NSA Wiretapping Whistleblower

Kagu writes "ABC News is running a short piece about an interview with former NSA Employee Russell Tice and his allegations that the NSA wiretaps are more pervasive than believed and used in ways he believes violated the law. "

Much more info on Democracy Now

[TripMaster Monkey]

A lot more info on this subject, including a transcript of the interview of Russell Tice by Amy Goodman, can be found here [democracynow.org].

From the interview:

RUSSELL TICE: Well, as far as an intelligence officer, especially a SIGINT officer at N.S.A., we're taught from very early on in our careers that you just do not do this. This is probably the number one commandment of the SIGINT Ten Commandments as a SIGINT officer. You will not spy on Americans. It is drilled into our head over and over and over again in security briefings, at least twice a year, where you ultimately have to sign a paper that says you have gotten the briefing. Everyone at N.S.A. who's a SIGINT officer knows that you do not do this. Ultimately, so do the leaders of N.S.A., and apparently the leaders of N.S.A. have decided that they were just going to go against the tenets of something that's a gospel to a SIGINT officer.

This is so Funny

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

This is probably the number one commandment of the SIGINT Ten Commandments as a SIGINT officer. You will not spy on Americans.

Intelligence agencies instilling moral values in their agents. What will they think of next?

Re:This is so Funny

[shanen]

There actually were some sound legal principles underlying the creation of the NSA. They had some idea of just how badly those powers could be abused.

Anyway, this is a very old problem in a new disguise. It used to be the case that most of your personal information was locked up inside your head, and the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was very powerful. The secondary protections against warrentless search were also good, though less critical. Because of modern recording technologies, a vast amount of our personal information is becoming externalized, and the amount is increasing all of the time. If we are to have any meaningful privacy, we need to do something.

I think the thing we need to do is actually pretty obvious, though I don't know if we'll get there. I think we need to clarify that your personal information belongs to YOU, and that should include your right to store your personal records on your own equipment. Given that situation, your privacy would be protected by the privacy rules you put on your own storage devices--and you could change your mind at any time, revealing more or less information for any reason. Possession in nine points of the law.

Re:This is so Funny

[NialScorva]

I would argue that the second that you interact with another person, organization, or any other entity with legal rights, that the information is no longer solely yours to control. If you buy something from me, then who owns the information about that transfer?

When you load slashdot, you handing bytes to your ISP requesting that they hand it to several of their peers, then have those peers hand it back to you. Who "owns" those exchanges?

Easy answer.

[khasim]

If you buy something from me, then who owns the information about that transfer?

You own the information that you sold item X.

You do NOT own the information on who bought item X.

You, being the vendor, have more limited privacy rights than I as the private customer do.

When you load slashdot, you handing bytes to your ISP requesting that they hand it to several of their peers, then have those peers hand it back to you. Who "owns" those exchanges?

Again, look at the vendors and the private customers. /. is a public site, so they don't own the info on my connection.

Comcast is a public vendor so they don't own the info on my connection.

Comcast does own the info that they were requested to connect to /.
& /. does own the info that Comcast requested a connection.
but
neither of them own my name.

Re:Easy answer.

[theStorminMormon]

That's a nice, pat theory. I'd like to hear a lawyer inform us as to how much of it has any reflection whatsoever in case law.

Personally, however, I think information laws are bit more complex in reality. For example if you buy some fertilizer at Store A and they have your credit card # (your personal ID) and then you go blow something up with a bomb made from that fertilizer and the FBI comes calling - do they have the right or responsibility to transmit the data they have on you?

So let's not be hopelessly idealistic. If you buy something from a store w/ a check or a credit card - they DO have your info. It's silly to say they "don't own it". They have it - the question is what can they do with it? And the answer, from the above, is obviously not "nothing ever under any circumstances".

-stormin

None of it is, yet.

[khasim]

I'd like to hear a lawyer inform us as to how much of it has any reflection whatsoever in case law.

None of it is, yet. At least, not in the USofA.

In other countries, they're taking personal information much more seriously.

For example if you buy some fertilizer at Store A and they have your credit card # (your personal ID) and then you go blow something up with a bomb made from that fertilizer and the FBI comes calling - do they have the right or responsibility to transmit the data they have on you?

Law enforcement is entirely different. The FBI can get a warrant and get any and all information about such sales.

"Ownership" does not mean that the store cannot provide the info when served with a warrant.

"Ownership" means that the store cannot SELL that info or provide it to any 3rd party (non-law enforcement).

So let's not be hopelessly idealistic.

Why not? Our country was founded on such idealism.

If you buy something from a store w/ a check or a credit card - they DO have your info.

They have it, but it is not their's.

It's silly to say they "don't own it".

No it is not. Just as it is not "silly" to expect that your HR department won't go posting your social security number on the web along with your name and home address.

They have it - the question is what can they do with it?

Right now, they can do anything they want with it, in the USofA. Other countries are more strict. And there is no reason why we cannot become stricter.

Re:None of it is, yet.

[theStorminMormon]

If you're going to use terms in narrow or specialized ways, you shoule really give the definition up front and not wait for someone to use the broadly accepted definition and then act as though they're wrong. It's both disingenous and unhelpful.

In this case in the broad sense it's reasonable to say that I own my own body - even though in fact I can not sell myself legally in this country (or even certain parts thereof - like organs).

So I maintain that in a broad sense a store does "own" the data about a gi

Re:Easy answer.

[theStorminMormon]

I think you're on a quixotic quest. Consider that the surveillance camera is not a camera - it's someone who recognized you. Do you have the right to keep them from testifying unless you want to should you ever be on trial? No - information about your whereabouts in a public place is in the public domain. The problem is in the past you had to rely on random chance to find someone who would recognize you. Now, however, the information "out there" can be stored, replicated, and collated.

There are a lot of troubling concerns here. In a cash economy your purchases can't be tracked without intrusion. In a credit card economy your purchases are tracked by definition. You seem to want to have the benefits of technology and yet the benefits of no technology at the same time. My real point is that some of this loss of private information is utterly inseperable from the advances that we have in technology.

If you live alone in the woods, no one can know where are you are at a given time. If you live in a big city lots of people know, but they don't talk so it remains disconnected data, not actionable information. If you live in a small town less people know, but they tend to talk, and so everyone actually has information on your whereabouts - not just data. There's no law or technology acting in any of these cases, but your level of privacy fluctuates based on the nature of the society in which you live. Technology is changing our society - thus it will change our level of privacy.

There are pros and cons to this. You list bad examples - reasons you want your information private. And they are valid. But consider medical emergencies. I'm allergic to morphine, but I have no PCP right now. If I were injured and taken to a hospital and they were able to scan my fingerprints and access my medical records they would know not to give me morphine. As it is - they're going to have to find out the hard way I'm allergic. If it was a fatal allergy (it's not) that would suck for me.

