Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 110
An anonymous reader sends this report from the Associated Press:
"Dissenters within the National Security Agency, led by a senior agency executive, warned in 2009 that the program to secretly collect American phone records wasn't providing enough intelligence to justify the backlash it would cause if revealed, current and former intelligence officials say.
The NSA took the concerns seriously, and many senior officials shared them. But after an internal debate that has not been previously reported, NSA leaders, White House officials and key lawmakers opted to continue the collection and storage of American calling records, a domestic surveillance program without parallel in the agency's recent history.
The NSA took the concerns seriously, and many senior officials shared them. But after an internal debate that has not been previously reported, NSA leaders, White House officials and key lawmakers opted to continue the collection and storage of American calling records, a domestic surveillance program without parallel in the agency's recent history.
If only... (Score:3)
If only the NSA listened as well as the NSA listens, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Not all spooks are bad (Score:1)
The people who choose to be spooks are ordinary people, just like you and me. Many of them choose to become spooks because of their patriotic feeling towards their respective countries, and their willingness to do everything they can (within the confine of the laws, of course) to contribute to the well being of their motherland/fatherland
Not all spooks from CIA/NSA are bad dudes either. There are conscientious people within those organizations because I do have friends (close friends) working in there
On the
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With domestic surveillance now been talked about more in public the press now understands what keywords and interviews will result in.
The media can wait to type a report into a networked computer just before publication.
A journalist can also fill their networked computer with a lot of non fiction that reads like a real story thats been worked on.
Drive out with a phone on to meet a person with more information.
All the domestic surveillance teams have is networking. The connec
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Thanks to the influence of such groups as the NSA your mobile phone transmits it's data in an easily readable format instead of something encrypted such as was first proposed for the devices. The performers "Negativeland" some years back demonstrated that very clearly with analogue phones, and apparently it's not much more difficult now with digital but it can land you in legal deep shit if you do it and you are not a government associated bo
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Thats the idea. Fill the gps logs with random trips to locations that fit in well with the non fiction "story" on a networked computer.
Who was that journalists phone around or who did it stop near? How would it fit in with a story been worked on? So many new digital hops to follow up on thanks to one random dri
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Not all spooks from CIA/NSA are bad dudes either.
Yes, they are. You don't accidentally do evil on this scale, and these people have absolutely no excuse. They have betrayed their country, their friends and family, and their morals. Saying things like "they aren't all bad!" is almost as bad as saying the same thing about people running drug cartels. I say "almost" because at least those drug cartels don't pretend to be on your side.
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Not all of them are working on the domestic spying. The NSA, believe it or not, was created to spy on other countries, not Americans.
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Well, by that logic, not all Nazis are bad people.
Godwin's law. You lose.
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You are utterly ignorant of what Godwin's law is. Godwin's law deals with the probability of people making such comparisons or analogies. It does *not* say that the comparisons or analogies are false, or that the person making them 'loses' the argument (What does that even mean?).
Saying that someone 'loses' just because they make a certain analogy or comparison is just a non sequitur. You must respond to the specific arguments they made.
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It's a widely accepted corollary to Godwin's law that the person who compares his opponent to Hitler or the Nazis has thereby lost the argument, as he clearly has run out of rational objections and moved on to argumentum ad Nazium.
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It's also logically fallacious. Either respond to their specific arguments or don't bother. Whether the comparison or analogy is valid depends entirely on the situation.
And 'losing' an argument doesn't even make sense to begin with, unless you're talking about bullshit popularity contests. I love it when you have people arguing with each other and insisting that the other person "lost" the argument because they violated some arbitrary 'rule.'
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Also, reading that guy's comment, he didn't actually compare his opponent to nazis or Hitler, anyway. He just said "If your logic applies here, then let's apply that same logic to the nazis."
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Those who have betrayed the USA are ... (Score:1)
They have betrayed their country
While I will agree with you that some of the NSA spooks have betrayed the United States of America, I do need to point out that it's the POLITICIANS who are the biggest traitors of all
Politicians in Washington DC, many of them, no matter if they are Democrats or Republicans, do not care about America. They only care about power (unlimited power), money (enormous amount of money), and getting re-elected, again, and again and again, ad nauseum
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By that logic, I can extend your argument to "All Americans are bad dudes" because they have done nothing to rein in the US Military complex, US IP complex, US entertainment complex and US meddling in foreign politics, not to mention the doubletalk used in dealing with the US itself.
