Whistleblower Claims NSA Spied On Everyone, Targeted Media 717
JCWDenton writes "Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists."
First? (Score:5, Funny)
Either I am first or the NSA is really on top of things.
Re:First? (Score:5, Funny)
Keith? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Keith Olbermann? Why not a less biased journalist? Any journalist at the Washington Post, Washington Times, etc would have been happy to get this information and run with it. Keith Olbermann's name brings with it a certain amount of partisan baggage.
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Re:Reactionary. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it be a good idea to go to a partisan journalist? If you're going to blow the whistle on something and you want to be taken seriously, then doesn't it make sense to take it to a journalist who is generally respected regardless of one's political leanings?
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I don't think such a journalist exists. Certainly not on any of the big news networks.
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It's possible that he tried to give his story to the major networks, but they wouldn't run it. (I have no idea if this is true, but I'm just throwing out the possibility.)
Re:Reactionary. (Score:5, Informative)
You appear to be conflating conservative with Republican, but the two are not interchangeable, particularly with respect to the administration that just left office. There are plenty of conservatives that took issue with the warrantless wiretapping because it represented exactly the sort of governmental encroachment into private life that their ideology opposes.
Re:Reactionary. (Score:5, Funny)
I feel bad for these people (Score:5, Informative)
The conservatives you mention. By your definition they haven't had anyone to vote for in the last 100 years or so.
Seriously, if you're a conservative of that stripe...who do you vote for?
And another thing. Conservatives such as the people you describe need to *SPEAK UP* and get represented. Although I usually vote Democrat, I would happily consider people of that mind set. Anything that marginalizes the neocons is good, IMHO.
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I am politically conservative, but have made no secret of the fact, here on
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You appear to be conflating conservative with Republican, but the two are not interchangeable, particularly with respect to the administration that just left office. There are plenty of conservatives that took issue with the warrantless wiretapping because it represented exactly the sort of governmental encroachment into private life that their ideology opposes.
That mainstream Republicans who support things like domestic surveillance, offensive war, and micromanagement of the economy call themselves "conservative" (why? because many of them are also prudes like what we saw in the Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction"?) is one of the best examples of Newspeak in our times. It's destroyed the meaning that this word "conservative" once had; now it means whatever is convenient for the speaker depending on who is speaking and whom they are addressing.
I personally do n
Re:Reactionary. (Score:4, Interesting)
From what I gather, though, at least the Democrats want everyone to go to school, so they can learn to think for themselves.
If that's what you believe the public school system is for, I'd like to introduce you to a man named John Taylor Gatto. I know of two works of his which will disabuse you of this notion if you will only read them. The first is an essay called The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher [cantrip.org] and the second is a full book called The Underground History of American Education [johntaylorgatto.com]. Both are quite eye-opening. The only caution I will give is that you may feel a temptation to become angry when you read these works; that will help nothing and no one, particularly you. The better approach is to understand that "if they really understood what they were doing, they wouldn't."
Re:Reactionary. (Score:5, Insightful)
It has always been an utter failure ...
See, that's where you're wrong. It was a huge success in this case. They got hordes of intelligence on the domestic activities of U.S. citizens, without any need for public documentation or warrants, and nobody has gone to jail for it. In fact, the telecoms were granted blanket immunity from prosecution after the fact. Sure, they couldn't keep it up forever, but that was never the goal to begin with.
No, I wasn't commenting on the intelligence-gathering or domestic spying itself. I was commenting on what that ultimately leads to. This kind of surveillance (only the technology with which it is done has changed) and lack of respect for the citizens has always been a core component of totalitarian dictatorships throughout history. I consider the widespread misery and suffering that all such dictatorships embody to be the "utter failure" and it's not like we don't have enough historical examples to know what the early stages look like.
Re:Reactionary. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush has not levied War against the United States, nor has he made common cause with our enemies. Therefore he is not guilty of treason. He is most likely guilty of a host of other crimes, and of myriad unconstitutional acts, the sum total of which clearly would have warranted impeachment (too late now) and his probable removal by the Senate (if the trial was judicial and not political, which woujld have never happened). On top of that, criminal prosecution would also be warranted.
Deploring the fact that none of this will ever happen is one thing; but Treason is the only crime expressly delineated in the Constitution, and it is that way for a very good reason: the English practice in times past of using treason as a conveniently ill-defined way to legally murder people who were too good at opposing you. Bush has done nothing to meet the definition which was specifically adopted to prevent politically sanctioned assassination -- therefore he is not (strictly speaking) a traitor.
Re:Reactionary. (Score:4, Interesting)
While Bush might not have (directly) aided our foreign enemies, he has aided and abetted enemies of the constitution, and attempted to undermine our entire Democracy. An enemy of the constitution and Democracy itself is by definition an enemy of the United States.
This is not empty rhetoric, in fact he filled the entire government with people who "believe" in so-called unitary executive, which is very much a monarch. While you may have an argument he has not violated the letter of the law, he has indeed violated the spirit, in a treasonous manner.