So in response to your "private information is mine" ideology I reply: no it's not and it never was. It has nothing to do with government or technology - it started the moment there were three or more thinking human beings on the planet. You have to dump the utterly unrealistic notion that you can somehow stop people from talking about you - and that's essentially what everything from surveillance cameras to credit card tracking is.

If you do that, then you can start to grapple with the actual implementations. I'm not saying we can't do anything about the fact that our private information is becoming rapidly more available. We can influence what is legal and what is not, what is allowed and what is not, and we should. But in order to be a part of the discussion you have to realize that *some* change is utterly inevitable. If you don't like big city anonymity - don't live in a big city. If you don't like small town gossip - don't live in a small town. Very few people are going to sympathize with someone who says "I love the small town feel, but I just hate that everyone knows what I'm doing". At least, not to the point where they would be willing to help you try to change it. The gossip is part and parcel with the small town feel - the two are inseperable. To somem extent, a digital trail is inseperable from a digital life in the same way.

You can't always have your cake and eat it too.

-stormin

Re:Easy answer.

[AndersOSU]

Well said.

I'd like to add that there is precious little information that only belongs to one person, even if it is personally identifiable. In fact information that is solely yours is limited to unpublished works that you created on your own time - and that is largely without value.

Your birth certificate belongs not just to you, but also the hospital, probably the state, and maybe even the doctor who signed it. Your driver's license and Social Security card are probably more the state's property than they are yours.

The unalterable fact is that we live in a society, are social animals, and as such share information. I'm with the parent saying that it is right that we should try to influence what information is distributed to whom, but to claim that any information regarding you belongs solely to you is (IMO) a bit silly.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Easy answer.

[theStorminMormon]

Paying cash is totally fine - but it supports what I've been saying. If you want the benefits of credit card there's no practical way to restrict your private info. It's not just technology, the credit cards needs that info for billing - which is essentially a social issue (since we don't just trust each other to bill the right amount - we want records). And if you don't like people having that info you can pay in cash. Just like if you find small town atmosphere oppressive - you can move to the woods or a big city.

Rather than responding to everything else point by point it comes down to this: information is power. Data is useless, but data organized is information. Modern tech allows data to be organized and analyzed and mined as never before. So we have new sources of power as never before. Power is neither inherently good nor bad. A biometric database could save countless lives by alerting physicians and pharmacists to dangerous drug interactions. Also - imagine how much we could learn about health care if we knew what drugs everyone was taking, when they went to the hospital, what their family records were, etc. The potential for good is awesome. So is the potential for evil.

In my opinion the problem is not so much related to the information - the power - but in ensuring that that power is not used for evil.

And this is where you and I part ways. I don't buy into your "gov't is evil" nonsense. The gov't is people like you and me. It's not a monolithic institution, a single entity. So we should not treat it as some grand empire of shadow - it's just as inept as any other institution.

But more importantly you think that gov't should be kep from having this power because it can use the power to restrict our rights. I, on the other hand, think that to the extent the gov't restricts our rights it's our fault. We live in a representative republic - and yet fewer than 50% of us vote every year. And those that do are woefully uninformed. Gov't has only as much power as we let it have.

So I'm in favor of increasing the power and information of the gov't and keeping it in check by increasing openness of public discourse about the gov't.

In America we have no excuse for saying "the gov't abuses us". We ARE the gov't. And if we've let it grow out of control it is not due to technology, information, or any other excuse. It is due to public inatention and apathy. I find those things far more dangerous than information or even gov't itself.

-stormin

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Easy answer.

[Jherek Carnelian]

Gov't has only as much power as we let it have.

And you call the other guy "quixotic." That is ridiculously idealistic. Like all institutions, government's #1 goal is to increase its own range of influence and power. The people who work there are professionals, they work every day to increase their power. Voters have their own lives to worry about, in no way can they compete with people in government who are dedicated to increasing their power.

It is like buying a car - most people get fleeced because the salesman sells cars everyday, he knows all the tricks of the trade, all the ways that customers are easily fooled into paying too much. Meanwhile the average buyer makes a purchase once every couple of years, he's get less than 1/100th the time and resources that the salesman does. Sometimes a smart buyer will get the upperhand. But the salesman doesn't care, he knows that on average he'll come out on top.

The same thing with institutional government - the ocassional smart citizen, even smart special interest group, will be able to block an egregious power grab. But most citizens just simply do not have the time or resources to keep the power-grabbers in check 20% of the time, much less 100%.

"Speak truth to power" was the code once

[ianscot]

Intelligence agencies instilling moral values in their agents. What will they think of next?

Kidding aside, the overriding principle of intelligence in the U.S. used to be "Speak truth to power," once upon a time. The bending of those agencies' souls in the run-up to Iraq is terrifying to anyone who remembers the elder Bush's term at the CIA. George H.W. Bush didn't preside over an agency whose sole purpose was to buttress decisions already made by "instinct."

"Intelligence" groups do have their principles. They aren't what you'd call morality, exactly, but when they're distorted it ain't any good at all.

Re:Much more info on Democracy Now

[AndroidCat]

The classic way around that restriction was to have an allied intelligence service do the spying on Americans for them, while returning the favour by passing them information on their nationals that they weren't allowed to collect. Once the spying (data collection) part was done, I'm not sure that the processing, tagging, linking and reporting was kept especially seperate.

SIGINT?

[maxwell demon]

SIGINT officer? Do they also have SIGHUP officer?
Well, as long as they don't send you a SIGKILL officer ... :-)

Restricted by executive order

[ronmon]

It has been an awfully long time, but I was a "radio communications analyst" back in the late 70's and early 80's. Though I wore an Air Force uniform and collected my paycheck from them, everybody in my units were tasked by, and reported directly to, NSA. My first 3+ years were spent doing real-time work in the far east and the last 6 months at Fort Meade at NSA HQ. I can assure you that all of us were aware of the fact that intercepting communications involving any "United States Persons" were strictly for

Information Retrieval

[eldavojohn]

According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.

This is becoming more and more common for the intelligence community to use. You can call it data mining or information retrieval, it has a lot of names (some sound nicer than others).

In fact, there are commercially available engines out there that anyone can buy. Check out Collexis [collexis.com], which also has demos [collexis.net] online. This isn't as advanced as what the analysts at the NSA are using but it's close. Plug something like this into ontology software such as Cerebra [cerebra.com] and you've got a decent tool for keeping dossiers on people.

Nothing about this is illegal until the information passed into it is acquired illegally. Like most people, I'm a little more than annoyed that our civil liberties are slowly ebbing. One thing I've learned from history is that freedom and liberties are often the hardest things to find once you've lost them.

Recently, I've relied on the ACLU and certain political groups to jump all over the president and anyone who is part of the government if they overstep these bounds. I sure hope Tice gets his wish to reform the intelligence community as to how they handle wiretapping Americans. They can wiretap everyone else in the world but I don't want our government wiretapping us without the usual requisite warrants.

