Bush Backed Spying On Americans 1092
jb.hl.com writes "President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside the U.S. without court approval after 9/11, the New York Times has reported. The report says that under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been unconstitutionally and illegally monitoring international communications of hundreds in the U.S. When asked about the programme on U.S. TV, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said, 'The president acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.'"
Palpatine loses one (Score:4, Informative)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10496539/ [msn.com]
With congressional and judicial oversight... (Score:1, Informative)
In related news.. (Score:5, Informative)
None of this is tied a book release, oh no. (Score:4, Informative)
This guy is Shilling his book (Score:1, Informative)
The NY Times failed to reveal the conflict of interest. Additionally this stuff has been known to congress and the federal court involved.
Nothing new .. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:0, Informative)
This makes slashdot? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Support the President! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:1, Informative)
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004090.htm
"Those who actually read the piece will note that the paper must grudgingly acknowledge that it is talking about the NSA's monitoring of international communications (e-mails, cellphone calls, etc.) only; the agency still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
And not until the 16th paragraph, some 1,110 words into the massive piece, does the paper tell you the important context in which the program was created and used:
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said. In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.
As a result of the NSA program, buried down in the 11th paragraph, we learn that the terrorist plot involving convicted al Qaeda operative Iyman Faris was uncovered--possibly saving untold lives, not to mention New York bridges and possibly Washington, D.C. trains."
Last I checked they won't be finding my contact info in some AQ member's phone, nor do I call anyone internationally, let alone one that would be listed.
Re:Something else to trouble you: (Score:1, Informative)
The analysis I heard on NPR yesterday called it a "thin" defense - it's a "minor" adjustment made to save face for the White House.
Basically, they pointed out that while you could assert that you were following orders, the standard set by the Nuremburg trials still holds.
Re:It sounds worse than it is (Score:2, Informative)
Civil rights, in this case, is simply a pretext for incoherently bashing somebody that they don't like after a simply cursory reading of a summary of an article which in turn summarized another article, which omitted some information after withholding the entire story for a year.
Such is the immaturity of Slashdot's readership (generally speaking, of course... there are some genuinely intelligent people here).
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:1, Informative)
Where were the outcries in 2002 from Congress and the FISA court? Oh, that's right, there weren't any...
The timing of this article is great. The book by the author is coming out in days. Iraq just has successful elections. How much you want to bet the author is on 60 Minutes this week and all over the Sunday shows. But there is no agenda... I mean, they've only had this article for a year.
Re:Great quote (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Ted Kennedy showed up on a NFL. There is a Republican Congressman who is also on the List.. can't recall the name off the top of my head.
Also, there's no mechanism for getting off of the NFL. What they claim to do is add a note next to your name on the list.
Re:legally done (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit.
From the article :
"Some NSA officials were so concerned about the legality of the program that they refused to participate, the Times said. Questions about the legality of the program led the administration to temporarily suspend it last year and impose new restrictions."
When people inside the NSA have a problem with its constitutionality,
I think thats a pretty clear indication of just how legal it is.
Re:Palpatine loses one (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. God forbid a politician think for him or her self, instead of doing what they are told.
It's politicians like Lieberman (not that I'm a big fan) and McCain who stand up for what they believe in *despite* party affiliation that keeps me from losing respect for the political process entirely.
Re:Uh, guys...it was 9/11. (Score:3, Informative)
No, I don't. Airspace was re-opened on September 13. Most airlines resumed revenue flights within a couple of days.
Did anyone actually READ the article? (Score:2, Informative)
But we don't want to talk about good news so let's dig up an chapter TITLE in James Risen's new book that will be out in 10 days. For those that don't know, James Risen is a Times Reporter... yup.. no conflict of interest there.
And to boot: The Times attempts to create a national uproar over something called a "special collection program" launched by the National Security Agency sometime after the Sept. 11 attacks. The opening paragraphs give the alarming impression that the agency is spying broadly on "Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.
Those who actually read the piece will note that the paper must grudgingly acknowledge that it is talking about the NSA's monitoring of international communications (e-mails, cellphone calls, etc.) only!!! the agency still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
Hello? RTFA.. Don't we say there here often.. too many chicken littles... no one with brains. Sad.
