Episode 366 - THE LOOMING OCTOPUS

In what is being hailed as one of the largest leaks of CIA documents in history, WikiLeaks' Vault 7 release shines a spotlight on the agency's creeping surveillance reach. Featuring thousands of classified documents, the dump—dubbed Year Zero—not only exposes a vast array of hacking tools and malware but also unveils the CIA's stealthy backdoor control of everyday technology.

From smart phones and televisions to gaming systems, these devices have been turned into live microphones, making personal privacy almost non-existent.Clyde Lewis of Ground Zero dissects the alarming revelations, confirming the long-suspected extensiveness of government spying. The consequence is that countless conspiracy theories that referred to such large-scale surveillance are now no longer theories but disturbing truths.

The spookily named Weeping Angel program turns Samsung smart TVs into surveillance bugs that can listen in even when the device appears off. Intelligence agencies can dive into the cyber realm with programs like Operation Hammer Drill and Project Hive, insidiously breaching our supposed digital sanctuaries.

Perhaps the most unsettling prospect is the sinister Umbridge project that freely borrows and modifies cyberattack techniques from other countries.

By emulating these methods and leaving behind falsely incriminating digital footprints, the CIA can conduct their own covert operations and point fingers at another nation, essentially constructing a modern-day cyber Reichstag fire.

An earlier investigatory work by reporter Danny Casolaro, based on the so-called Octopus Conspiracy, seems to meet vindication through these disclosures. Casolaro tragically died while delving deep into a secret network that he believed permeated the government and further afield, with agencies like the CIA forming part of a tentacled system of control and subterfuge.

In a sinister echo of the past, the Vault 7 release suggests that his theory about the 'octopus's' reach is no longer a product of a bygone paranoid era but a reality of the present digital age.With the stakes higher than ever in the Intelligence community's chess game of data and deception, Clyde Lewis implores listeners to recognize the importance of scrutinizing the government's surveillance appetite.

As the lines blur between national security and invasive spying, citizens' privacy hangs in the balance, reduced to collateral damage in the quest for control.The truth behind the octopus is now unmasked—its tentacles stretch out, omnipresent, turning our own devices against us in a way that would seem inexcusably dramatic, were it not so chillingly real.

Originally Broadcast On 2/14/17

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