Side note on Tice, I kind of admire him for doing this. He's not going to go to jail because he's (intelligently) not revealed anything classified. He's only saying that this is going on. Now, I hope he's prepared to not work there anymore because I imagine the rest of his career is going to be fairly cold with people treating him like a snitch.

Re:Information Retrieval

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Nothing about this is illegal until the information passed into it is acquired illegally.

What counts as "legal"?

We live in a world where Gitmo is not only tolerated, but even approved by huges numbers of people in government, academia and in the public at large. Wiretap someones phone illegally, and if the president gave you say so, I doubt many judges would throw it out at this point. Get information by half drowing someone or photographing their anus and not only will judges not object, they'll pass judgement based on it!

Legal is at its root, (Latin 'legare') a

[crovira]

matter of choice.

What choices we do make is what will define us as a people.

Some people are making bad choices and hurting and killing other people by the tens of thousands, some people are hurting far many more but killing far fewer.

I resent the fact that the president just couldn't be bothered to go and get the legal authorization 'post-facto'; perhaps because there was no authorization or justification to be granted; in which case he is a more paranoid bastard than Nixon ever was and doesn't deserve to f

Re:Legal is at its root, (Latin 'legare') a

[jesup]

I resent the fact that the president just couldn't be bothered to go and get the legal authorization 'post-facto'; perhaps because there was no authorization or justification to be granted

The reason is that the even the FISA court would have rejected a request covering random or total monitoring of "any and all traffic"; they only approve monitoring traffic of a specified person. That's the real crime here - they may well have monitored ALL calls for keywords, etc. Just discussing what happened with y

Re:Information Retrieval

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Har Har- Its funny to hear a lame pussy call it Gitmo, trying to call it what non-pussies in the military call it...

I thought the offical military slang term for the facility was "Camp Deliverance"?

Re:Information Retrieval

[bigkahunafish]

Tice had his security clearance removed and was fired because of psychological concerns.
 
  He is not infact a whistle blower but rather a disgruntled employee seeking some type of revenge.
 
  I would investigate his motives before buying every bit of his story hook, line and sinker.

Re:Information Retrieval

[eldavojohn]

Tice had his security clearance removed and was fired because of psychological concerns.

And you've just swallowed this information--hook, line and sinker.

ABC News seemed to treat him as pretty psychologically stable. How do you know the government isn't painting him to be this way so that his story isn't believable?

After the president admitted to wiretapping some Americans without the proper warrants, you bet I'll believe Tice's story.

That's the trouble with telling falsehoods

[tkrotchko]

"Disbelieve whatever the President says and believe whatever his enemies say"

That's the trouble when you lie sometimes. Not only do people disbelieve you all the time, they start believing your enemies. Which is why its a bad idea to lie in the long run.

Re:Information Retrieval

[d3ac0n]

FTFA:

The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him.

I would agree. We are talking about someone who got fired, and THEN decided to "whistle blow" If he reported this first and THEN got fired, then I would be more inclined to believe him. But the fact that he was fired first and afterward decided that he "needed" to report this to a newspaper (as opposed to filing a wrongful dismissal dispute via the legal system)

Re:Information Retrieval

[Anonymous Coward]

That is possible. It is also possible that he tried to work out the problem within the system, approaching his superiors repeatedly about the legal and moral problems in what was going on, and this behaviour is what got him labeled as psychologically unstable. I'm not saying this is necessarily what happened, I'm just saying that it is hard to tell at this stage.

Re:Information Retrieval

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I would agree. We are talking about someone who got fired, and THEN decided to "whistle blow" If he reported this first and THEN got fired, then I would be more inclined to believe him. But the fact that he was fired first and afterward decided that he "needed" to report this to a newspaper (as opposed to filing a wrongful dismissal dispute via the legal system) does not speak well to his motives

Tice had been making noises before he got fired. He was one of those pushing for greater congressional protection for whistleblowers. Hint, hint.

Shortly thereafter, his bosses had him pulled in for a medical exam, where despite having no symptoms, the MO labeled him as suffering from paranoia. This is standard practice in such circles to ensure compliance, and to provide ammo for any subsequent smear campaigns.

It's like this. Anyone who believes that the NSA was not spying on their own country, is the real mentally unstable individual.

Re:Information Retrieval

[Anna Merikin]

The Soviets were infamous for declaring dissidents insane and imprisoning them in "hospitals" for "treatment." Think this is not so? Then read Gulag Archepelago.

Every police state tries this approach.

Tice is not paranoid; he (and we) have real enemies, and, more and more often, those enemies are in our own government.

Re:The Soviets...

[Anna Merikin]

Oh, Jeez.

The remark was clearly intended to describe how we have become, like the soviets were, a police state.

The only difference I ever saw between US Capitalism and Sovietism was in the US, the rich were powerful, and under the Soviets the powerful became rich.

All police states use the same techniques; I could have used the Nazis, instead, who used the same cry of "insanity" against those who spoke out against them, but I doubt the word "eugenics" would mean anything to a young person today.

Yes, the US h

Re:Information Retrieval

[aussie_a]

I would investigate his motives before buying every bit of his story hook, line and sinker.

No. I would investigate whether or not it is true before buying his story hook, line and sinker. But if America just dismisses this guy because he may or may not have an ulterior motive, then that's sad. He might be insane and seething at his ex-employees. But he can still be right. This wouldn't an investigation against a citizen, but one against a government agency. Investigate, then if it's learned it isn't true, no harm done. Ignore it, and learn it was true, and a lot of harm is done.

Re:Information Retrieval

[jmp_nyc]

So let's get this straight: If I happened to order pizza from the same place as my friendly neighborhood terror cell, that puts my number on their radar. (Forget it if the local pizza place is owned by Muslim immigrants.) Once I'm on their radar, those handfuls of overseas calls I make probably draw attention to me.

One of these days, someone who has nothing to hide is going to subpoena the NSA for records of whether or not their phone has been observed, and request copies of warrants authorizing said obs

Re:Information Retrieval

[brontus3927]

Terrorism is the single most overrated threat there is. How many people in the entire world have ever died from a terrorist attack ever? (rough estimate based on wikipedia info ~10,000) How many people died in a car accident in the U.S. last year (in 2002, it was ~48,000)?

it IS an erosion of civil liberties, because the Bill of Rights specifically grants me freedom from government intrusion of my life unless they have probable cause to believe I committed a crime. The doctrine is innocent UNTIL proven guilty. The NSA wiretapping is guilty by association until proven innocent.

I'll leave you with a few juicy quotes from one of the founding fathers, by personal hero, Benjamin Franklin.
No tyrannical society can long exist when it cannot control the flow of information.
There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.
Whate'ers begun in anger ends in shame.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety (commonly attributed to him, but he edited the book in which this line appeared, he did not write it, but based on the fact that he edited and published the book, it surely carried his sentiment.

