NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping

ma11achy was one of several readers to write about claims made by two former military intercept operators who worked for the NSA that "Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home." Ars Technica has a brief report as well, and reader net_shaman adds a link to Glenn Greenwald's opinion piece on the eavesdropping at Salon.

SatPhones?

[MozeeToby]

I've only read the first page of the article but it mentions that the people being eavesdropped were talking on satelite phones from the Middle East. I was under the impression that as soon as you broadcaste something you could no longer claim it was private. Isn't this why it's legal to sell police and cell phone scanners? Is this different for satelite phones or am I completely off base here?

Re:Well...

[gerf]

There's a reason we have a "Declaration of War." To make things like this legal in a time of War.

Ironically, ole Bushie would have had his way a lot more if he'd gone through the correct channels initially.

Well no shit

[n3tcat]

That's why everytime we were talking on the damn AT&T phones and some dumbass gave a hint as to where he was or what he was doing, a huge fuckin red light went off and all the phones died.

They flat out told us we were being listened to. Just like they tell us everyday with little stickers on our phones on every military installation in the world that say that we're being watched, listened to, recorded, etc etc.

I'm not saying that it's not bullshit. Just saying this article's spun worse than a gyroscope.

Sounds bad but its probably worse

[sdemjanenko]

Well i mean since we know about this there is probably more under the cover. Not to mention, think of all the NSA spying over our own communications that we do not know about and probably no one will whistleblow.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[daveschroeder]

The latter is the most likely.

To expand on that, it's an oversimplification.

These intercept operators had no more power than they have ever had. The only new and controversial issues relating to NSA monitoring during the Bush administration have related to collection within the United States[1], and this has nothing to do with that.

Since the beginning of SIGINT and the beginning of the NSA, collectors have had effective and routine access to myriad conversations with endpoints in the United States, conversations where at least one end is a US Person, or both.

That happens all the time, and has always happened. Often, you'll hear things you're not looking for. Hell, most of what you hear isn't what you're looking for. But once you determine that a US Person is involved, you're not, however, supposed to record, store, or disseminate such information. Unfortunately, what we have here are people -- many mostly kids -- misbehaving, and sometimes misbehaving badly.

Anyone who is surprised by this or thinks it has anything to do with Bush has a serious lack of understanding about how Title 50 activities and SIGINT collection have worked for decades.

Again, to be clear: the "new" capabilities the President authorized dealt with NSA foreign intelligence collection within the United States. That doesn't mean one end of the conversation might not be a US Person. In fact, under the law, it can be...but then the information must be treated with care; e.g., identifying references to US Person redacted, and so on. What you can't do -- then or now -- is target US Persons without an individualized warrant. If traffic from US Persons is intercepted in the course of foreign SIGINT collection, it is NOT a violation of the law, and never has been, as long as it is handled properly.

So ABC is attempting to conflate Bush administration initiatives -- which don't even exist any longer (TSP) -- with NSA overseas operations, albeit with regard to US Persons. Unfortunately, the latter has nothing to do with Bush or any initiatives of the Bush administration. The intercept operators had no more or less power, save for technological improvements, than they've ever had.

And surprise, surprise: individuals with the power to listen to things sometimes listen to things they're not supposed to, and by virtue of these people having the necessary resources to actually do their jobs, there really isn't any easy way to prevent it.

From day one the handling of US Persons in the context of foreign intelligence is hammered into your head. But I guess sometimes immaturity and a cheap laugh at someone else's expense trumps common sense and the doing the right thing.

[1] NSA facilities for interception may often be physically in the United States, but the interception is still occurring outside the United States

Re:Thanks for the insight. It's terrifying.

[Anonymous Coward]

When I got an order, it was the Voice of God and woe be unto the man who dreamed of disobeying his CO.

Note that Faulk specifically said that the abuses were brought to the attention of NSA supervisors - the ones whom the Bush administration has repeatedly claimed were adequate substitutes for FISA judges in deciding who should be surveilled - and those supervisors said that they were ordered to transcribe the calls in question.

Dave can go on and on (and on and on, geeze dude) about how some dweeb with a tap was doing naughty things, but he can't change the allegations. If the allegations are true, these were by no means "cheap laughs" by bottom-rung "individuals".

Re:What happened to my country?

[Digital End]

Come on, the Second Amendment isn't about shooting politicians, despite the Slashdot bias towards that little chunk of Libertarian mythology.

Why is it whenever I see the terms for liberal used in a derogatory way the comments are always wrong? Just an observation...

Anyway, my point. 2nd amendment is:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That really doesn't sound like maintaining slavery to me.

Maybe I'm wrong, lets ask someone who knows a bit more on the subject then us shall we?

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington (who is a Grade A Badass) January 8, 1790, First State of the Union Address

I don't like guns at all, and would love to see them gone... however I dislike people who bend history to their own ends more.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Kagura]

Also, an interesting story, although I can't personally confirm its truthiness: The service member who initially collected the information on John Walker Lindh [wikipedia.org], the American member of the Taliban back during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan, had his intel report sent up to the desk of Condoleeza Rice within an hour of having submitted it, but that along the way he ended up getting in a bit of trouble. There is a specific bullet on every intel report that is required to be filled out every time, and it is to denote whether the report contains any information collected on US persons. He marked it "US: NO" like 99.9% of all intel reports should be, but since this intel report contained information collected on a US person, it should have been marked "US: YES" so that appropriate measures could be taken with the handling of the report.

Re:Non-story.

[Sabriel]

The meat of the story, however is that (a) they're continuing to be monitored and recorded even after being found to be personal conversations between US citizens who aren't military, and (b) this isn't misbehaving field personnel but "my orders were to transcribe everything".

I was under the impression that (a) was where the whole illegal thing started rolling and (b) was where people should be noticing they're in a handbasket and asking where they're going.