NSA and the Big RV Closet

Archived from the former firedocs blog. 05 March 2006

Oh yeah, we all know the government is supersecretly doing RV. We just can't believe that big a group of people could be ignorant and uninterested. It could be lurking in every closet big enough for two people. In every project funded well enough for a good recliner. We'll catch NSA and their Big RV Closet, just you wait.

For those who don't want to wait, Remote Viewing comes up now and then in tabloid-style stories. These are usually not as well written as the tabloids at the store, and not as interesting either, but given there isn't much media coverage of RV, we take what we can get.

The latest (thanks and hat tip to daz for this) comes from the Wayne Madsen Report, a leftist political website, for their Feb26 story about Remote Viewing.

The first part is a story I'd heard before (many times); it's no secret RV was used, or that the Carter administration found a downed plane thanks to a psychic. The rest of it is the alleged news tidbit. To apply just a TAD bit of critical thinking here:

However, according to NSA sources, remote viewing remains an ultra secret project at the signals intelligence agency.

"Sources!" Well there's a word that covers any imaginable thing with no evidence whatsoever. The tabloids have 'sources' too, heh! Maybe it gets better.

According to those familiar with the program, the protocols followed have actually complied with U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18), which implements the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

True, I think... this is a trivia point anybody familiar with the old program could have mentioned. So? Putting it here is a ploy to make it sound like Ooooh Aaaaah, boy that's really advanced, important stuff... sounds great. Has zero bearing on whether what is being claimed is true, though.

U.S. persons have been protected by the use of mandatory "two person control" (a viewer and a special handler) during remote viewing sessions,

Ha! That's my favorite line. Protected from what? Sunburn? Aliens? Overtaxation?

carried out in a super secure chamber at NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

For which we have, oh yeah, zero evidence, not even a convincing rumor. Couldn't they make it convincing at least??

With recent disclosures about NSA's violations of FISA by order of the Bush White House,

....I just knew politics were going to get in there SOMEhow...

there are concerns that NSA's remote viewing program no longer complies with FISA or USSID 18.

This is the most common (and deft) written ploy: now we moved all the way to the "assumption" about NSA's current remote viewing program; we're no longer discussing it as alleged or a possibility -- we're referring to it as a total given indirectly. A lovely verbal seguey. Sheesh.

It's not that it can't be so -- hell, I hope someone with a brain is using psi on behalf of my country! But the above article sounds like it was written for almost no other reason than to find something that MIGHT imply that Bush MIGHT be related to something which MIGHT be doing something wrong. Heh. Like we really need to stretch to find something to beat up on him about, right? Like there isn't an endless list of great ammo right at hand.

I wish someone would make up some really GOOD lies about remote viewing. It's kinda depressing how little interesting news there is about the topic.