Spiderweb model gone haywire

[jurt1235]

Telephone calls to and from the subject are represented in a spiderweb model. Telemarketing firm calls suspect and several 10.000ths of other people. Others are called by other marketing firms again. Model explodes?
Or this one, just as interesting: The model takes marketing firms in account, a marketing firm employee is a terrorist (not suspected) and does the communication by calling terrorist one, communicate, than terrorist two, etc.. So what to do when you use the model? Include firm because of the seco

Re:Information Retrieval

[aussie_a]

while people who supposedly "out" CIA agents, who weren't undercover in the first place, are "leakers."

Funny, I thought leakers was the term the Bush administration used. Y'know, before it was found out by the public that it was a Bush-friendly person who leaked the name.

Re:Information Retrieval

[Ihlosi]

Thankfully, most Americans understand that if they have no affiliation with terrorist groups, they have nothing to worry about.

Sounds very good, but is utterly wrong. Americans have nothing to worry about as long as the authorities do not know, believe or suspect that they (or anyone they have sufficient similarity (like first and last name) with someone who is known, believed or suspected to) have affiliations with groups that are known, believed or suspected to be terrorist groups.

Re:Information Retrieval

[Coryoth]

Thankfully, most Americans understand that if they have no affiliation with terrorist groups, they have nothing to worry about.

Sounds very good, but is utterly wrong. Americans have nothing to worry about as long as the authorities do not know, believe or suspect that they (or anyone they have sufficient similarity (like first and last name) with someone who is known, believed or suspected to) have affiliations with groups that are known, believed or suspected to be terrorist groups.

The real danger is that

Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[192939495969798999]

It doesn't bother me that they want to wiretap suspected terrorists, but why the no-warrant stuff? Can't they just get a classified warrant? I wouldn't care at all except that they appear to be going around the law that I had thought applied to everyone. I guess it applies to everyone except for enemies of the state, or anyone that is unfortunate enough to be flagged as one. For instance, that professor corresponding with his friend in the Phillipines that had his mail opened, read and re-sealed. Isnt' that a federal offense?

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[eldavojohn]

It doesn't bother me that they want to wiretap suspected terrorists, but why the no-warrant stuff? Can't they just get a classified warrant?

Well, in the article, they mentioned using data mining to find when the word "jihad" was used in a conversation. In reality, they don't have many suspected terrorists so they would like to just use this technology on the largest set of civilians as possible. In order to do the paper work and justify this action ... well, they'd have to go through the warrant process for every American.

So they bend the rules a little and overlook some of our rights and suddenly they have a great tool for catching terrorists or anyone that uses the wrong language!

I hope you never become a "suspected terrorist" because nowadays, the word "suspected" seems to be equivalent with "guilty" in the eyes of Homeland Security.

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[192939495969798999]

Back in the day, when people first started hearing about E-mail browsing by the FBI/CIA/whomever, we just started posting a list of words at the bottom of every e-mail to overwhelm their computers so they would stop doing that to regular citizens. While I don't really condone that activity, I can see a scenario where people might adopt saying "jihad" for hello and goodbye, just so that the wiretaps start getting applied to everyone. Of course, if a top campaign contributor's son/daughter gets wiretapped,

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[Phoenix666]

Absolutely, and can we really say that we're surprised by this, with a name like "Homeland Security?" America is not a "Fatherland," "Motherland," or "Homeland." "Homeland" is so Orwellian it makes your blood run cold. So it was only a matter of time before this repressive agency became in deed what it already was in name.

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Can't they just get a classified warrant?

There's a good explanation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court here [npr.org], as well as more information on George W. illegally bypassing said court here [nwsource.com].

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[aredubya74]

This is exactly the point. FISA gives the feds clearance to intercept communications (mail, landline phone, wireless phone, Internet) where one party is international, and the other is domestic. They can apply for a warrant retroactively up to 72 hours after beginning interception. These warrants are basically never turned down, but that's only because the users (NSA, DOJ, DOD) are used to the evidentiary requirements of the FISA court. Anything that is person-to-person in the US has to be done by the FBI and through the regular courts, which really aren't any more onerous.

Since 9/11, the Bush administration has run into far more delays and outright refusal to grant warrants from the FISA court, though not because of "red tape" or political fallout (or because the FISA court hates America). It's because the evidence isn't there to justify them. This is why Bush directed the NSA to go around FISA and just wiretap whenever they felt they needed to, oversight (and evidence) be damned. This is black-letter violation of the law, and Bush (and the lawyers and staff that told him it was justifiable) needs to be held accountable.

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[bhima]

I have the impression that it would take thousands of judges to grant that many warrants.

Re:Wiretaps without warrants, that is...

[lawpoop]

So get congress to write a new bill, don't just charge ahead and break the law.

It just shows you Bush's comtempt for the rule of law. They couldn't do what they wanted to do legally, so they just went ahead and did it anyway.

Re:So why do you get a pass

[lawpoop]

" Really? And it's not just as contemptuous to make up your mind about legality without case law to support you? (no, the 72 Nixon decision isn't conclusive and only partially applies because it didn't cover international suspects)"

I'm not as hip to the legal system as you are. I thought the stuff from the legislature would be good enough.

"Or, does the fact that it's Bush make it ok for you to ignore the courts and make up your own mind?"

You know what? You are right. Maybe I am a little biased against B

Re:Wiretaps DID Stop Terrorist Attacks

[timeOday]

The problem is that you won't have any real "evidence" until after the terrorist act is committed and people are dead.

OK, so you don't like the 4th ammendment. But you can't just ignore it, even if you're the President; you'll have to get it repealed. But I and many others will oppose you. Until then (and this question is really directed to the President), what gives you the legal right to ignore what you think is a bad law?

Re:Wiretaps DID Stop Terrorist Attacks

[Zathrus]

One of these wiretaps was able to stop a guy by the name of Iman Ferris who was plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.

And he reported that there was no way they could do it -- there was too much security. And, btw, where's the evidence that this guy was caught via the wiretaps in question? He was arrested by NYC police, not by federal agents. And there appears to be no information about him beyond this one CNN transcript.

There's been absolutely no explanation for why Bush couldn't use the FISA court, just as it was intended to be used. Except that, for some reason, he doesn't think the 4th amendment applies. Despite repeated US Supreme Court rulings stating exactly the opposite thing.

BTW, there's absolutely no evidence that the FISA court is obstructing the Administration's requests. Just go look at the reports [fas.org] yourself.

