Exposing "The Deep State"

With the crazy ongoing public feud between President (*gag*) Trump and elements of the American intelligence community, I thought it might be worthwhile to share this detailed essay I saw on Brainpickings. It was written by Mike Lofgren, a Congressional staffer who had top security clearance, and describes the un-elected (and mostly unaccountable) aspects of government, law enforcement, and military known as "the deep state":

Anatomy of the Deep State

I had bookmarked this essay last week, but was prompted to post it today by the initial release by Wikileaks of a large collection of CIA documents, known as "Vault 7".

Washington Post:

WikiLeaks Says It Has Obtained 

Trove of CIA Hacking Tools

One of the major takeaways from this leak is that the CIA has been implementing ways to hack into or exploit most electronic consumer devices, like computer software & mobile devices. Anyone with any common sense already suspected that the government was working to spy on the population through our digital devices. This just exposes the various ways they've been going about it.

A lot of people have been commenting on the timing of this data dump, and how it helps Trump cast doubt on U.S. intelligence agencies. It has also been noted that Wikileaks isn't in the business of releasing Russian or Chinese intel. This has led to suspicion that these countries are part of the Wikileaks efforts to expose American secrets.

It's hard to make sense of everything that is going on, and who is behind the various events that seem to get crazier by the day. On the one hand, I think that black ops and secret agendas by the "deep state" can be very dangerous. On the other hand, maybe these entrenched institutions can also be a safeguard against a clear threat to the Republic like the Trump administration. I don't think the simplistic binary "good or evil" paradigm works for things that are this complex.

I'm not sure if the established order is falling apart, or if certain aspects are in the process of solidifying & strengthening, but it is fascinating to watch the accelerating unfoldment of history.