I only support the death penalty in 2 cases: treason, and war crimes. I disagree with your assessment, and assert that Bush/Cheney committed both, and now that Bush is out of office, I'm a lot less afraid to say so, too.
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Kidnapping US and Canadian citizens and shipping them off to foreign countries for torture. Just saying, you know, that if anyone tried to ship me off to Guantanamo, or worse, I'd consider it an act of war.
If Osama did any of what Bush did we'd agree he should taste MoaB.
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Wanting Bush hung for treason is totally biased.
agreed.
Bush has not levied War against the United States, nor has he made common cause with our enemies.
are you sure about that ( Plame affair [wikipedia.org])? I mean if Bush intentionally interfered with our CIA, our diplomants, and messed with the rightful secession of power from a dully elected president ( Al gore [wikipedia.org]) as he has been previously accused, then treason has indeed been alleged.
Re:Reactionary. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush has not levied War against the United States, nor has he made common cause with our enemies.
Unless you believe, as I and others do, that we have enemies within as well as without, and those enemies were better served by George Bush and Dick Cheney than any other administration in history. As PNAC signatories and NeoCon ideologues, they gutted this country in the pursuit of self-enrichment cloaked in the propaganda of securing the survival of liberty in this country by securing liberty in other countries. The destruction of our Constitutional freedoms, the looting of our treasury, the wasting of our military resources on unnecessary, fraudulently sold wars was a far more effective attack on this country than running planes into high rise buildings.
According to Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour.
By that definition, which expounds on the Constitutional definition and legal precedence, I charge that Bush and Cheney should be tried for treason based on the fact of their injury to the United States of America. Now you can argue my conclusion of treason, but you can't deny that they harmed our country, against all advice and evidence, to the point that the injury could be construed as intentional. And as such it shouldn't surprise anyone that people of this nation desired their impeachment, trial, conviction, and punishment for their crimes.
Re:Reactionary. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, he's a dictator. I'm not aware of anyone voting to detain Maher Arar [wikipedia.org].
Bush's big game was shipping people overseas where he could pretend the rules of the USA didn't apply. There he wholeheartedly supported torture.
He's easily guilty of kidnapping, torture, and a few cases of murder. That's if you don't get into the issue of guilt over ordering an invasion on false premises, etc.
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We need less O'Reilly and Hannity, but we also need less Olbermann, because Keith is nothing but a blue O'Reilly to begin with.
Re:Reactionary. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense.
It is not mindlessly partisan to insist on the rule of law in war, and adherence to the constitution always. That is Olbermann's main gig.
Furthermore, Olbermann criticizes Democrats frequently. That also can't possibly be construed as "mindlessly partisan".
The constitution is not a baby to be divided in the middle, and "both sides" given half of it. Calling someone partisan to dismiss everything they say is a lazy, intellectual cop-out.
I could write a treatise documenting Bill O'Reilly's lies, but I would not call him a mindless partisan, either. I call him a loud mouthed bully.
Well, duh (Score:2)
Not news.
I mean, really, who didn't think the liberal media would be singled out? You kids were born too late to remember McCarthy, and Hoover's FBI, apparently.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
You kids were born too late to remember McCarthy, and Hoover's FBI, apparently.
That's why it is news. Sadly, every generation seems to need to learn first hand that the government that says "trust us and don't ask questions" can't be trusted and should be questioned.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd argue the problem he is trying to fix is the loss of our credibility (aside from the moral issues) from claiming to be for human rights (and against torture), but practicing torture...
tl;dr The problem is we are doing torture. How is it 'fixing a symptom' to close the places where torture is allowed to happen?
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
What, like more than the +4,000 troops we've lost in the two wars we started and the +38,000 crippled/paraplegics?
How could it possibly result in more lives lost than those missteps? Please, fill me in on how closing Gitmo is going to do that and cost us more than $600 billion dollars.
Are we going to lose more lives than building strong alliances with other countries that help us gather intel against terrorists?
Seriously, though. If our strategy is to destroy Al Qaeda and other terror networks, then we should have kept our eye on the ball. Secure Afghanistan. Stabilize Pakistan and drive Al Qaeda and the Taliban out of the tribal regions like Waziristan.
Don't give me this at-all-costs bullshit about closing Gitmo. Of course it might cause some deaths--in the same way that giving people a fair trial might lead to some deaths because criminals will sometimes go free to commit more crimes.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011503149.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 [washingtonpost.com]
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Quite the spin you've put on a quote that doesn't even indicate OUT of context what you're claiming.
Obama is simply being careful and pragmatic. Not making snap judgments is good enough advice for anyone. Saying he approves of torture because he doesn't make a snap judgment before knowing all the facts is inaccurate, and dangerous.
Wasn't one of the major complaints about the Bush administration that they made snap decisions based on ideologies without considering facts, or even after MORE information is a
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Also, I am not aware of any snap judgments (other than that bullshit TARP bill) made by the Bush Admin. Would you enlighten me??