2004 -- 1758 applied for, 3 withdrawn, 1 withdrawn and re-applied for, 1754 approved, 0 denied, 94 modified (don't ask me about the discrepency; it's in the report)
2003 -- 1727 applied for, 1724 approved, 4 denied, 1 re-approved after denial, 79 modified
2002 -- 1228 applied for, 1226 approved, 2 denied, 2 appealed and approved, none listed as modified
2001 -- 932 applied for, 934 approved (2 from December 2000), 2 modified

I didn't bother looking back further than that, since it's not relevant to Bush's post-9/11 activities. Which just makes his abridgement of the 4th amendment and SCOTUS rulings that much more questionable.

usage of VoIP/encrypting VoIP

[chriss]

A recent study [forschungsgruppe.de] (German) showed that 10% of all Germans or 16% of all Germans older than 18 years already use VoIP. Germany is placed 3rd in broadband use in Europe in absolute numbers, although it is the country with the largest population. This is a new trend, numbers are rising fast. I guess that the numbers in the US will be even higher. So switching to encrypted VoIP might be a viable solution for the near future.

Chriss

--
memomo.net [memomo.net] - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free

Re:usage of VoIP/encrypting VoIP

[grimJester]

Encryption doesn't hide the IP addresses involved. You can hide the content, but need one or more third parties to hide who you're talking to.

Speak up we can't all hear you clearly

[slushbat]

I think that the only way to get to the bottom of such serious allegations is to investigate the evidence. Perhaps if we could secretly intercept the communications between the administration and the NSA we might find out what is really going on.

Searching for keywords may or may not work

[digitaldc]

"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing." According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.

It can be argued that people who don't want to have their conversations monitored will not use keywords such as these that tip off the eavesdroppers or technology that recognizes them.
And conversely, people may use meaningless conversations with many keywords to delay the processing of these investigations.

Re:Searching for keywords may or may not work

[kjamez]

It can be argued that people who don't want to have their conversations monitored will not use keywords such as these that tip off the eavesdroppers or technology that recognizes them.
And conversely, people may use meaningless conversations with many keywords to delay the processing of these investigations. ... which is exactly why whenever i pickup the phone i say: "hello, jihad bomb george bush terror attack, how you doin'?"

actually, at first i thought it was funny, but i'm sure i'm on some red-flag list

Re:Searching for keywords may or may not work

[radixvir]

Someone should organize a day where everyone calls a friend and says that. I bet we could overload their system. We'll call it National Privacy Rights Day or somesuch.

Re:Searching for keywords may or may not work

[Anonymous Coward]

What if I said in a phone conversation, "My main man 'G' had a cold ham sandwitch".

Would I then be on the terrorist list?

 

Re:Searching for keywords may or may not work

[aussie_a]

Wouldn't real terrorists (y'know, the ones who actually pose a threat) use code? And you'd also think they'd be smart enough to use public telephones as well.

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

American citizens were spied on without warrant all the time!

semantic issue mostly

[globaljustin]

"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing."

I'm not defending the intelligence community's tactis, per se, Americans deserve to know why warrants weren't requested.

OTOH, if all they were doing is looking for jihadists, then I'm not going to march on Washington just yet. I'm concerned about the word 'terrorist' being expanded to include people who smoke weed, bitch a

Re:semantic issue mostly

[aussie_a]

I looked up the American constitution (I don't know it off by heart, I know. I'm a terrible Australian). It has an ammendment that I think you might find informative.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Now last I c

There Was Nothing stopping Bush doing this legally

[TheDoctorWho]

Nothing was stopping Bush from doing this in a legal manner. NOTHING.

Bush, during campaign 2004 repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing, even with the mis-named Patriot Act in place.

Bush Logic: Since the Terorrists hate our freedoms, perhaps we should take away the freedom of Americans. That will show that Bin Laden.

Bush, worst president in US History.

Re:There Was Nothing stopping Bush doing this lega

[Dunbal]

Bush ... repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing...

      And you expect a politician (of ANY party) to not do exactly the opposite of what he says, huh?

Re:There Was Nothing stopping Bush doing this lega

[Polar27]

Here's an actual quote:

"[T]here are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

President George W. Bush, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20 040420-2.html [whitehouse.gov]

Re:There Was Nothing stopping Bush doing this lega

[Insightfill]

Bush, during campaign 2004 repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing, even with the mis-named Patriot Act in place.

It might be more accurate and helpful if we always refer to it as the "PATRIOT Act" to call attention to the fact that the name is an acronym. It at least encourages people to remember that it's an arbitrary set of letters designed to politically shield the Act from discussion. Are you going to argue against the "Patriot" Act? Are you not a Patriot?

"Providing Appr

Re:There Was Nothing stopping Bush doing this lega

[Zathrus]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Also known as the 4th amendment.

Constitutional crisis brewing

[harris s newman]

Mark my words, this will turn into a constitutional crisis, especially if Bush and Chaney are not impeached for their wrongdoing. What we have is not, as Chaney put it, a strengthing of the executive branch. This is a takeover of the democratic process itself. The president is acting as a dictator by being above the law. I have already written all my representatives on this matter, and I recommend that if you feel strongly that your rights were violated (either directly through spying, or indirectly by the violation of constitutional laws), you should also write your representatives. Oh, and the argument by Bush that he is protecting the homeland is hogwash, especially if you believe him when he took the oath of the presidency to "protect the constitution". If he truely is protecting the homeland, he must uphold his oath of the presidency and protect the constitution. By protecting the constitution, I mean also that he must abide by the constitution and it's laws.

Re:Constitutional crisis brewing

[ScentCone]

Mark my words, this will turn into a constitutional crisis, especially if Bush and Chaney are not impeached for their wrongdoing

You're a little confused. The constitutional crisis would come because of some lame impeachment campaign along those lines. By the way... how do you feel about the Democrat members of the congressional and senate committees who are regularly tuned into this sort of thing? How did you feel about it when the previous administration backed up the very same type of authority and action? For example, here's Clinton's deputy Attorney General (Jamie Gorelick) testifying before the House Permanent Select Commitee on Intelligence in 1994:

"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general..." She added that the same authority pertains to electronic surveilance such as wiretaps.

How about Jimmy Carter? Should he have been impeached? In 1978 his Attorney General (Griffin B. Bell) testified before a federal judge about warrantless searches he and President Carter had authorized against two US men suspected of spying for the Vietnamese government.

Were you listening, in 1994, when Clinton used his regular radio address to discuss a new policy of using warrantless searches in particularly violent US public housing developments? No?

Using intel about Al Queda associates to track down who is calling them (or being called by them) when some of those calls terminate in the US is fundamental stuff. Not using every means to track that stuff would be a dereliction. Specific warrants covering every twist and turn of electronic communications being used by someone who calls a rotating, daily-changing array of disposable cell phones is essentially impossible. That's why the NSA's data mining is so appropriate in this case, and the CinC is absolutely correct to authorize its use. When an Al Queda safe house in Pakistan is raided, and a seized laptop includes lists of phone numbers in the Middle East, we need to be able to immediately, and persistenly follow up on any call from the US that reaches out to those same numbers, and follow the trail of other people who are calling those people, especially from overseas. But you can't list that stuff in a warrant because you don't (and can't) know it in advance.