Re:Bush & Co. should not be above the law (Score:3, Informative)
"Both political parties and the media are far to the right of the general population on a whole host of issues. And the population is just disorganized, atomized... And that's why the media and campaigns keep away from (political) issues. They know that on issues, they're going to lose people. So therefore you have... George Bush... this pampered kid who came from a rich family and went to prep school and an elite university. And you have to present him as an ordinary guy who makes grammatical errors, which I'm sure he's trained to make--he didn't talk that way at Yale--and a fake Texas twang, and he's off to his ranch to cut brush or something. It's like a toothpaste ad. And I think a lot of people know it."
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It sounds worse than it is (Score:3, Informative)
Regardless of the scope of the surveillance conducted by the NSA, the subjects they're allowed to snoop on are severely restricted [cornell.edu]. Here's the relevant bit:
(this is way, way, out of my field of expertise, but my brief reading of the code didn't yield anything that would have placed this in the Preznit's purview.)
So anyway. The code basically says, "You can conduct surveillance without a court order, so long as there is "no substantial likelihood" that you're spying on Americans. The President's order said, essentially, "Do it anyway."
The Department of Justice, as you noted, reviewed the program: however, this is a DoJ which has been notoriously dismissive of civil rights. Take John Yoo [aei.org], for example, who recently claimed [rwor.org] that crushing the testicles of the child of a suspected terrorist should be acceptable behavior. Or Alberto Gonzales, who has in past legal memos revealed himself to be unabashedly pro-torture [salon.com]. These are not people I would view as well qualified to provide balance to issues of civil rights.
I have to say, though, Michelle Malkin is even worse, given her support for the internment camps for Japansese during WWII, and for Muslims now (and utter fabrications/slanders she's made to justify these positions.)
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Palpatine loses one (Score:2, Informative)
It won't just be the NSA reading your mail (Score:5, Informative)
There's a part of the Dept of Homeland Security known as NVAC (National Visualization and Analytics Center) [pnl.gov]. I'd suggest taking a look at their research agenda. Particularly the "Grand Challenges [pnl.gov]" section, and particularly the "Scalability Challenge" part of that.
Their target is to handle 1 billion structured messages/transactions per hour and 1 million unstructured messages/documents per hour. For reference, there are 6.5 billion people in the world, according to the CIA world factbook. 296 million in the US. When these numbers were presented to the IEEE Vis conference in 2004, questions arose as to whether they were going to get warrants for all of these transactions. The basic response was that they were going to 'anonymize' all of the data. First, do you honestly think that will happen? Second, how much do you trust the anonymizer? And lastly, do you trust the government to not turn off the anonymizer switch? It's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, isn't it?
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously... the politics in all countries are fucked up (and probably appears doubly so if you happen not to lean in the direction of the existing leadership *cough*conservatives*cough*), but at least in Canada, the government respects the rights of it's citizens (or did you forget about those post/9-11 omnibus security bills that got shot down because of fear of human rights violations?) Seriously, say what you want about Canadian politics, but it's a far FAR cry from what's going on down south right now.
Oh, and as a side note, remember who it was that wanted to take Canada to war based on false intelligence... those 'scary' conservatives.
Re:If this is lawful then we need new laws! (Score:2, Informative)
"The Sedition Act posed the biggest challenge to civil liberties, undermining the core of the First Amendment protections of free speech and press. It prohibited spoken or written criticism of the government, the Congress, or the President."
The founding fathers aren't that high and mighty either. I'm just glad they set up a system where (evenutally) bad politians get what's coming to them. At least the system is transparent enough that we see these things and talk about them.
Re:Palpatine loses one (Score:3, Informative)
* 200-400 nuclear weapons, most mated to delivery systems
* Threated Iraq
* Threatens Iran
But, lets take the bait anyways. So, the Iraqis gained immensely from our invasion, eh? True. They gained this [bbc.co.uk], this [wikipedia.org], this [usatoday.com], this [hrw.org], this [prospect.org], this [bbc.co.uk], this [wikipedia.org], and this [globalsecurity.org].