Re:Well, duh (Score:4, Informative)
That is textbook crackpot Austrian school economics, right there. You are just making assertions without proof, in fact, I have proof that your assertions are wrong: here's a graph of us GDP, 1920-1940. [wikipedia.org] You ca plainly see the New Deal was working, and then in 1937 when FDR backed off the New Deal plans, the economy started to tank again. So sorry that reality doesn't support your loony, self serving economic theories.
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Yeah real "liberal" media. You mean the New York Times and Judith Miller's breathless front page exposes on all that WMD in Iraq before the war? Or MSNBC's "Iraq Lowdown" with Lester Holt which was just shameless Bush cheerleading running up to the war?
Come on, just because one media outlet isnt Fox News, it doesnt make them liberal.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
You kids were born too late to remember McCarthy, and Hoover's FBI, apparently.
So how old are you, grandpa? I'm closing in on my sixth decade, but McCarthy happened when I was a toddler. Hoover's FBI was never reported until Hoover was already burning in hell.
You might have mentioned "I am not a crook" Nixon, I voted for that asshole. he had an "enemies" list (much like many slashdotters), and that list included many journalists.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Even if his specific accusations were correct (and I'm not granting that they were), he's still not a hero. He used those accusations to create an environment where freedom of speech and association were curtailed. His House committee attempted to change the meaning of "American" from "supporting the Constitution" to "opposing Communism, even at the expense of the Constitution". Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed in the end, although it took too long and cost too much in terms of lives damaged. Altogether a sad blight on the record.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is both illegal and immoral. It is perfectly legal to advocate for communism in this country. Outing communists makes McCarthy a traitor, not a hero. Maybe someone should use the same tactics against you, to dissuade you from holding your un-American views.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it really matter if people were "commies"?
Its just a political ideology, and just like the rest of them, it has good points and bad points. Discriminating, or ruining peoples lives in this case, against people because you don't personally like their opinion is wrong. This man based his whole life and reputation on this, therefore I would say it okay to "diss" him.
Most of these people weren't "anti-American", they just had a different view of how the government should act, and possibly (justifiably) found the cold war a silly, destructive, thing.
Hell, being anti-American isn't even a crime, much less being communist, or socialist. What the hell does "anti-American" even mean, really? I hated Bush, his policies, his wars, his abuse of the constitution; does that make me anti-American? I really dislike much of our culture; does this make me anti-American? I'm a social libertarian; does that? I'm not a fan of our economic philosophies and our view that they are superior to everyone else's (or worse, that their sinonymous with democracy or freedom); am I anti-American?
Re: "Commies" (Score:5, Interesting)
Does it really matter if people were "commies"?
Its just a political ideology, and just like the rest of them, it has good points and bad points. Discriminating, or ruining peoples lives in this case, against people because you don't personally like their opinion is wrong.
Communism, at the time, was equated with Nazism. The US government, driven by hysteria on the part of a few blowhards whose sole purpose is to win re-election by sowing fear (gee, that sounds familiar) worked to make belief in any political ideology short of "Democracy" (we have never had that on a national level in the United States) illegal. As a member of a union I was forced to join (by nature of my work) I had to, in the 1990s sign a paper indicating that I was not a member of the Communist Party or any organization allied with Communism. Everyone who joins a union today still has to sign such a statement.
Frankly, when I signed that statement, I realized it was a direct violation of my rights as a citizen to associate with whom I wish and to believe in what I prefer to believe in.
As a part of our "campaign against godless Communism," Congress even went as far as to have a new motto imprinted on all of our money: "In God We Trust" and they also changed the Pledge of Allegiance to include under God after "One nation" and before "Indivisible."
These latter measures, designed to oppose Communism, have been "reinterpreted" by part of he political spectrum as proof that the United States is a "Christian nation" which I understand means "theocracy."
But it did matter if people were "commies." They lost their jobs [answers.com] and were forced to find other work, usually for a lot less pay. The blacklist didn't end until the 1960s and was a list of people "convicted" mostly on hearsay evidence with no trial.
The creepy thing about Bush is that he was using the same techniques Nixon used against journalists and others perceived to be "enemies." Everyone knows today that Nixon was extremely paranoid. I don't think Bush is paranoid like Nixon, he is just mean, like his mother.
And, with the President of the United States allowed to incarcerate anyone who he declares to be an "enemy combatant," your hatred of Bush, his policies, wars and Constitutional abuse makes you not anti-American as much as an "enemy combatant."
And I use that term, based on the Bush Administration's definition of "returned to the battlefield" applied to released inmates of Gitmo: Anyone who wrote an article or whose lawyer wrote an article or spoke out to describe their captivity was considered having "returned to the battlefield." So, I am assuming you spoke out about your dislike of the past administration.
How does it feel to be an "enemy combatant?"
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
At the same time, I believe there should be social consequences for undermining the US in the way I see communist sympathizers doing...