Don't demonize others for not doing things you haven't done yourself, nor make them guilty by association, unless you're willing to be called out as similarly guilty.
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By that logic, I can extend your argument to "All Americans are bad dudes" because they have done nothing to rein in the US Military complex, US IP complex, US entertainment complex and US meddling in foreign politics, not to mention the doubletalk used in dealing with the US itself.
No you can't, because that's not the same logic. People working directly for an evil organization that conducts mass surveillance is absolutely different from merely being a citizen of a country that does evil things. By remaining with the evil organization, you are helping them conduct mass surveillance far more than if you were merely a citizen of the country they operate in.
But if there are people in the NSA that are good people, then they are certainly planning to leak information like Snowden did or ot
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That's not building a case. Care to do that?
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First, that post wasn't a response to me. Second, posting bad arguments and opinions contrary to the facts "hundreds of times" doesn't make them good arguments or factual. I can be persuaded, but you have to be right to do it. Maybe you've heard that two wrongs don't make a right? Well neither does ten thousand wrongs make a right.
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It's fine that you agree, but what about everybody else? If I stop posting then much of what's left on varous topics will be bad arguments and non-factual "facts." Nobody should want that, it doesn't help anybody. I'll keep posting to benefit everybody else even if you agree with me.
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It's fine that you agree, but what about everybody else? If I stop posting then much of what's left on varous topics will be bad arguments and non-factual "facts." Nobody should want that, it doesn't help anybody. I'll keep posting to benefit everybody else even if you agree with me.
Usually CF and I come down on opposite sides of arguments to do with US government overreach, but I completely agree with him on this point. Using blanket statements and emotion-based arguments does nothing to prove a point, and both he and I have called that out on this thread.
So, like him and Chris453, I'd like some further explanation as to why the US isn't evil, but the NSA, which is a US government organization, IS evil? It seems to me that either US citizens should disband it if they feel it's evil,
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Those records are considered ordinary business records. That question has been to the Supreme Court before. The government doesn't legally need a warrant to get them.
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There was no "unconstitutional domestic spying". It was simply records of which phone number called another phone number. If you think that is spying then your phone company has been spying on you for decades. Stop parroting what you hear on the news and actually do some research yourself.
Research? Ten seconds with a search engine shows you're wrong. So you're either trolling, stupid or a government shill.
Well, yes [eff.org], they do that [wikipedia.org]. But they are also doing this:
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ThinThread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Before that was Main Core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Recall Project MINARET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and going way back to the The Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) with Project SHAMROCK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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don't fall for it. this story is only part of managing the the snowden revelations.
this is to try to minimize that he came forward and told the public instead of going through "proper channels", by making it seem that others had gone through proper channels, and that everything had been carefully scrutinized and it was all on the up and up.
"NSA took the concerns seriously, and many senior officials shared them" = "wow. this looks so wrong. let's do it anyway because we can. and puppies, pedophiles and t
Derp (Score:3)
the program to secretly collect American phone records wasn't providing enough intelligence to justify the backlash it would cause if revealed
File that under "duh".
Re:Argument (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard the argument that this is what Snowden should have done. So... It would have meant us not knowing about the programs
Pretty much. This. Its just further vindication of Snowden's actions.
The NSA asserts he should have gone through channells. Snowden asserts he did... at the moment its he said/she said. But this really moots the argument entirely. Other people DID go through internal channels, and it didn't fix the problem.
Therefor leaking/whistle blowing really is the ONLY way that would have worked.
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Yes, but even leaking/whistleblowing didn't "work".
A few of us are beside ourselves at the loss of our rights. A large number of armchair hacktivists are outraged that "The Man" is at it again. Most people are like **shrug** ". . . are we safe from terrorists yet?"
There's been no backlash I'm aware of. And no real change in how spying is being done, or accountability, or oversight.
I got some backlash for you. (Score:3)
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You have to do a photoshoot wrapped in a flag and run as a Republican candidate for Virginia.
Good (Score:1)
GOOD. When people fear the government, there is tyrrany. When government fears the people, there is freedom.
