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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. "
In fact, there are commercially available engines out there that anyone can buy. Check out Collexis, which also has demos 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 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.
My work here is dung.
A recent study (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 - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
Can't they just get a classified warrant?
There's a good explanation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court here, as well as more information on George W. illegally bypassing said court here.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Famous last words of the ignorant masses.
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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)
The problem is that you won't have any real "evidence" until after the terrorist act is committed and people are dead.
Just like we had no evidence before 9/11.
Oh wait...we did.
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.
That is the worst possible example you could have used to support your case. Iman Ferris' phone was tapped with a warrant from FISA. They already had evidence that he was an Al-Queda operative before he even entered the country.
Let me propose a different scenario that might help you understand the detriment of the "You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide" mentality. Hypothetical Fast forward a couple years. The government has installed automatic road monitoring devices that can track when people are speeding and where they are going, no problem, you don't have anything to worry about, just don't speed. No problem. The government also required all new cars to have road monitoring software, which just so happens to contain a killswitch for law enforcement, that will disable your car if need be, Great!, now if someone steals my car, law enforcement can just disable it, this will protect people! A year later, you're sitting with your wife in your living room, watching reruns of Fox News, feeling great about your police-state-protected suburban life, you look over and your wife is grasping at her chest, unable to breathe. She's having a heart attack. 911 service in your area is bogged down / inefective (problem exists today in some areas) so you need to rush your wife to a hospital yourself. You get her to the car, jump in, and start racing down the road. You get a mile down the road, and the automatic road monitoring system flags you as a speeder, and uses the the software in your car to correct your speed, causing you to go the speed limit. Your wife is dieing, so you continue to force the pedal down. No luck, you can't get your car over the speed limit. Your wife dies on the way. Or maybe the road-side monitors just shut your car off the first time.. and your wife died. Or maybe it just alerted a nearby officer, who pulled you over for speeding and didn't listen to you when you tried to explain yourself.. and your wife died. You are'nt a criminal, you have nothing to fear, except not bieng able to take matters into your own hands because they've been tied behind your back.
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
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.
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 in the desert. I think they tracked in on his cell phone as he used it and used the attack drone to drop an anti-tank rocket (Hellfire missile?) on his car (as far as i recall not much was left of the car).
Yours Yazeran
Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.
Here's an actual quote:
0 040420-2.html
"[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/2004/04/2
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
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
And here's an interview 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).
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
In other countries, they're taking personal information much more seriously.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).Why not? Our country was founded on such idealism.They have it, but it is not their's.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.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.
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
"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."
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 forbidden. If we did so inadvertently, we were required to destroy all such records and file a report detailing the circumstances, though not the content.
This was all codified in an "executive order" which was, ironically, signed by Richard Nixon. My best googling efforts have come up dry, but I'll bet someone here can find it. The definition of "United States persons" is easier to find and essentially means: a U.S. citizen located anywhere or anyone who is currently located in the U.S., regardless of citizenship. Our reporting requirements were strictly defined by exacting criteria and little was left to chance or personal judgement.
The whistle blower sounds like the real deal to me.
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
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.
Umm, I didn't say the "gov't is evil". If you have seen around before you'll see that I've adopted the same "We are the government" attitude. I was just pointing out the fact that information is a double edged sword and that Government (of all levels) has managed to secure the right to use that information against you.
The credit report example I can almost see. But I find it absolutely disgusting that my medical insurance provider can be forced to turn over records about me to law enforcement. They can't force my doctor to break his privilege but they can get it via the insurance company? That's just wrong.
So, yes, the Government is you and me. You, me and millions of uninformed people that don't know or care to know about stuff like this. That's the only place that my disillusionment creeps in -- and I'm the write my Congresscritter and vote type. Not that it really even matters, seeing as how the number of competitive Congressional districts is numbered in the low dozens. *Sigh*
Oh, and if you want to put all of your medical information into a biometric database then that's your right. I'll be happy with my medalert bracelet that lists my allergies and has contact information for my main doctor. I don't want my information floating around in a global database that I have no control over. But just give it time -- soon I won't even have the right to make that decision for myself either. Just like I don't have the right to decline a social security number.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.