation for shareholders and obscene bonuses for executives.

As Shock Therapy is being implemented in the so-called First World, the privatisation of state assets (eg the Greek public service broadcaster) and contracting out of state functions (eg intelligence analysis), continues apace.

The reality is that private companies now have essentially unfettered access to every aspect of our lives, and noone is even questioning this.