Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 22, 2021 | Sundance | 98 Comments

When we understand how the Fourth Branch works [See all Previous Outlines], questions about our dysfunctional U.S. modern government are answered. Additionally, the motives and intentions of people inside the institutions start to reconcile. However, before completing the final outline, there is a structural understanding needed about the global intelligence apparatus.

On a global scale – the modern intelligence gathering networks are now dependent on data collection to execute their intelligence missions.  In the digital age nations have been executing various methods to gather that data.   Digital surveillance has replaced other methods of interception.  Those surveillance efforts have resulted in a coalescing of regional data networks based on historic multi-national relationships.

We  have a recent frame of reference for the “U.S. data collection network” within the NSA.  Through the allied process the Five Eyes nations all rely on the NSA surveillance database (U.K, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and U.S.)   The NSA database provides the digital baseline for intelligence operations in defense of our allies.  The portals into the NSA database are essentially an assembly of allies in like-minded ideological connection to the United States.

Unfortunately, there have been some revelations about the NSA database being used to monitor our allies, like in the example of Germany and surveillance on Angela Merkel’s phone.  As long as “the good guys” are operating honorably, allies of the United States can feel confident about having protection from the NSA surveillance of global digital data.  We warn our friends if we detect something dangerous etc.

The U.S. has nodes on communication pipelines to intercept and extract data.  We have also launched hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites to conduct surveillance and gather up data.  All of this data is fed into the NSA database where it is monitored (presumably) as a national security mechanism, and in defense of our allies.

However, what about data collection or data networks that are outside the NSA database?  What do our enemies do?  The NSA database is just one intelligence operation of digital surveillance amid the entire world, and we do not allow access by adversaries we are monitoring.  So what do they do?  What do our allies do who might not trust the United States due to past inconsistencies, ie. the Middle-East?

The answers to those questions highlight other data collection networks.  So a brief review of the major players is needed.

♦ CHINA – China operates their own database.  They, like the NSA, scoop up data for their system.  Like us, China launches satellites and deploys other electronic data collection methods to download into their database.  This is why the issues of electronic devices manufactured in China becomes problematic.  Part of the Chinese data collection system involves the use of spyware, hacking and extraction.

Issues with Chinese communication company Huawei take on an added dimension when you consider the goal of the Chinese government to conduct surveillance and assemble a network of data to compete with the United States via the NSA.  Other Chinese methods of surveillance and data-collection are less subversive, as in the examples of TicTok and WeChat.  These are Chinese social media companies that are scraping data just like the NSA scrapes data from Facebook, Twitter and other Silicon Valley tech companies.  [ Remember, the Intelligence Branch is a public-private partnership. ]

♦ RUSSIA – It is very likely that Russia operates their own database.  We know Russia launches satellites, just like China and the USA, for the same purposes.  Russia is also very proficient at hacking into other databases and extracting information to store and utilize in their own network.  The difference between the U.S., China and Russia is likely that Russia spends more time on the hacking aspect because they do not generate actual technology systems as rapidly as the U.S. and China.

The most recent database creation is an outcome of an ally having to take action because they cannot rely on the ideology of the United States remaining consistent as the administrations ping-pong based on ideology….

♦ SAUDI ARABIA – Yes, in 2016 we discovered that Saudi Arabia was now operating their own intelligence data-gathering operation.  It would make sense, given the nature of the middle-east and the constant fluctuations in political support from the United States.   It is a lesson the allied Arab community and Gulf Cooperation Council learned quickly when President Obama went to Cairo in 2009 and launched the Islamist Spring (Arab Spring) upon them.

I have no doubt the creation of the Saudi intelligence network was specifically because the Obama administration started supporting radical Islamists within the Muslim Brotherhood, and threw fuel on the fires of extremism all over the Arab world.

Think about it., What would you do if you were Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan, Oman or Yemen and you knew the United States could just trigger an internal uprising of al-Qaeda, ISIS and the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood to seek your destruction?

Without a doubt, those urgent lessons from 2009, 2010, 2011 triggered the formation of the Arab Intelligence Network as a network to defend itself with consistency.  They assembled the network and activated it in 2017 as pictured above.

♦ Israel – Along a similar outlook to the Arab network, no doubt Israel operates an independent data collection system as a method of protecting itself from ever-changing U.S. politics amid a region that is extremely hostile to its very existence.   Like the others, Israel launches proprietary satellites, and we can be sure they use covert methods to gather electronic data just like the U.S. and China.

As we have recently seen in the Pegasus story, Israel creates spyware programs that are able to track and monitor cell phone communications of targets.  The spyware would not work unless Israel had access to some network where the phone meta-data was actually stored.  So yeah, it makes sense for Israel to operate an independent intelligence database.

♦ Summary:  As we understand the United States Intelligence Branch of government as the superseding entity that controls the internal politics of our nation, we also must consider that multiple nations have the same issue.  There are major intelligence networks around the world beside the NSA “Five-Eyes” database.  China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel all operate proprietary databases deploying the same tools and techniques for assembly.

The geopolitical conflict that has always existed has now shifted into a digital battle-space.  The Intelligence Agencies from these regions are now operating as the backbone of the government that uses them, and has become dependent on them.  [<- Reread that].

Once you accept the digital-era intelligence apparatus of China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia, The United States and Israel, are now the primary national security mechanisms for stabilization of government; then you accept the importance of those intelligence operations.

Once you understand how foundational those modern intelligence operations have become for the stability and continuity of those governments…… then you begin to understand just how the United States intelligence community became more important than the government that created it.

What you have just read is the baseline for the next chapter in ¹our series of how the Intelligence Branch has become the superseding branch of the United States government.  This foundational understanding also explains why traditional intelligence “oversight”, which was never structured to end up as subservient to the intelligence system it was intended to oversee, has become useless in controlling or restraining this Intelligence Branch.