June 11 – An NSA “Insider” on the Big Swindles; A Media Theorist on Why We Allow Corporate Big Brothers to Mine Our Data; The Author of “The Unwinding”

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with William Binney, an insider who served in the National Security Agency for 37 years rising to the rank of Technical Director of the World Geopolitical and Military Reporting Group at the NSA. We discuss the nature of the PRISM program that is the subject of the latest leak and how much the taxpayer is getting swindled by multibillion dollar secret programs that don’t work.

Part 2

Then we speak with world renowned media theorist and technology columnist Douglas Rushkoff, the author of “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now”. We discuss his article at CNN “Edward Snowden is a Hero” and the extent to which most of what we say and text on cell phones or write on computers is being recorded and parsed by big data servers like Google and Facebook. We examine the difference between our willingness to give up all our data to corporate big brothers in contrast to our objection to the government doing the same thing.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with George Packer, a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the new book “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America”. We discuss his profiles of Americans living in the new Gilded Age in which the 99% are increasingly aware of the economic and social impoverishment affecting their lives, but find it difficult to see a way forward because the institutions and means by which people can organize and redress the growing disparity and injustice have been compromised and corrupted.