This brings up a difficult question; what is the US (or any other country) and how can one actually undermine it short of selling secrets to hostile governments or terrorism? The way I see it, nations are only subjective constructs at worst, and (very) imperfect reflections of their population at best. When I state "I am proud to be American" what do I actually mean? To me I mean I'm proud of the philosophy behind our founders actions(if not how we apply it in practice), the geography, and to a less extent my fellow citizens. The government as a temporal body doesn't play into it, nor does its ideologies or expectations, nor does our economic model.
I can be pro-American and anti-American government. I can also be pro-American and anti-Free Market.
In fact, as my sig implies, I think it is often the more patriotic act to defy your government, than to obey it without thinking.
McCarthy (and Hoover) was as much against communism, as he was against other social issues he decided fit the communist bill. If you look at Hoover's files, he was against black activists (acting in the spirit of our founders, IMO), and union organizers, as he was against actual communist activists. He was the bad type of conservative, in other words. He like how our culture was, and wanted to resist change, as much as he actually wanted to protect us from actual communists.
but that does not mean they are all on the same level...
This obviously is true. But how do we actually judge the merits? I personally find the classic "libertarian" on Slashdot to be far more harmful to America than the socialist element. The libertarian element, on the other hand, will say the opposite. How can we differentiate? I'd venture to say that we can judge based on the "principles" of the nation; does the ideology fit the foundations of the nation, and not the current popular whim? This even runs into trouble, since I'm sure a libertarian and a socialist will even disagree with the principles (or founders intentions) of the nation.
My personal metric is a balance between what benefits EVERYONE in a society (not just the power elite), and maximizing the freedom of everyone in society. By freedom I don't mean the libertarian economic sense, but the ability to actually be who you want to be with the maximum amount of autonomy, and the minimum amount of tyranny. This includes the ability to have and form your own opinion of things, even if it is against the majority or popular opinion of the times.
We can all agree (probably) that the Soviet style of communism is against the foundations of America (and most other democracies), and is generally against the tenets of freedom. Socialism on the other hand isn't, even if it is of the same origins as Communism. Fascism (by the original definition) is also against these principles, while libertarianism is benign.
A hegemony of either socialists or libertarians, though, would be against these principles, obviously.
I suppose a healthy government (a democracy) depends on OPPOSITION. Being against opposition, is generally a fool hardy move, and is generally less than a step away from pure tyranny. Enforcing your view of right is generally a bad thing, and is an irresponsible act for the government to take.
Re:"Just another ideology" (Score:5, Informative)
Commies (and yes, I use that term intentionally) were just less creative about how they committed mass murder... the skipped the whole elaborate Xyklon-off-the-trains scenario, and went straight to firing squads and starvation.
You *are* aware that Communism, the political idealogy, != Stalinism/totalitarianism, right? I mean, I get that you Americans have been brainwashed over the last 50 years to believe that communism precisely equates to the Russian purges, but... have you not yet learned that that's not *actually* true?
I mean, I fully concede that Communism, as it's been implemented on a large scale in recent human history, has devolved to totalitarianism, but that doesn't mean the two are equal. Or are you telling me that your average hutterite colony is a hotbed of genocidal killings that we're just not aware of?
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Calling me a conservative idiot is not helping your case; anyone can throw around ad hominems and claim victory; that is not the sort of interlocution that should be on an intellectual site.
I have only started to vote Conservative in the past two years as the Liberals here in Canada have become a disgrace. But this is simply choos
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Well, sorry, but the site you quote is simply untrustworthy, and the site IT quotes is even less so. Anyone who quotes either of those sites loses all credibility, much as you would by quoting the Weekly World News as a source for science journalism. The fact that you quote totally screwball websites is relevant information that readers need to know to evaluate your assertions fairly.
Professor Herman started with his desired conclusions, found evidence to back them up, and discounted anything that didn't. P [wikipedia.org]
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You sir are the worst kind of fool.
In a free society, the number 1 freedom is freedom of belief. Number 2 freedom of speech.
You quote right wing nut jobs as "references", and defend an evil alcoholic who ruined many lives.
Just another troll, nothing to see here, lets move along.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wow, how illogical of me to assume there's an implication in calling someone a cretinous imbecile that they shouldn't be listened to. Thank you, now I'm clear on the disntinction, you cretinous imbecile.
Can I get a Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
The taps that were set up for the NSA were at the backbones, where they had access to all communications, incoming and outgoing. Since it is impossible, even for the NSA, to know with 100% certainty who was at the end of each communication, they would have had to collect everything, as well as store everything. At that point, it is irrelevant what they said they did with the mountains of data they collected.
Finally, it is also impossible to create a classification system that just happens to ignore american citizens during its training/creation phase. Again, it means that it is guaranteed that the NSA would be able to classify the groups involved in the communication. And again, it is irrelevant that the NSA said "Trust us, we're ignoring all of that."
