The Future of Tech And NSA Wiretaps

Tyler Too writes "Is there more to last week's story about President Bush authorizing wiretaps without court review? Ars Technica writes about what's going on behind the curtains with the National Security Agency's technology: 'When the truth comes out (if it ever does), this NSA wiretapping story will almost certainly be a story not just about the Constitutional concept of the separation of powers, but about high technology.'"

Comments

Re:Kein Problem

[peculiarmethod]

"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."

George W Bush
April 20, 2004

Here is his full statement from that day:

http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2004/Apr/21-381 579.html

Impeachment proceedings forthcoming?

[jlowery]

If the Dems manage to gain back a majority in the house next election, I would think they would be obliged to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush. It would have a lot more validity than the impeachment of Clinton, and they would look like wimps if they didn't.

Re:Nothing new here... move along.

[Sebastopol]

Except that Bush lied about it to the American public. From the whitehouse website via salon.com:

[["Now, by the way," he said, "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."

That certainly seems to be different from what Bush is saying now -- that over the past three years, he has authorized and repeatedly reauthorized the "interception" of communications without warrants.]]

Re:About the tapping itself...

[timeOday]

I wish you hadn't been modded troll, because I don't think you're trolling. But when you say RTFA which article should I read? It would help if you included links and relevant quotes.

So far I have listened carefully for any rational justification from the Bush administration, and the ONLY thing I've heard is vague assurances that "I've got the authority to do this; it is a necessary part of my job to protect you; and we're guarding your civil liberties." And some bogeyman story from Cheney that the measures "saved thousands of lives." I'm sorry if you take this as partisan, but this administration doesn't have the credibility to make unsubstantiated claims like that any more.

What I'm eagerly awaiting is some rational explanation of why the President thought he had the legal right to do this. If he can present a plausible argument, the next step would be to pass a new law to convince him otherwise. But if he clings to the vague notion that wartime places him above the law, what is to be done?

Big Brother Bush

[Philip K Dickhead]

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/12/big-brother-b ush.html

The answer to the mystery of the NSA snooping scandal - why did they break the law when it was so ludicrously easy to get FISA warrants? - appears to be developing: they weren't just wiretapping, they were data mining. They were using Echelon to 'Able Danger' the whole country (this is Poindexter's Total Information Awareness, which is supposedly dead, in action). The problem is that FISA was enacted prior to the current capability for data mining, and didn't anticipate how ubiquitous it could be. The reason they couldn't use FISA is that they would have had to obtain a FISA warrant for every person in the country. Data mining requires that you follow each link discovered by your snooping, and wouldn't work if it had to be subjected to FISA or the Constitution. The NYT article, now being spun as resisted by the Bush Administration (as if the NYT would publish anything without Rove's say-so), appears to itself be part of the spinning, a limited hang-out to cover up the bigger scandal.

Re:You'd already be dead

[niktemadur]

Isn't that what happens to any conservative speaker who visits a college campus these days? Maybe you should ask Ann Coulter. I'm sure you don't agree with what she says, but doesn't she have a right to say it?

Ann Coulter spews hate-filled tirades on an almost daily basis in her widespread column and in her countless network appearances, so she can hardly be considered an oppressed voice crying out in the wilderness. In one of her college stand-up routines, many students stood up and left the hall, prompting Coulter to yell: "Yeah, that's right, leave! The anal sex classes are just down the hall!" That's a little one-liner that would have made the brownshirts proud.

If GWB was half as bad as you make yourself believe he is, you'd already be dead. Michael Moore would be thin...in line for the "Showers" at Bush's Death Camps in West Texas.

No, but under gwb and his executive orders, his government has the power to detain you indefinitely without legal representation and even to outsource you to one of a prision in Guantanamo, Syria, Egypt, Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Pakistan and various other countries in Africa and Asia; hey, now that is one distinguished list!

So until we have forced labor camps and we're filling gas chambers daily, I suggest you rethink your position and keep your mouth shut.

And

So, go ahead, join what's left of the Taliban if that is what your truly belive.

Wow, spoken like a true west texas brownshirt.

Once we have forced labor camps and we're filling gas chamber daily, it's already too late by several years, OBVIOUSLY.

What has happened in every country whose population has allowed its' government to take away its' freedoms for the sake of the illusion of a little safety is that eventually that population loses its' freedom with no benefit of safety. History only repeats itself over and over again because of ignorance. Vincible ignorance. Lazy ignorance. Mediocre ignorance. Ignorance creating fear, and this combination in turn creates a soul-destroying hatred which makes it impossible for meaningful analysis and discussion to take place.

Fortunately, the United States of America on the basis of an incredibly resilient document called The Constitution which cannot be destroyed overnight. But it can be destroyed with some time, a dash of power-crazed corporate whores, and a whole lot of ignorance from the population.

Oh, and speaking of ignorance, the Taliban controls around half of Afghanistan. The other half, the so-called good guys, the Northern Alliance (did you know that's their name, the Northern Alliance?), has in the past four years overseen the biggest bumper crops of opium in Afghanistan's history, most of it exported to Europe and Northern America. Right under the gun barrels of what's left of United States troops in the region.