Ron Paul interviewed Edward Snowden, where the two men discussed government surveillance and the Deep State.
Snowden highlighted the Deep State’s ability to hide from the public eye and influence US government across both parties.
Snowden…
“Generally, when we’re talking about the Deep State, what we’re talking about is a mass of government that survives beyond administrations, but that is not responding to the politics of the people. This belongs not to a particular political party, but it serves across parties. Across administrations.”
“Everything we do at the NSA and CIA is typically classified by default, unless you actually work to make it not classified.”
“When I sent an email about lunch plans to one of my office buddies, that was going to be classified. Even the most banal email that you’re sending…is classified.”
Via the Liberty Report…
In this wide-ranging exclusive interview, former intelligence analyst turned whistleblower Edward Snowden tells all. What to say to those who argue that they’ve got nothing to hide so nothing to fear from the intrusive ears of the state? Snowden is engagingly philosophical yet frank about his current position and where we are headed as a society.
More from Snowden via the interview transcript (courtesy Zerohedge)…
“Small government tends to be more respecting of individuals’ rights than large governments. And the question we need to ask, is why?”
*****
“[Some people] want me to sort of be a frontman for these issues like civil liberty and peoples’ rights but I’m not a politician, I’m an engineer. Last year I gave a presentation…at MIT on how we can make phones safer by understanding what’s happening inside of them.
When we start looking at all of the problems we’re facing today, there’s sort of two tracks. There’s the political track where the government is passing laws that don’t protect citizens’ rights…the other problem is how is it that so many governments are spying on so many people?”
*****
“Even if we passed the best legal reforms in the world in the US, that doesn’t do anything against China or Russia or Germany or Brazil or any other country in the world. If we want to solve these problems, we need to find new means and mechanisms for enforcing those rights and I think that’s going to primarily be through science and technology.”
Ron Paul noted that the Deep State has now attained many of the same powers of the legislative and executive branches of US government.
“It’s becoming more commonplace now for people to realize that the average congressman doesn’t call the shots, but there’s a force out there called the deep state and they’re the ones calling the shots.”
The growing power of the deep state cuts against the US democratic system…
“It raises the question: Who really has the most power in our society? Is it the voter, or at least in theory the politicians who are supposed to be carrying out their will, or is it this larger group, this constellation of influential actors who are able to subvert and shape the decisions of these Congressmen or even Presidents.”