The only real news is that the NSA didn't even internally pretend that they were only interested in communications with or between foreign agents. Everything else has been predicted the instant it became apparent that wiretaps were being done without oversight.
Probably never about terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if they were TRYING to respect the 4th amendment and the traditional NSA distinction between foreign and domestic spying, it wouldn't matter with this type of collection. Such a large fishnet would inevitably yield *way* more "false positives" than actual criminal calls. I would not be surprised if this program didn't even catch a single true terrorist of foreign threat.
This leads to the inevitable question of whether sussing out foreign threats was even the program's *intention* (rather than just its justification). If the guy in this article is telling the truth, it would seem that it was never about foreign threats to the U.S. at all, but rather about spying on domestic threats to the Bush Administration and plugging leaks (a la Richard Nixon's plumbers [wikipedia.org]).
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You are almost right. This type of data collection can not be used for real time or predictive analysis. What it can do is allow the NSA to roll back the clock, so to speak.
Master terrorist A controls terrorists B, C and D who independently control their own teams. Thug Z, who belongs to C's team, gets noticed or caught or commits a terrorist act. The NSA can now look at all of the communication that Z has ever had, which leads them to Z's team members and eventually to C, the team leader. The NSA
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First, there is specialised hardware to handle that kind of amount of data. Someone in the thread is apparently trying to sell a Narus, and I'm sure there are a ton more.
Second, you don't need to store or even process all the information; remember when the NSA were saying that listening to every phone call was impossible. Well, they could (and iirc did) simply build a graph where two people were the more connected the more time they spent together on the phone. Then, when someone was suspected of terrorism
Re:Can I get a Duh? (Score:5, Interesting)
After working for 18 months on a CALEA [wikipedia.org] project for a major telecom, and prior to that with an early Narus [narus.com] install, I say you're woefully underinformed.
Narus Key Features
* Total network view across the world's largest IP networks that includes both deep traffic inspection and full correlation of Layer 2 and Layer 7 information across all links and elements
* Industry-leading packet processing performance that supports network speeds up to OC-192/10G off the wire and uses a distributed architecture to scale so it can process multi-petabytes of data
* Carrier-class scalability and reliability with over 2.7 petabytes of IP traffic processed at a single customer, driving 100 billion packet records per day (greater than 7 terabytes) to upstream security applications
* Full traffic correlation across every link and element on the network
* Entropy-based security algorithms, provide unprecedented early detection of sophisticated anomalies such as low volume and polymorphic worms
* Next generation traffic analysis with advanced algorithms for real-time security, intercept and traffic classification and mitigation
Credibility (Score:4, Funny)
Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
That says it all. If Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly can't believe him, then who else in their right mind would.
Re:Credibility (Score:5, Funny)
That says it all. If Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly can't believe him, then who else in their right mind would.
I believe, sir, that you have an extraneous "else" in line 1.
Where is the surprise ? (Score:5, Insightful)
dont believe me ? well, the woman confessed to all this and more in front of senate committee investigating the issue. 'i have made a mistake' she said. mistake, fifty times.
it would be utterly stupid for any person with a brain cell to believe that an administration which is capable of doing that would not exploit wiretapping for their own political purposes.
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You mean Monica Goodling? [wikipedia.org] She graduated from the Regent University Law School, which was very low tier compared to what the Department of Justice normally hires. The school's sole distinction seems to be its founding by Pat Robertson, and it identifies itself as "America's Pre-eminent Christian University."
Goodling had blue drapes put over a nude statute of lady Justice. She was then assigned the task of screening candidates, and she made employment recommendations based on political affiliation, and amongs
Oh, good (Score:5, Funny)
Surprised? not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a sad state of affairs but if you adopts the view that everything you say and do may be monitored by the government without redress then your view is probably not far from what is happening.
The problem with this monitoring is that it's almost impossible to stop or control because by it's very nature it's kept very secret.
I imagine in the future we will end up with a revolution and lots of people will die, that's typically what happens when the ruler is doing something the majority of the populace doesn't agree with. Before you shout that the majority of the population are sheeple and just "think of the children / terrorists" I think the real problem is that they aren't well informed and very time poor and if they knew what was going on and they would disagree strongly.
What's next? Chime in (Score:5, Insightful)
Political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow [thismodernworld.com] reminds us about
I'd forgotten about that incident [americablog.com].
The Bush administration has its own list of scandals, of course. But just as significant a scandal may be the way that our so-called media hid from its audience the true scope of government wrongdoing. Recall that the New York Times sat on the NSA wiretapping scandal for a year before it thought it was time to let us citizens know. If it turns out that the industry that was supposed to be keeping the public informed about things like violations of the Constitution by top elected officials was deliberately concealing that information, it may be time to reconsider whether we have a press in America that's worthy of the name, and what we can do about it.
Anyway, Tom Tomorrow asks what other revelations about the Bush administration are likely to follow. Anyone have any ideas?