I would also like to add that, when there is little barrier to tracking the calls of mundane political opponents, or even listening in to their calls, than a check box on a piece of paper saying "You got a warrant, didn't you?", there is nothing to stop a G. Gordon Liddy type from listening in on the other presidential candidate's conversations, and their planners and donors and strategists.
This is
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He said "a" G Gordon Liddy which just means somebody like him (not necessarily because of party affiliation)
Shows how wrong they were (Score:5, Insightful)
No one has been punished and they are still spying on us all. Where's the backlash? People complaining on Slashdot?
The United States is turning into Untied States (Score:2)
No one has been punished and they are still spying on us all
That's the kicker, ain't it?
No matter how much the citizens have protested, TPTB still REFUSES to listen
We call ourselves a "democratic country" but are we truly democratic?
Our government, the government of the United States of America, is behaving exactly like a tyrannical regime - in which it not only conveniently ignores the wish of the citizentry, it continues to carry out programs which are designed to undermine the validity of the democratic principles within the country
Re:The United States is turning into Untied States (Score:5, Insightful)
We call ourselves a "democratic country" but are we truly democratic?
Our government, the government of the United States of America, is behaving exactly like a tyrannical regime - in which it not only conveniently ignores the wish of the citizentry, it continues to carry out programs which are designed to undermine the validity of the democratic principles within the country
Many have argued that this is the natural tendency of democracy. Plato ranked democracy as the second-worst type of government, inevitably degrading into tyranny [wikipedia.org], since the "mob" will always eventually be swayed to vote away their power by promises from some prospective tyrant who promises them something that appeals to their immediate concerns (safety, security, food, wealth, homes, land, etc.). So, the "mob" votes away their rights in exchange for something else that seems more important at the moment.
The ancient Romans solved this problem with a special office of dictator [wikipedia.org], which was only appointed for limited times to deal with a crisis. There was a strong tradition in the Roman Republic (which held for at least a few centuries) where ambition to be a sole leader was strongly discouraged among the ruling class -- to be accused of desiring power was one of the worst sins. The topmost offices were only to be held for one short term in one's lifetime, or at least with a period of several years between, to prevent anything like a "king" or "tyrant" gaining permanent power.
But in the late 2nd century BCE, various elements were set in motion that ultimately led to the downfall of the Republic, mostly due to populist reformers who wanted to give suffrage to more people beyond the traditional "Roman citizens," and those reformers who promised the poor and landless all sorts of things. In exchange, the poor and landless broke with Roman tradition and started electing people to offices for many consecutive terms, and when crises arose, the dictators stayed in their offices for longer and longer.
Eventually, Julius Caesar came along and got himself declared dictator to deal with various things, but then arranged to become effectively dictator for life. (There's a lot more to the story, involving the gradual accumulation of power in central locations and people, standing armies who supported generals in lawless actions, etc.)
Anyhow -- the founders of the U.S. tried their darnedest to keep such a degradation from happening in the republic they designed. They were terrified of the mob (as Plato had been), and they saw the mistakes of the Roman Republic. So, they only gave the vote to those who seemed to have responsibility (male landowners, effectively similar to the heads of the ancient Greek demos, the root of democratic ideas). They isolated the upper chamber from popular election in the federal government. They deplored standing armies, preferring to rely on militias when a crisis occurred. They included even more checks and balances than the Roman Republic. In case any group of people did gain control, they built in strict Constitutional limits to federal power, so even if someone had a lot of power within the federal government, most of the powers and rights would be handled by state and local governments.
Gradually, particularly over the past 75 years or so, most of these aspects of the original governmental structure have gradually been overruled -- often in the name of "democracy" or "protecting the people" or providing aid and help to the poor through a central system.
Is it a coincidence that this also happened around the same time that the educated class stopped reading the classics? You couldn't graduate high school in the 1800s without having a level of knowledge of Latin and Greek that would probably beat out an undergraduate classics major today. And with that knowledge of ancient languages generally came a
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"Gradually, particularly over the past 75 years or so, most of these aspects of the original governmental structure have gradually been overruled -- often in the name of "democracy" or "protecting the people" or providing aid and help to the poor through a central system."
Without this helping the poor capitalism would have fallen, let's be honest here. The american/Europe/English capitalist governments all had these problems because capitalism is fundamentally irrational at based reflecting the irrationali
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Without this helping the poor capitalism would have fallen, let's be honest here.