Re:Free press would be hardpressed to be free (Score:1, Informative)
Also thank you for telling us about the Iraq puppet government. Because the 70 million Iraqis who voted yesterday are all under mind control of the US government, because the UN sanctions against them kept them from buying tin foil hats to protect them from the evil George Bush mind control rays. I wish I could tell you more about the election that happened yesterday but for some reason free new media www.cnn.com www.abcnews.go.com www.msnbc.com www.foxnews.com www.bbc.co.uk feels that a year old story negative story about the president that is a promotion for a book, www.drudgereport.com is more important than coverage of the Iraq elections. Thank God for the free press. I am so glad we can rely on them to put for news that matters.
Have a nice Day
Re:Bush & Co. should not be above the law (Score:2, Informative)
Not to mention lying to justify a war that has killed 2000+ Americans and countless Iraqis. But of course, he is not under oath during the State of the Union address, so that doesn't count as perjury, right?
Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:3, Informative)
The current Republican Party is anything but populist, and as for their attitude toward banks and every other sort of corrupt corporation...well, for all practical purposes, the entities of Party and corporation are indistinguishable. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are just the corporations public sector representatives, with completely interchangeable personnel. It's just kleptocracy, that is, "government by high-functioning sociopaths." What I find just absolutely amazing is how successfully conditioned ordinary people have been to grovel before a bunch of crooks in fancy suits. As long as whatever lunacy the elite presently schemes toward is presented by dignified men in fancy suits who speak in stern, paternal tones, then the regular person nods in agreement. There's no discernment whatsoever; it's just, "Oh, well Senator So-and-so says it, and he's a Republican like me, so it must be true. Hey, are there any more Doritos in the cupboard?" *munch munch*
If the public is that fucking dumb, can you blame rich sociopaths for regarding them as human cattle? Think about how con-artists work. They snare their marks by appealing to greed, pride, lust--all the worst sentiments of humanity. Politicians are con-artists whose medium is masses of people.
Re:Free press would be hardpressed to be free (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe that's because you haven't bothered to hear anything about it. You have predetermined what you want to be the fate of Iraq, and ignore anything that might contradict that near religious view.
For some of the hundreds of new news outlets that have appeared in Iraq since the fall of Hussein, go here. [al-bab.com]
That's old, it appears, but it was the relevent link that I saw when I googled it. Google is here [google.com] if you ever get the urge to read up on things before parroting the drivel of the likes of Noam Chomsky.
Re:Nothing new .. (Score:3, Informative)
No, he didn't really say that. (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, if you go around repeating this quote as real (as many on the "blogosphere" have done), it makes you look like an idiot.
Re:Constitution just a piece of paper. (Score:4, Informative)
People wonder why Bush and Co. can get away with the stuff they do. But it's easy to get away with stuff when your opponents are habitual and compulsive liars. If you don't want Bush to get away with this crap, THEN STOP LYING ABOUT IT!
Re:Nothing new .. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm honestly not sure how you could be more wrong. Instead of just guessing at what you think they do based on your own bizarre interpretation of the name of the agency, you could try actually looking up real information on what the role of the NSA is. From their website [nsa.gov] we see that their stated mission is a dual one, involving "Information Assurance" to protect US information, and "Foreign Signals Intelligence" to collect and process foreign communications. Feel free to actually read the executive order [utexas.edu] that defines what the NSA does. Spying on US citizens is precisely what the NSA is prohibited from doing, and handling of foreign intelligence is part of their mission statement.
Jedidiah.
Re:No, he didn't really say that. (Score:5, Informative)
From the article :
"I've talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper." "
from the followup [capitolhillblue.com]
"When a GOP operative first emailed me about the White House meeting where Bush called the Constitution "just a goddamned piece of paper," I put it aside as one of many reports I get about the President's temper tantrums."
"We get tips about Bush's temper and his comments all the time. Most of the tips don't get used because we don't go with information from just one source. The tip about "the goddamned piece of paper" seemed destined for the byte bin until a second aide, in casual conversation, mentioned the comment.
So I called a third source who has confirmed information in the past. At first he was defensive.
"Who told you about that?" I told him I'd picked it up from two other sources.
"Look, you know how the President is," he said. "He gets agitated when people challenge him."