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I'm disappointed, I wanted cartoons! If anybody else was disappointed at the lack of cartoons in that link, enjoy:
A Farewell salute [credomobile.com]
The raw, gritty, and absolutely true story of a computer operating system's mascot who overcame unimaginable hardship and went on to become an unparallelled success [credomobile.com] (maybe he went back to that job he had in that cartoon that no one reads)
You can't trust science [salon.com]
Sparky buys a house [villagevoice.com] (Tomorrow is prescient)
Alan Greenspan [salon.com] (Yikes! Tom Tomorrow has balls of crystal!)
A handy guide to th [villagevoice.com]
That's the whole point (Score:5, Interesting)
And, under the current law and the August 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ruling, it is explicitly legal.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 [wikipedia.org], passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, allows for foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons without a warrant, no matter where the collection occurs. The longstanding Smith v. Maryland, 442 US 735 (1979) [findlaw.com], allows for the collection of communications metadata, i.e., "to" and "from" information, without a warrant. The FISC ruling [fas.org] explicitly finds legal such collection under the now-sunset Protect America Act [wikipedia.org] and, thus, the current FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
In order to determine which traffic content may be collected for foreign intelligence purposes, the traffic metadata must be examined. Even when a target in question is a specific non-US Person of foreign intelligence interest, traffic metadata must first be examined in order to target that person! Because examining traffic metadata was found explicitly legal and Constitutional three decades ago by the United States Supreme Court, doing so in order to target legitimate foreign intelligence collection is allowable under the law.
The major issues for foreign SIGINT were twofold:
- A lot of traffic is now digital versus analog, and cannot be targeted by aiming a directional antenna at a particular geographic locale. It is now traveling largely via things like fiber optic cables, intermixed with all manner of other communications. In order to target the collection, it is no longer a case of sitting on a Navy vessel offshore from some area of interest between individuals talking on two-way radios; it's finding that traffic in a sea of global digital communications.
- Foreign communications of non-US Persons physically outside of the US was increasingly traveling through the US. Previously fair game for foreign intelligence collection throughout the history of such collection in the United States, it suddenly became off-limits without a warrant because it was incidentally routed through locations in the United States. Foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons outside of the US does not require a warrant, and fundamentally still shouldn't simply because their traffic happens to enter the US.
This was a case of changing technology necessitating an update to a law. A supermajority of both houses of Congress agreed.
Unfortunately, this discussion is so mired in politics, personal grinding of axes, confusion about early NSA programs (like the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, or TSP, which was not renewed after January 2007), and isolated examples of legitimate abuse or misconduct, that not many seem interested in having any real discussion about how foreign intelligence can be reasonably conducted in the digital age. Instead it is a sea of frantic arm-waving and breathless blogging about how the Constitution is being shredded, when the mechanisms of law and judicial oversight have explicitly established the activities as legal.
Ironically, Tice's interview is spot-on. He says, "What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata ... and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected," and adds, "we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them."
"Supposedly?"
That's the whole point. So here's an example of someone explaining more or less what is happening, namely, that traffic metadata is examined to determine whether or not it constitutes a foreign intelligence target, and that measures were undertaken to not intercept the content of communications of entities which are not legitima
Re:That's the whole point (Score:4, Insightful)
The only real issue is the questionable legal landscape that existed from 2001 to 2007 and briefly again in 2008 after the expiration of the Protect America Act.
So you're saying the only real issue is that the President of the United States broke the law from 2001 to 2007.
Naomi Wolf (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot [tinyurl.com] say that she had significant evidence that she was being bugged and her mail being intercepted? I distinctly recall hearing her say this at the Revolution March in DC on July 12, 2008.
I think I got it on video--I'll have to find the video tonight and put it on YouTube.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought about it some more (haven't checked the video yet).
If I recall correctly, she did say that her daughter was away at a summer camp and called, saying she'd sent several pieces of mail on different days. Wolf didn't receive any of this mail for weeks, and when she did receive it, all of it was visibly opened by a letter opener or other device (i.e. it wasn't mangled by the scanner). A neighbor or friend's daughter was there, too, and that person received her daughter's mail immediately.
Investigation or Intelligence Source (Score:4, Interesting)
Monitoring journalists is actually a smart move, for an organization that wishes to gather intelligence.
Journalists write about the news. They're sent out on great breaking stories, as well as little crappy ones. They may have one piece of a much bigger story, and never know about it.
Think about this. A guy steals a car in New York. Not big news, right? But someone is bound to cover it. The police only have so much manpower to investigate things. Now, an investigative reporter finds that it's a little old lady, and wants to make it news. It's a fluff story, but maybe someone will have some sympathy for her.
The reporter goes to some neighboring houses. They ask "did you see anything." "What can you tell me about the little old lady." Oh, she's nice, tends to her flowers every day, and has 14 cats. Big deal. That is, until you find that one of the neighbors was actually a person of interest.