Re:Constitutional crisis brewing

[Zathrus]

For example, here's Clinton's deputy Attorney General (Jamie Gorelick) testifying before the House Permanent Select Commitee on Intelligence in 1994:

Which lead to Executive Order 12949 [fas.org] on Feb 9, 1995 because he was told that this was not legal, but it was allowable to fall under the jurisdiction of FISA.

In 1978 his Attorney General (Griffin B. Bell) testified before a federal judge about warrantless searches he and President Carter had authorized against two US men suspected of spying for the Vietnamese government

Which lead to the creation of FISA, because SCOTUS deemed it to be unconstitutional without both Congressional authority (the creation of FISA) and judicial review (the FISA court itself).

Neither of which is analogous to the case before us now -- we have a redux of what Carter did in 1978, except that this time it's been ongoing for over 4 years and is in direct contradiction to the SCOTUS ruling that lead to the creation of FISA in the first place.

e need to be able to immediately, and persistenly follow up on any call from the US that reaches out to those same numbers, and follow the trail of other people who are calling those people, especially from overseas. But you can't list that stuff in a warrant because you don't (and can't) know it in advance.

And you don't need to. FISA allows for warrantless wiretaps for a limited duration -- as long as they're submitted to the FISA court for approval within 72 hours. Precisely what prevented Bush and the NSA from doing that? They've already increased FISA requests by over 70% since 9/11, and out of 5645 requests only 3 have been completely denied (an additional 3 denied, but then granted upon appeal or modification). I think you'd be hard pressed to find any other court that approves 99.95% of all warrants requested over four years (and that percentage is much higher if you go over the court's entire history -- prior to 2001 there was only 1 warrant denied w/o later approval by FISA).

1984: the computer did it, not the vidicon...

[dpbsmith]

The vidicon was the first small, lightweight cheap television camera, developed IIRC in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was a vacuum tube, but it was "about the size of a hot dog," and it enabled the development of television camera that were about the size of a VHS camcorder and cost about $1000. It was a revolution and led to the use of closed-circuit TV cameras by serious amateurs, schools, corporations, and for surveillance. (It wasn't up to broadcast quality, and TV studios continued to use the gigan

Re:1984: the computer did it, not the vidicon...

[Ihlosi]

Of course the problem was always that as long as it takes a human being to interpret the information, the ratio of number of spys to the number of people spied upon is too large to be economical for intruding on ordinary citizens.

Why, do like the STASI* did: Have half of the population spy on the other half. Or even better, have everyone spy on everyone else.

* (Ministry of State Security in the former German Democratic Repulic)

More information isn't better.

[Hoplite3]

What makes all of this so much more painful to me is that the old intelligence system was turning up the information required. Terrorists were nabbed at the borders, and so on. The New York bombings were on the radar. It wasn't a lack of information that was the problem, it was a lack of analysis. How does taping a hundred, a thousand, a million more telephone conversations help? All of this information has to be mined, but each extraction that is not related to the criminal case comes at the expense of someone's rights.

We HAD a system that was balancing individual rights with the need for surveillance*, it was working in the sense that good information was being found without tapping one phone in 300.

Now, the barn is on fire and everyone seems to want to spray water on the house.

*Need for surveillance -- I'm not convinced that the level of big brother spying conducted before the attacks was warranted. Frankly, the FISA courts scare the hell out of me. I don't like secret warrants more than gag orders or secret laws. I was willing to accept them -- part of the great compromise of democracy -- but they look like they were the slippery slope to today.

Liberty vs. Death

[ChrisDolan]

From a congressional news outfit [hillnews.com],

"None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former judge and close ally of the president who sits on the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who has led a bipartisan filibuster against a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, quoted Patrick Henry, an icon of the American Revolution, in response: "Give me liberty or give me death."

Man, I love that guy! :-)

NEW: Documents Proving NSA Spied on PEACE GROUP

[Dave21212]

This is breaking news in the Baltimore area this morning (and last night). For those of you are are defending Bush for ignoring the courts and ignoring the Constitution, based on the premise that the NSA is "only looking for terrorists" you may be surprised...

From NSA SPIES ON BALTIMORE QUAKERS [freemarketnews.com]
Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

The National Security Agency has been spying on a Baltimore anti-war group, according to documents released during litigation, going so far as to document the inflating of protesters' balloons, and intended to deploy units trained to detect weapons of mass destruction, RAW STORY has learned. According to the documents, the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a Quaker-linked peace group, has been monitored by the NSA working with the Baltimore Intelligence Unit of the Baltimore City Police Department.

The actual court documents are online [rawstory.com]
And here's an interview [americanchronicle.com] with one of the primaries.

Granted, they didn't through them into Gitmo or anything (yet), but it's interesting because it's in zip code 21212, my own back yard ! (it's true what they say).

Declaration of war

[Brushen]

The legality of the wiretaps entirely depends on this section of FISA [cornell.edu]. Because of that section, it entirely depends on whether or not Congress has issued a declaration of war.

Because of that sentence in that section, it entirely depends on whether the authorization to use military force in Iraq constituted a declaration of war, and for 2001 to 2003, it entirely depends on whether, in the document's words, the "authorization to use military force against the persons or nations or organizations who were involved in the September 11 attacks and the people or nations that harbored them."

The 2001 authorization, should it be interpeted as a declaration of war, would last until every person involved in the 9-11 attacks are captured, and Bin Laden, and maybe one or two others, are still out there, so soon enough it would be like we have "declared war," from Bush's lawyers' point of view, on one person, which has happened before, when we declared war on the leader of a Mexican revolution one or two centuries ago.

No, rather than just the 19 that hi-jacked the planes, because it says organizations, we are after the entirety of Al-Qaeda, and that "declaration of war" will last until every member of that organization is either caught, killed, or dead. It will last until every nation that has harbored Al-Quaeda members has surrendered. It will last until every organization that harbored Al-Quaeda is defunct, their membered killed, or their members dead. It is the sheer broadness of this that leads me to believe that this is a war we cannot win.

Furthermore, according to the Rules of Construction outlined in Title 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, "person" includes societies, organizations, companies, firms, and partnerships. A society is a group of people who share similar beliefs. Would you not say terrorists, are, then, a society? If Bush wanted to stretch this for all it's worth in the world, when he says we are in the middle of the War on Terrorism, does he really, honestly, believe we are really in the middle of a War on Terrorism?

The media, or at least the visual media, has not mentioned this provision of FISA, but once, to my knowledge, in the entire time since this scandal came to light, when MSNBC quoted Bush's lawyers and Alberto Gonzales explaining that Bush has had the authority to do this because they interpret the authorization as a declaration of war. This took two paragraphs. The other times it has been dumbed down, in saying the president says he can do it because of an article of the Constitution invested in him the power of commander-in-chief, which doesn't tell anything at all. They're trying to dumb it down for you, but hopefully, since this is news for nerds, this post will make it up to the top.

