Radio War Nerd EP120—The Secret Military History of the Internet, with Yasha Levine

What this episode covers

Guest: Yasha Levine, author & journalist 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!

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