The neighbor of interest normally lives in California, but is now in New York. Another person of the same organization had flown into New York (found through the airline reservation systems). Another was stopped crossing the Canadian border because he had a forged passport. Documents in his bag indicate he was going to ... you got it, New York.
I won't agree that it's nice that they record all my calls, emails, and movements. Their job isn't to be nice. Theirs, for the most part, is to gather intelligence. By monitoring journalists, that would put an extra 50,000 eyes and ears out there (according to ASNE [asne.org]) every day. Add that to the more traditional resources, like other law enforcement agencies and their own agents, and now you get a much clearer picture.
They can't depend on the news that does make it. Plenty of stories are written and rejected. The journalist trying to make the story about our little old lady, her 14 cats, and stolen car, will probably never see the light of day. It'll be superseded by any more interesting story.
Do I know that any of this happens? No. But, it would make a lot of sense. I know my own news site is read on a regular basis by just about every intelligence agency there is. I know when I write a story about being flagged as a security risk at the airport, I'm not flagged again. Really, if they monitor everything I do, they're bored out of their minds, but they do know, I'm not a risk. I know if I look through my logs, I get a good glimpse of what they're willing to let me see (the occasional IP from their agency). I know that's not the whole story either. I just think of it as their way of saying "hi".
Re:Investigation or Intelligence Source (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't agree that it's nice that they record all my calls, emails, and movements. Their job isn't to be nice. Theirs, for the most part, is to gather intelligence. By monitoring journalists, that would put an extra 50,000 eyes and ears out there
Nice theory. The only thing you forgot to mention, is that it's ILLEGAL for them to monitor communications starting and terminating in the US. I really don't care if it makes their job easier, or gets them more intelligence...it's ILLEGAL. They've been doing this all along, while saying they weren't. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and Rumsfeld deliberately ignored the law and instructed NSA to do the same. The communications companies (with one exception) happily assisted in the process.
You know, we have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution in this country, and we are all supposed to live by the rule of law. No one is above the law. *That's* why this is an issue.
"this program" (Score:3, Interesting)
A little Congressional oversight, MAYBE????? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many posts on this thread are interesting. The journalist is attacked. The analyst is attacked. The story is attacked.
But the bottom line is: Nobody really knows anything. And that lack of knowledge is unacceptable. Congress is responsible for this. Congressional oversight of our spy agencies is their damn duty. And CONGRESS has let us down.
If this analyst's statements are false, we should be hearing assurances of that fact by our representatives and senators. The silence of the congressmen is deafening. They are betraying our trust in them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no need to inject partisan politics into this issue. Each individual congressperson (democrat or republican) bears responsiblilty for the lack of oversight in this matter.
Burying the issue in accusatory partisan politics is only helpful to those who seek to kill oversight.
Re:Lame (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, with a big enough claim, questions start getting asked. Big questions.
Is it true? Prove it!
Is it false? Prove it!
Either way learning happens, and that's a good thing right?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Either way learning happens, and that's a good thing right?"
Learning doesn't happen because it's all classified for one. Additionally, learning doesn't happen because it's mostly subjective to begin with, but add to that the obvious biases (Olberman is biased as it is but then take into account this whistleblower was FIRED and is obviously disgruntled about it) and you have nothing but a cesspool of name calling, propaganda and political positioning.
There is nothing to be learned here, just people to blame
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you feel that way? The nerds that have stuck around tend to have very valid opinions,
Evidence for that claim?
even if I don't always agree with them. We have been on the net longer than most,
You registered on a specific website earlier than some. What does being on the net even matter when discussing such issues? It is also no indication of anything other than the first time you registered with Slashdot.
and have a better perspective on this issues that keep popping up.
Again, it identifies nothing
Lame mods. (Score:3, Interesting)
"People don't often get tired of voicing their actual opinions."
Haven't been modded down much, have you?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I dunno about that I read /. for years before I got a UID just to look up cool stuff that I couldn't find elsewhere. So someone with a high number might have been around longer than you think.
If the number is less than 10,000 I even tend to pay attention to that.
Re:Lame (Score:5, Funny)
Of all the biases exhibited here at Slashdot---and there are many!---the bias favoring low-id users is probably the most idiotic.
Sorry, but we only consider critiques from users numbered below 636672.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That has got to be the most stupid thing I've ever heard.
Do you hear me?
Damn it, why don't you answer?!?!?
Re:Lame (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, but we only consider critiques from users numbered below 636672.
I'm a windows 95 user, so I am only able to consider critiques from users numbered below 65534.
BBH
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I disagree, and I have a much lower ID, so I'm right.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeah? Well I agree that being biased towards low UID numbers is incredibly stupid, and my UID is lower than yours so that means I'm... wait... Damnit.
Correlation not Causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Low ID users have been around longer, probably have more "alignment" with the community mentality, and just more experience commenting. Thus it's likely they get modded up. I doubt many people look at IDs before moderating.
And I've got a low ID, so that makes it true.
Lower User ID (Score:3, Funny)
Respect your slash elders, young man !