I sent a letter to my congressman, Jim Cooper, on this on the 22nd of December and received no reply. I expect you all to send letters to your congressmen and women, too. Here is the letter I sent, explaining the same as above, but with more references to statues, bills, and resolutions:

Dear Mr. Cooper,

When the Authorization for Use of Military Force, S.J. Resolution 23, was passed in September 2001, I was greatly disturbed by the phrasing of Section 2, Subsection a, because of its usage of the word "persons." Title 1 Section 1 of the United States legal code defines "person" to include "societies," which, although I think legally undefined, is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as, in that context, "A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture," or "An organization or association of persons engaged in a common profession, activity, or interest."

Under this notion, President Bush could be said to be able to continue this military authorization until all necessary and appropriate force has been taken against the society o

Re:And this has what to do with technology...?

[massivefoot]

Perhaps you can enlighten us. What classified information has Mr. Tice revealed?

Re:I think this says it all.

[TripMaster Monkey]

They may be illegally listening to average americans, but that's illegal as a technicality.

Bullshit. It's either legal or illegal. The phrase 'illegal as a technicality' makes about as much sense as 'pregnant as a technicality'.

If you're listened to by the NSA, who cares really?

I CARE. I have a fundamental right to privacy, like every other American citizen. The argument of 'if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear' is a recipe for oppression.

YOU'RE NOT THEIR TARGET

Not yet, anyway...

It's illegality on a technicality like sharing music with friends so they can go buy their own copy of a CD. Not immoral and not reprehensible.

Really? I think the RIAA [riaa.com] might take issue with you on that. What a perfect refutation of your entire argument.

Re:I think this says it all.

[Saven Marek]

> Really? I think the RIAA [riaa.com] might take issue with you on that. What a perfect refutation of your entire argument.

Because the RIAA is the upholder of all that is good in this country?

That is truly the saddest thing I have read on slashdot.

Re:I think this says it all.

[deltwalrus]

"I have a fundamental right to privacy, like every other American citizen."

Careful. The word "privacy" appears exactly zero times in the Constitution of the United States of America. Though the courts have established this right through legal precedent, these court decisions can be changed (see Dred Scott, et al). The right to privacy in the U.S.A. is hardly "fundamental."

I AM their target!

[scoobrs]

Like this story says [rawstory.com], the NSA has released documents to federal court admitting to spying on domestic peace groups. Since I've walked in peace rallies, I know I am their target, not simply jihad-bent "terrorists." The argument, "I am not their target, so it doesn't matter" is reprehensible and silly anyway. This sort of rationalization allowed the persecution of the Jews and many others in Nazi Germany. If the slippery slope gets any worse, dove Republicans will be called terrorists, too. They've already labeled peace groups as such.

Never forget that the first action that allowed Hitler to take dictatorial powers "above the law" was the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933 [wikipedia.org] that was blamed on Communist terrorists, but perpetrated by the Nazi party. History has a way of repeating itself.

The Reichstag Fire Decree read: "Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Empire are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [ habeas corpus ], freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed." Sound familiar?

If youre listened to by the NSA, who cares really?

[digitaldc]

Famous last words of the ignorant masses.

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/ [online-literature.com]

Re:I think this says it all.

[grazzy]

I'm sure you'll also agree it's perfectly sensible to crosscheck that movie tip you gave your aunt against your credit card statement. Just to make sure you didn't *shrug* download it or something. Right? Why not automaticly sending fines to people mentioning they jailwalked or drove to fast to their meeting? You know, they're all *CRIMINALS*.

Why stop there? Why not earn an extra buck by selling information to Wal-mart? You might be expressing opinions against their monopoly on groceries, that would clearl

Re:I think this says it all.

[kalbzayn]

How do you know they are after them and not us? How do you know where they draw the line between them and us? If they say they are not allowed to do something, but then you find out they were doing it some of the time anyway, how can you really be comfortable that they are not targetting you?

Mods?

[Ubi_NL]

Why is this modded as flamebait?

ALthough the moderator may disagree with parents opinion (finding it naieve for example), the post is not a flamebait at all. Although I also disagreee with the opinion stated in the post, the text itself is honestly expressed, not meant to insult and should therefore not be modded as such.

If you disagree with the post, reply. Don't be a weazel and abuse your mod points

Re:I think this says it all.

[BananaPeel]

"THEY ARE NOT AFTER *YOU* is the main thing to remember" While this may be true at the moment it may not be true in the future. You are assuming that government will always be benign and that you will not take a political stance against any non benign government. Governments especially in times of crisis can change for the worse. How would you oppose a non benign government which has advanced tools which peer into every aspect of your life. Dissenters can be rapidly targeted and removed with ease, freedo

Re:I think this says it all.

[Politburo]

Okay. You think these powers are so great and required, so surely you won't mind if President Hillary Clinton (or any Democratic President) uses them, right?

Re:Who ordered the wiretapping?

[bhima]

The general claim is that the Bush Administration authorized or ordered wiretaps on wholesale basis without judicial oversight on individual cases. So I would gather rather than most of the communications of a few competing politicians we are actually talking about millions of separate communication transactions of an unknown number of both US citizens and foreign nationals.

There has been some suggestion that another reason the Bush Administration did not seek judicial oversight is that they were knowingly

Re: You have to wonder..

[Black Parrot]

> > The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him.

> Psychological concerns like, say, his inability to keep a secret?

More likely psychological concerns like respect for the rule of law.

Re:Uh, yeah. "Spying on Americans"

[codepunk]

I don't think anyone really cares who the targets are or that the wiretaps are occuring. The problem is they are doing it without Judicial oversite and that is a big problem. It is one thing to wiretap a american it is yet another to do so without the checks and balances provided by the judicial system.

Re:Uh, yeah. "Spying on Americans"

[stinerman]

Tracing calls inbound or outbound to known terrorist phone numbers, in itself is probable-cause, no?

I'd say it is. I don't think anyone would disagree. Either you're intentionally missing the point in order to troll or you're just ignorant.

The point is the NSA needs A WARRANT to do the tap. Hell, FISA lets them get a retroactive warrant for up to 72 hours after the fact. What is stopping Bush & Co. from getting a warrant from a secret court that has never denied a single warrant application in all of 2004? Its very likely that they had no probable cause to monitor these people.

Just another non-issue.

Apparently the 4th amendment is a "non-issue".

Paging the Black Hand...

[FungiFromYuggoth]

More to the point...didja forget this is a war? Is it so easy to forget the scores of dead? I don't want this kinda thing going on in peacetime, but I *damned*sure* want it, now.

If this is a war, what does victory look like? When dictionaries remove "terrorism" as word? When people stop behind scared? When no one tries to attack Americans or American interests?

The War on (some) Terror is no more a "war" than the War on Poverty or the War on (some) Drugs.

And if the paperwork allows on terrorist to go

That's the point, you radical neocon nutjob

[Reality Master 201]

If there's probable cause, then there's enough material to get a court order.