All I wanted to know was did the President of the United States call the Constitution a "goddamned piece of paper."
"Yeah. He did." "
It was not an imaginary converstation [capitolhillblue.com]
We were the first news outlet to identify the names of women who claimed sexual abuse by Bill Clinton when he was attorney general and later governor of Arkansas. We were the first news outlet to report on the ethical problems of many members of Congress in our series: America's Criminal Class: The Congress of the United States. And we were the first to report on the abuse of underage girls on teen model web sites. Links to all of these award-winning stories can be found on our home page.
That doesn't mean you should take everything we print as gospel. Never do that with us or any other news source. Do your own research and reach your own conclusions. And consider the record of the sources you use for news and information. We've published more than 25,000 stories since going online on October 1, 1994, and we've had to retract two of them. That's a record I'm willing to stand on.
My bio can be found on this link. I put my name on everything I write. And I stand behind what I write. I'm an arrogant, stubborn, driven bastard who takes no prisoners and backs down from no one. When I'm wrong, I admit it. Thankfully, I haven't had to do that very often. When I'm right I don't give a damn who doesn't like it or what they say about it.
An editor who taught me a lot once said: "If you piss off both sides you're doing your job."
That's good enough for me.
Re:No Dispute? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If this is lawful then we need new laws! (Score:3, Informative)
Like FDR did [usnewsclassroom.com] when in WWII ALL outgoing and incoming mail and telegrams were intercepted and censored [lexisnexis.com] if the government deemed it to be necessary?
Re:Bush & Co. should not be above the law (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow, there's a shocker. (Score:3, Informative)
You are misrepresenting my statement. I said "Clinton never lied about the reasons for the US to go to war in Kosovo. You are a Clinton-basher and you do a bad job of disguising it. It really comes out later when you cry about being "sick and tired of arguing with angry Democrats".
"He developed weapons of mass destructions and USED THEM to gas his people."
Bush told us we were going to war because Saddam was an IMMINENT THREAT to THE US, not because he gassed his own people back when Reagan was supporting him. Bush LIED to us. He lied to you and he lied to me. I hate him for it, and you lick it up like a lap dog. It's disgusting how you refuse to hold Bush accountable to that.
"Furthermore, we did NOT go into the war with Saadam only with Britain...that's insulting to all of the 30 other countries in the UN that agreed..."
"...he forgot about Poland!" Those countries supported us in name only. They didn't put troops on the ground.
"So, please give me a freaking break and get of your damn soap-box and stop whining how your idiot Kerry got robbed and should be president. Go whine somewhere else."
You again are misrepresenting me. I never mentioned Kerry in my original post. You are using a straw-man argument.
Bush and his cronies have been creating fake intelligence since they got into office. They relied on intelligence from Curveball [wikipedia.org], who has been roundly discredited. They relied on intelligence from Ahmed Chalabi, who was the darling of the Neocons. He has fallen out of favor since the Iraq invasion because he was spying on us for Iran, and Bush had the naivete to seat Chalabi next to his wife. What kind of sucker president seats a spy next to the first lady? What a joke.
Re:Wow, there's a shocker. (Score:5, Informative)
I suggest you travel the world a little and see how different political systems pan out. You will probably come to the realization that:
1. Communism doesn't work. Old News.
2. Capitalist countries with social services and little governmental corruption do the best for their average citizen -- i.e. Japan, Australia, Northern European countries. They have a large middle class, with social mobility.
3. Purely capitalist countries fare the worst -- they have no middle class. Most of the people live literally on the street or in shanties -- I'm not talking crazy homeless guy, but mom, dad, and kids. There is a small class of wealthy elite who run the entire economy and government, and they keep it all for themselves. It never trickles down. They have unchecked power, and they have no interest in letting go of *any* of their power and money.
You want to know what country has the most productive economy? Finland. Yes, Finland, a country with cradle-to-grave social services. It also has a high standard of living and a large middle class.
I'm sick of these neocon hucksters trying to destroy the middle class. If you like corruption and business elites running everything, MOVE TO SOUTH AMERICA. You are trying to destroy the American dream. You and your ilk have worn out your welcome.