[Citation needed] -- I mean, seriously, let's be TRULY honest: for most of history, there have been people living under much, much, much more poorer circumstances than today. And the lower classes have been much more oppressed than today. How exactly would capitalism "have fallen" just because the poor were only slightly better off than they were for -- well, all of history -- rather than MUCH better off (as they are in modern industrial societies for the most part)?
I fail to see what democracy has to d
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There was this thing called World war 1, World war 2 and the cold war. Jesus these days people on slashdot are fucking illiterate. Imagine you're being drafted to go fight in some war for some rich oligarchs and you're poor and not totally braindead. You'd have some sense of self preservation would you not? The downtrodden are alive and many of them are not totally braindead.
Judging by history, the poor and downtrodden are trivial to manipulate into completely discarding all thought of self preservation. "For king and country!" A rallying cry that worked for centuries. Nowadays it's "For God and country!" since kings are out of fashion. And I include recent history in that assessment. 407,000 American men died fighting World War II. Just how many oligarchs do you think were in those ranks? Zero. And how many sons of oligarchs? A few. A handful. Hundreds? Not likely
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Interesting theory you have there, Butch...
Black Friday (widely acknowledged as marking the start of the Great Depression) was in 1929.
WW2 started in 1939.
I've never heard of a human society with ten year generations. we generally CAN'T have children much less than 14 years after birth, and generally don't for 20+ years. Hence the notion that a "generation" is 20-25 years....
And even that ten years assumes the G
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The reality is human beings just aren't intelligent enough to form long lasting social orders because too many people have negative evolutionary characteristics they've inherited from the past. Our primate psychology is at the root of everything regardless of what collection of words and labels one flies under. The biology is still there.
Those negative characteristics are only negative in the context of forming long lasting social orders (really only in the context of forming long lasting egalitarian social orders -- dynastic empires last longer than most of our social structures). They are extremely positive in the context of the affected individuals and in the case of avarice, they are beneficial to the affected's offspring (and their offspring, and so on). There is extreme benefit to be had from sabotaging the social order and norms.
We h
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"We humans are intelligent enough to form effective and equitable social structures, we just don't have the collective stomach for removing the saboteurs from our society."
But that means you're not intelligent if you leave the saboteurs alone. Some science on reasoning, someone can tell you what is true and you won't believe them!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I'm not sure that intelligence, beyond a certain baseline, really enters into the formula for creating long lived social structures. For the individual, there is no tangible benefit to creating structures that will last more than a few generations. After a few generations, as you point out, they will require the efforts of other people to keep alive, so there is little that the originator can do to ensure that the structure survives.
The most rational course of action for all individuals involved in a societ
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Without this helping the poor capitalism would have fallen, let's be honest here.
Well, if we're going to be "honest" here, we should note that modern capitalism inherently helps the poor due to the efficiency of creating capital which requires well paid labor to operate. This feature has been more successful than the welfare state at alleviating poverty (though the two things can work together successfully as the current state of the Scandinavian countries indicates).
because capitalism is fundamentally irrational at based reflecting the irrationality of mankind.
Just because you assume something is "fundamentally irrational" doesn't mean it is.
Say what you want but Lenin was correct about imperalism being the highest stage of capitalism.
I'll say that Lenin was a real piece o
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"Just because you assume something is "fundamentally irrational" doesn't mean it is."
There are countless examples of capitalisms fundamental irrationality and waste in terms of natural resources. You should learn some science, I can tell you the facts and you won't believe them!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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There are countless examples of capitalisms fundamental irrationality and waste in terms of natural resources.
No. Because we aren't try to do things in terms of natural resources. It isn't a goal of humanity to use as little energy, aluminum, or acres of land as possible. Since that is the case, then one can't perceive irrationality in that way si
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Maybe more because the educated class didn't get to run the place anymore and those that did get to run the place appointed their young catamites to run departments instead of people with the experience to operate effectively. I'm not sure when it happened but by the end of WWII the executive branch of the US government had the wool very effectively pulled over their eyes by Stalin despite
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Maybe more because the educated class didn't get to run the place anymore and those that did get to run the place appointed their young catamites to run departments instead of people with the experience to operate effectively.
