Radio War Nerd EP #120 — The Secret Military History of the Internet, with Yasha Levine (Patreon)

Guest: Yasha Levine, author & journalist

Recorded February 4, 2018

The War Nerd talks to investigative journalist Yasha Levine about his controversial new book, "Surveillance Valley" about the inseparable relationship between the Internet industry and US military-intelligence. Levine dives deep into the origins of the Internet, designed by Pentagon researchers to create an all-seeing counterinsurgency weapon in wars abroad, and against protest movements home in the USA. Fifty years ago, student radicals protested the early Internet as a Big Brother weapon of oppression; today, young "radicals" in the Internet Freedom movement promote this Pentagon weapon as a force for liberation and revolution against the same Big Brother state. Levine explains how these paradoxes came to be—and why Snowden's revelations about government spying on the Internet revealed not a bug in the system that can be "fixed", but rather the whole purpose of the Internet system from the start. Grim, hopeless & fascinating. 

Buy Yasha Levine's book "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet" and check out his book tour! 

Total time: 2:51:46

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here