Re:But legislative branch was informed! RTFA! (Score:4, Informative)
Requests are adjudicated by a special eleven member court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
These taps were done without any judicial permission, which even FISA requires. The time required for a FISC approval (as short as a few hours if a case is urgent) was claimed to be too short, justifiying this.
One of the things I find most worrying about the entire thing, though, is summed up in this statement by Trent Lott:
``I want my security first. I'll deal with all the details after that.''
(see e.g. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&s
I don't want any man who puts security before freedom in my government. If I lived in Mississippi I'd try to do something about him; alas, I live in Utah, so I've got Orrin Hatch to worry about.
Re:Palpatine loses one (Score:2, Informative)
Israel will take the threat seriously and bomb the hell out of Iran's caches of missiles and nuclear weapons facilities.
Unfortunately that probably won't work, as was detailed in this war game simulation [theatlantic.com] put on by the Atlantic last year. Here's the salient quote:
Iran is run by kooks, but surely they're smart enough not to put everything in one place like Iraq did.
Re:Wow, there's a shocker. (Score:3, Informative)
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Re:How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (Score:3, Informative)
What has been largely erased was the role of the concentration camps in political persecutions and the scope and bredth of these persecutions. Consequently, you don't hear stories like those of Fredreich Bernard Marby.
Marby was a nationalist who was heavily involved in the Volkische movement. He had written books attempting to create a national German form of yoga called Runenyoga, and these books had some antisemitic content (which is why you never hear his story, I am convinced). Marby was never a member of the NSDAP. Early in the war, the SS approached Marby and requested his involvement in their organization. Marby declined and was subsequently imprisoned in Dachau. He was repeatedly threatened with his life, and told that if he joined the SS, that he would be let out. He was still in Dachau ten years later, when the Allies arrived.
There are several reasons why the Volkische persecutions get no coverage in history books. These include:
1) The persecutions were entirely authorized and organized by Himmler, and there is little evidence of other high-ranking Nazi party member involvement.
2) Many of those persecuted espoused antisemitic sentiments between the wars and were often considered part of the problem both by the Allies and later by many of the scholars interested in the Jewish experience of the death camps.
3) These persecutions were wide ranging and included religious/mystical/occult groups (Eugen Groshe was imprisoned because of his leadership of the Fraturnitas Saturnii), nationalist groups, and many of those that crossed these lines (The Guido von List Gesselshaft, the Armanenshaft, etc).
4) While many of these individuals were imprisoned in concentration camps, ordinary jails and summary executions were often used as well.
To appreciate why these persecutions occurred, however, it is important to understand that the NSDAP itself was a hybrid of Hitler's Marxist DAP and a number of Volkische-oriented nationalists (such as Himmler, Hess, and others). Many in the Volkishe movement did not ascribe to the vision of a great German empire (von Lebenfels, for example, had an alternative vision of a large number of small, German-run states in a loose confederation, and Guido von List while strongly nationalistic was hardly cheuvanistic about it--- he maintained extremely good relations with a number of Kabbalistic schools and collaborated with some of the Rabbis there on comparitive mystical works).
In essence although most of the nationalist movement was fairly racist, at least in believing in the superiority of the German people, there were a large number of beliefs about the role of nationalism in the future of Germany. Many of the Volkische simply saw Hitler as a new sort of German quasi-communist and wanted nothing to do with him. So what Himmler did was use the SS and the concentration camps to ensure that no Volkische vision of Germany could exist outside the SS. This was largely a power play on his part and it is likely that Himmler was attempting to take over the Reich at some point. Note that towards the end of the war, Hitler attempted to fire Himmler and was unsuccessful which gives you an idea of how powerful Himmler was (after Hitler's death, Doenitz successfully fired Himmler, and he recounted in his memoirs how terrified he was of Himmler during this encounter). After his dismissal, Himmler used the SS as his private army and negotiated his own surrender apart from the general surrender of the German military negotiated by Doenitz.
Several other oddities which are worth noting:
1) There is some evidence that Hitler asked Churchill for permission to send the Jews to Madagascar as an alternative to killing them.
2) A terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang in British Palestine, led in part by Yitzach Shameer (later PM of Israel for a brief time), attempted to enter into a military alliance with Hitler and broker a de