I probably shouldn't respond to a post that uses a word like "catamite" so loosely... but do you really think nepotism (which might be a better term for what you're talking about) was new to the 20th century? It was not. That sort of corruption has been around a LONG time. Incompetent friends and relatives have always been a staple of the political process.
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In rare cases it fits precisely and in others simple nepotism (as you suggest) or a wish to promote keen youths "with the right stuff" applies far better. Of course I don't think it's new or I wouldn't use such an old word, but it's rife today when you look at situations like that kid put in charge of a big chunk of NASA that took on their climate scien
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I suspect that's led to a change between having a successful legal career or similar being the way to power to being a kid who h
Benjamin Franklin + mod parent up (Score:2)
Benjamin Franklin's speech that ended the constitutional convention is often cut short but you will like it. He basically says all democracies fall to despotism and lets end the debate because what we have is good enough for now.
I don't have much faith that if Americans had to read some history that they are capable of learning from history enough to prevent it from repeating. Look at Vietnam and how easily Iraq happened despite a couple generations living thru that history.
The fall of Rome probably has ma
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Many have argued that this is the natural tendency of democracy. Plato ranked democracy as the second-worst type of government, inevitably degrading into tyranny [wikipedia.org]
And Winston Churchill said [richardlangworth.com]:
[emphasis added]
So who are you going to believe? huh?
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We are a representative republic. We have a constitution that the government must follow. The majority do *not* and should not have absolute power.
It might be a minority view that the government should follow the constitution, but it's not optional; it's mandatory. The NSA's mass surveillance must stop.
So don't repeat that "You're a minority, so deal with it." nonsense again, because it simply doesn't make sense.
Snowden was only the latest whistleblower... (Score:1)
Snowden was only the latest whistleblower...
There have been a half-dozen whistleblowers since 2002 regarding the extreme surveillance that this agency, and the dozens that have been formed since then, have been doing. Just Google the names, oh wait, don't do that! Anyho, Snowden, I'm sure, saw what happened to people who were actual officials in the agency. They went to jail. Personally, I think his actions showed he had no confidence in a lawful response from the US government. And that turned out to be tr
Damn NSA (Score:2)
I LIKE the idea of the NSA spying on foreigners, but when it spies on American Citizens--without warrants--it becomes a vile and despicable organization that can and should be fully defunded.
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As someone who cares about freedom and privacy, I don't support mass surveillance of any form, regardless of whether it's used against foreigners or not. I just think that we should have standards before we're allowed to spy on someone.
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You're absolutely right. Only in utopias do the concepts of standards and limited government exist.
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I still post under the same user name. You replied to someone else under the foolish assumption that nobody else could hold views that might be considered similar to my own in some fashion despite the fact that tens of millions of Americans hold similar views.
I find your little hateful rants a source of amusement, a demonstration of your impotent rage, and proof of your hatred of pluralism and democratic principles. Of course I do leave open the possibility that you are simply unmedicated.
Do you get how Snowden's way was the only way? (Score:2)
Internal complaints just got buried.
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Absolute right of Kings went out with King John. The NSA are not the US, only part of it, and should not have unquestionable power.
He didn't give information to foreign interests (Score:2)
As for other nations, if a civilian contractor in Hawaii has got hold of all this stuff you can bet that any other nation that can pay off a significant Las Vegas gambling debt or other way into to this sprawling mickey mous
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Legal != moral. Illegal != immoral. Why is this important? Because what is constitutional is not necessarily morally right. Mass surveillance is simply wrong, regardless of whether it's done to foreigners or not. You might not care about morality, but I do. I thank Snowden for leaking everything.
that is treason.
What material support has he provided? You'll find that our constitution's definition of treason is far too narrow for it to be applied to someone like Snowden. You're really pushing it here.
But that is not Washington... (Score:1)
As usual, the Democrats and the President are NOT part of the Washington establishment (that is to blame for this) and so this can't be blamed on them. They have campaigned against this (even last week). You should probably look to the Republicans to blame.
A Minor Correction (Score:2)
"An anonymous reader sends this report from the Associated Press..."
"A reader who thinks he's anonymous sends this report from the Associated Press..."
There...fixed that for you. ;-)
NSA concerned over domestic surveillance program? (Score:1)
Retrospective ass covering by the management at NSA. What were the names of these top NSA officials. What was t
But what abolut the MTSOs? (Score:2)