Proving allegations (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, with a big enough claim, questions start getting asked. Big questions.
Is it true? Prove it!
Is it false? Prove it!
It might be possible to prove these allegations are true. How would you go about proving they are false?
Re:Lame (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In case you missed it, the point was to counter arguments that the whistleblower was too low in the food chain to make such speculations. And that's the point. The higher-ups make the plans and tell the underlings nothing more than the underlings have to know. Sometimes underlings eventually put 2 and 2 together while all they were told to do was "just listen to person x at time y".
Paraphrasing Sun
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
"Some people just want to believe this stuff so much they'll grasp at any old straw that agrees with their narrow view of the government."
That might apply to you as well. You don't think its possible that the government might spy on journalists? It's been proven to have happened with at least one administration (Nixon) in my lifetime.
Re:Lame (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like a pretty good way to test the new openness mandate recently enacted by Obama. Submit a FOIA request to the NSA for any records, information, recordings, etc made of you and see if they reject it. This would be especially interesting if a journalist for a major network (Olbermann himself perhaps?) were to submit the request for his own information, since they supposedly targeted journalists.
Of course, since the NSA tends to exist on the fringes of legality anyway, they'll probably just claim there's nothing there even if there is, but it could be an interesting exercise.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
From the FA, his job was to 'weed out' people. So he went to the folks gathering the intel and said "Ok, I'll need the stuff on persons X, Y, and Z next week. I just want to make sure you guys will cover that.". Response: "Oh sure. We're gathering everything on everyone".
(Obviously paraphrased for brevity)
So, despite being a "low-level" analyst, his story is at least plausible.
Re:*NOT* Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Disgruntled ex-employee makes accusations with zero evidence. News at 11 I guess.
This guy was just an analyst, not some super high ranking official. The type of data he was privy too was low level and generic.
You have no clue what an analyst is, do you?
High ranking officials often make it a point to *NOT* know, or be informed of, things that may jeopardize themselves politically and legally. Analysts on the other hand, are the people who ACTUALLY DO the Top Secret work the public never hears about.... unless an analyst blows the whistle on illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts ordered by (in this case) Bush and Cheney.
Read a book or something....sheesh.
Re:Spied on everyone? Oh noez! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they didn't actually read every e-mail. They didn't even read a significant fraction of them. But, they did categorize every one by who sent them and who received them and then archived them for future use. That's the part that should scare everyone. Even if you happen to like/trust the current administration (or happened to like/trust the previous one), you and your descendents are going to live through many more presidencies. The legal red-tape that people like Bush & Cheney worked to eliminate wasn't, necessarily, meant to stop them it was meant to stop the true monster that will, inevitably, get into office someday. It's almost a guarantee that, some day, someone on the order of Hitler will sneak his/her way into office (Note: This isn't a Godwin as I'm not trying to suggest that Bush & Co. are like Hitler themselves.). When that happens, those limitations on government power are the only thing that has a chance of stopping them. The more we water them down, the more we guarantee his/her future success at destroying this country.
Even in the short term, this kind of illegal invasion of privacy can, easily, lead to lots of people being hurt. Just look at the improper/illegal attorney firing in the Department of Justice under the Bush administration. They went through and fired anyone they thought had connections with political/social views they didn't like. People lost their source of income and the government became much more politically polarized. The kind of info archived by a program like what this guy is suggesting could be used to make similar, illegal/improper, witch-hunt much more "efficient".
This affects you too. (Score:3, Interesting)
One aspect of this that many seem to forget is the potential for stock-market fraud that these illegal surveillance techniques could easily present. You joke like these things don't affect you, and maybe you have good reasons to think that. Maybe you don't buy into the psychology of a chilling effect of government surveillance. Maybe you're an upright citizen with nothing to hide and no enemies. Maybe you don't have any "secrets." But if you have any inves
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I understood what it meant, my point was that it was different from what the headline said (or at least implied.)
To make a pointless car metaphor, it's like if you're trying to sell a junked car, and you put in the ad "will run like new!" when it doesn't have an engine, your rationale being it will run like new once you put a new engine in it.
This is not the NSA spying on everyone, this is the NSA being ABLE to spy on everyone. They could have spied on me, yes, but as he pointed out in the article, they di
You are amazing...or a troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, in addition to being an atheist Muslim Canadian Joseph McCarthy loving stock analyst who uses SPICE in his circuit design work you're also a mid-to-high ranking spook at the NSA? And yet you still find time to post about it all on /.?
Amazing. Simply amazing. If true.
--MarkusQ
Re:You are amazing...or a troll (Score:4, Informative)
Liar much? Your history is there for all to see.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People with access to all of your personal data and communications do not to go through law enforcement or the legal system in order to use that information to harass you, discriminate against you, or otherwise ruin your life.
I'm a pretty decent law-abiding individual, but I have no doubt that if you dug through my past communications with friends, family, and colleagues you could find plenty of material that could easily be taken out of context or arranged to create a false context which would reflect very