CompactNN?

What the fuck is going on here? Is the editor asleep, or is the magazine switching sides?

Compact Mag exists to defend populism in various forms. This article belongs in NYTimes or CNN. It stoutly defends the need for Deepstate’s worst abuses, and weirdly assumes that the world is still in 1960.

The first definition is sort of valid except for the word legal:

= = = = = START SORTA VALID:

The intelligence officer’s task is to use any legal method (according to one’s country’s own laws) or information available to put geopolitical, technical, and economic developments into context and understand how events might unfold, how foreign leaders might react, and what opportunities exist to change undesirable circumstances. Often that advantage is supplied not by furtive spying efforts fit for movies, but in more mundane ways, such as reading foreign newspapers, consulting scientists on advanced but unclassified developments in their field, or receiving missives from well-placed diplomats.

= = = = = END SORTA VALID

Espionage is necessary and often helpful. Spies are NOT required to stay within the laws. That’s exactly why they’re a distinct profession. Everyone tries to learn what the competition is doing, but spies are traditionally allowed to use extralegal methods for their learning. Pretending that spies must follow the laws leads us to believe fake “investigations” by Congress, which are always red herrings.

The rest of the article is written purely from the viewpoint of CIA and NSA, assuming that everything they do is proper espionage. The author wants the agencies to expand their reach into corporations and media. More censorship, more corporate connections!

Got news for you, idiot. Deepstate started in corporations and media and remains firmly connected with corporations and media. Wilson pulled the existing corporate structure into government, but the connections to Wall Street and Big Data and Big Media have been continuous and strong since 1890.

Weirdest shit:

= = = = = START WEIRD SHIT:

Beijing is a peer rival across military, economic, technological, and diplomatic domains. US intelligence agencies aren’t positioned to support strategic decisions across all those domains. Failure to prevail in this generational confrontation, either as the result of a decisive military loss or a slow erosion in US power, would have disastrous consequences for the freedom, economic opportunities, and safety of every American.

= = = = = END WEIRD SHIT.

This made sense in 1970. By 1990 it was already wrong, as Ross Perot observed accurately. Wall Street handed our economy and technology to China. Our power eroded FAST. We lost our freedom, economic opportunities and safety.