The FISA court denied a total of 4 requests betwen 1979 and 2004, out of thousands. The could have gotten the wiretap order if the wiretap was done for legitimate reasons, or on a person they could reasonably suspect. If it was emergency, they could apply up to 72 hours after the beginning of the surveillance.

There's no valid reason to have done things like this. Orders were clearly legally required, and if they weren't obtainable for some reason, the Bush administration should have sought changes to the law, not ignored the law. That's not how the US works. And since you want to make this a Democat/Republican issue, when did the GOP become the party of violating the law whenever it wants to, without any expectation of punishment? Do you think because Bush is a Republican, he gets the power to just decide he doesn't need to follow a given law if it suits him? I know you'd be howling if Clinton had done the same thing (and don't say he did, because the single thing you can legitimately point to in that regard [the Ames case], was a physical intrusion that wasn't covered by FISA till 1995).

Re:Uh, yeah. "Spying on Americans"

[applemasker]

Although you may be correct, it might be probable cause, this is hardly a non-issue.

Whether it is or not is a determination to be made by a court, not an instrument of the executive branch or the Chief Executive himself. If the Adminstration cannot be bothered to even go through the motions of using the FSIA Court where warrants are virtually never turned down, and can be sometimes asked for AFTER an intercept in emergent cirucmstances, then the Adminstration must view itself as beyond the scope of the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures. This is dangerous, unprecedented and should not be tolerated.

Under our system of justice, the ends (i.e., you're talking to Al Quaeda, so the government should listen) do not justify the means (i.e., let's not get a warrant, let's just listen). This fundammental concept is twice enshrined in our Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

On a very basic level this clause reflects a judgment that when the government wishes to act in certain ways, it must follow certain procedures; that is, provide an accused with what has been called "Due Process of Law." Sometimes the question of the extent of what process is due can be hotly debated. There is no debate, however, that the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures requrires that the police obtain a warrant from a judicial officer before such a search can take place. The Adminsitration no doubt is aware of this, but has chosen to ignore it.

It also ignores (not just here, but in other instances) that the Constitution regards the "process," of justice is so important, that in cases where the government fails to give an accused Due Process and obtains evidence in defiance of the accused's Constitutional rights, such evidence will not be allowed to be used in the prosecution (the "Exclusionary Rule"). Again, the administration ignores this judgment by our Constitutional Founders (which makes W's insitance on "Strict Constructionists" for the SCOTUS somewhat hilariously ironic) that individual guilty men may, in fact, go free, to protect the integrity of the system and insure that the executive respects the law it is charged to enforce. The is supposed to serve as a deterrent to instruments of the executive (police, FBI, etc.) to follow the system of checks and balances by, for example, asking a judicial officer for a warrant before (of, in the case of the FSIA, sometimes even after) executing a Fourth Amendment search.

Re:selective memory

[TheDoctorWho]

Yeah, of course the Predsident can do pretty much what he wants. It's just that when Bush constantly says 'trust me' and he turns out wrong time and time and time and time again, and lies about what he's doing, it's time to stop allowing a person like bush and the neocon cabal full authority without checks and balances.

Bush's Lie and Breaking of the Constitution:
"Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires-a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Monkey in Cheif = Liar.

Re:I cannot condone this behavior

[Yazeran]

As if it wasn't already known that the US government listened in on forign telephone conversations and email correspondence??

The US listened in on soviet military telephone conversations and the like durring the cold war and after 1989 they have used the Echelon system (in colaboration with the UK and Australia) to monitor other electrical communication as well. They also managed to kill some Al Caida chief in Yemen a few years back by using an armed drone (predator drone) after they pinpointed him in a car

Is the NSA Hiring? Does it matter?

[Crash Culligan]

What's the best way to change the balance in a political party or keep a government agency in line? Sign up.

Who gets second interviews at the NSA? What are they looking for in their candidates for hire? What kinds of positions are available at the NSA?

I hold out little hope for that approach. I applied to the NSA for a job once. They sent me two letters, declining my offer. On both letters, they got my middle initial wrong, and it was on my fricking resumeact on it.

Argue with me that that's not a

He is by that definition according to his story.

[Valdrax]

A "whistleblower," under Federal law, is someone who, whilst still employed at the offending agency/company, brings illegal action to the attention of internal resources...

Isn't that exactly what he's claiming to be? Didn't he claim that they hauled him in for a psychological evalution after he complained frequently about this being illegal, labelled him paranoid, and stripped him of his security clearance which prevents him from doing his job? According to him, when he complained, they took steps to proa

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

the U.S. is in a legal state of war - WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress is the only body that can declare war - it is in the constitution. Look it up sometime. You claim to have worked for the NSA, but are apparently ignorant of basic constitutional law. Every military action from the Korean war to Vietnam to the Gulf war was an authorized use of force by the congress, not a declaration of war.

The United States has not legally declared war since WWII. The congress authorized "the use of force" against IRAQ, but did not declare war.

It's the reason they couldn't prosecute Jane Fonda for treason during the Vietnam war - there was NO LEGAL STATE OF WAR - it was a "use of military force".

If they did declare war, they would be bound by the Geneva Convention, which would mean George Bush would be prosecuted as a war criminal for the torture at Abu-Garaib.

No declaration of war means no expanded war powers either.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0204a.asp [fff.org]

"under our system of government although the president is personally convinced that war against a certain nation is just and morally right, he is nevertheless prohibited by our supreme law of the land from waging it unless he first secures a declaration of war from Congress. That was precisely why presidents Wilson and Roosevelt, who both believed that U.S. intervention in World Wars I and II was right and just, nevertheless had to wait for a congressional declaration of war before entering the conflict. And the fact that later presidents have violated the declaration-of-war requirement does not operate as a grant of power for other presidents to do the same.

What about the congressional resolution that granted President Bush the power to wage war against unnamed nations and organizations that the president determines were linked to the September 11 attacks? Doesn't that constitute a congressional declaration of war? No, it is instead a congressional grant to the president of Caesar-like powers to wage war, a grant that the Constitution does not authorize Congress to make.

Therefore, when a U.S. president wages what might otherwise be considered a just war, if he has failed to secure a congressional declaration of war, he is waging an illegal war -- illegal from the standpoint of our own legal and governmental system. And when the American people support any such war, no matter how just and right they believe it is, they are standing not only against their own principles and heritage, not only against their own system of government and laws, but also against the only barrier standing between them and the tyranny of their own government -- the Constitution."

Re:He's a criminal, not a whistleblower.

[Levine]

Additionally, the U.S. is in a legal state of war. There is no formal procedure or document required to create this condition and there never has been.

I have no idea where you get your information from. The last "legal state of war" the U.S. has been in was World War 2. As Congress never declared war, I'm afraid this assertion is patently false. Consequently, any wartime powers conferred on the executive are irrelevant and inapplicable.

Any other absurd right-wing talking points you want me to debunk?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion