Commenter Cassander regularly recommends the famous Eisenhower "military industrial complex" speech--Ike's final speech as president--seeing this prescient speech as offering insight into the current plight of our constitutional order. Today Red State offers Eric Felten riffing off the Ike theme, in a article that was originally published by Real Clear Investigations:
Sixty Years After Eisenhower’s Warning, Signs of a ‘Digital-Intelligence Complex’
Critics of tech industry power and influence point out that Big Tech is now among the biggest employers of lobbyists, hiring primarily those who formerly worked for government.
The article is a dense case study of the close collaboration between, in particular, Amazon Web Services and the Intelligence Community--forming, it seems, a nearly seamless "Digital Intelligence Complex." We're all aware of this, but this case study method puts faces to what may seem like an almost impersonal development:
The synergy between Washington and Silicon Valley can be seen as the latest manifestation of the Beltway’s revolving door. But the size and scope of Big Tech—and the increasing dependence of government on its products and talent—suggest something more: the rise of a Digital-Intelligence Complex. Like the Military-Industrial Complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against in 1961, it represents a symbiotic relationship in which the lines between one and the other are blurred.
But It's not impersonal. In point of fact it's very personal. There are real people behind this development who are benefiting--bigly. Here are the final two paragraphs:
