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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. "
A lot more info on this subject, including a transcript of the interview of Russell Tice by Amy Goodman, can be found here.
From the interview:
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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.
It doesn't bother me that they want to wiretap suspected terrorists, but why the no-warrant stuff? Can't they just get a classified warrant? I wouldn't care at all except that they appear to be going around the law that I had thought applied to everyone. I guess it applies to everyone except for enemies of the state, or anyone that is unfortunate enough to be flagged as one. For instance, that professor corresponding with his friend in the Phillipines that had his mail opened, read and re-sealed. Isnt' that a federal offense?
stuff |
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
This is probably the number one commandment of the SIGINT Ten Commandments as a SIGINT officer. You will not spy on Americans.
Intelligence agencies instilling moral values in their agents. What will they think of next?
May the Maths Be with you!
I think that the only way to get to the bottom of such serious allegations is to investigate the evidence. Perhaps if we could secretly intercept the communications between the administration and the NSA we might find out what is really going on.
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing." According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.
It can be argued that people who don't want to have their conversations monitored will not use keywords such as these that tip off the eavesdroppers or technology that recognizes them.
And conversely, people may use meaningless conversations with many keywords to delay the processing of these investigations.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Perhaps you can enlighten us. What classified information has Mr. Tice revealed?
American citizens were spied on without warrant all the time!
"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing."
.mp3s 'illegally'.
I'm not defending the intelligence community's tactis, per se, Americans deserve to know why warrants weren't requested.
OTOH, if all they were doing is looking for jihadists, then I'm not going to march on Washington just yet. I'm concerned about the word 'terrorist' being expanded to include people who smoke weed, bitch about the government, and download
We need to clean up the process, or if there is some classified reason why warrants just could not be requested...well, that needs to be declassified, explained, and reviewed by the media, congress, etc.
Thank you Dave Raggett
They may be illegally listening to average americans, but that's illegal as a technicality.
Bullshit. It's either legal or illegal. The phrase 'illegal as a technicality' makes about as much sense as 'pregnant as a technicality'.
If you're listened to by the NSA, who cares really?
I CARE. I have a fundamental right to privacy, like every other American citizen. The argument of 'if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear' is a recipe for oppression.
YOU'RE NOT THEIR TARGET
Not yet, anyway...
It's illegality on a technicality like sharing music with friends so they can go buy their own copy of a CD. Not immoral and not reprehensible.
Really? I think the RIAA might take issue with you on that. What a perfect refutation of your entire argument.
____
~ |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
Nothing was stopping Bush from doing this in a legal manner. NOTHING.
Bush, during campaign 2004 repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing, even with the mis-named Patriot Act in place.
Bush Logic: Since the Terorrists hate our freedoms, perhaps we should take away the freedom of Americans. That will show that Bin Laden.
Bush, worst president in US History.
How do you know they are after them and not us? How do you know where they draw the line between them and us? If they say they are not allowed to do something, but then you find out they were doing it some of the time anyway, how can you really be comfortable that they are not targetting you?
Mark my words, this will turn into a constitutional crisis, especially if Bush and Chaney are not impeached for their wrongdoing. What we have is not, as Chaney put it, a strengthing of the executive branch. This is a takeover of the democratic process itself. The president is acting as a dictator by being above the law. I have already written all my representatives on this matter, and I recommend that if you feel strongly that your rights were violated (either directly through spying, or indirectly by the violation of constitutional laws), you should also write your representatives. Oh, and the argument by Bush that he is protecting the homeland is hogwash, especially if you believe him when he took the oath of the presidency to "protect the constitution". If he truely is protecting the homeland, he must uphold his oath of the presidency and protect the constitution. By protecting the constitution, I mean also that he must abide by the constitution and it's laws.
> > The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him.
> Psychological concerns like, say, his inability to keep a secret?
More likely psychological concerns like respect for the rule of law.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A "whistleblower," under Federal law, is someone who, whilst still employed at the offending agency/company, brings illegal action to the attention of internal resources, the point being to remedy the problem. They then are protected from negative action being taken against them, since their intention is to help the organization improve and ferret out evil-doers. The point is not to throw the issue to the sharks in the media AFTER being fired. That's vindictive, not constructive.
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
I don't think anyone really cares who the targets are or that the wiretaps are occuring. The problem is they are doing it without Judicial oversite and that is a big problem. It is one thing to wiretap a american it is yet another to do so without the checks and balances provided by the judicial system.
Got Code?
What makes all of this so much more painful to me is that the old intelligence system was turning up the information required. Terrorists were nabbed at the borders, and so on. The New York bombings were on the radar. It wasn't a lack of information that was the problem, it was a lack of analysis. How does taping a hundred, a thousand, a million more telephone conversations help? All of this information has to be mined, but each extraction that is not related to the criminal case comes at the expense of someone's rights.
We HAD a system that was balancing individual rights with the need for surveillance*, it was working in the sense that good information was being found without tapping one phone in 300.
Now, the barn is on fire and everyone seems to want to spray water on the house.
*Need for surveillance -- I'm not convinced that the level of big brother spying conducted before the attacks was warranted. Frankly, the FISA courts scare the hell out of me. I don't like secret warrants more than gag orders or secret laws. I was willing to accept them -- part of the great compromise of democracy -- but they look like they were the slippery slope to today.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
"I have a fundamental right to privacy, like every other American citizen."
Careful. The word "privacy" appears exactly zero times in the Constitution of the United States of America. Though the courts have established this right through legal precedent, these court decisions can be changed (see Dred Scott, et al). The right to privacy in the U.S.A. is hardly "fundamental."
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
"THEY ARE NOT AFTER *YOU* is the main thing to remember" While this may be true at the moment it may not be true in the future. You are assuming that government will always be benign and that you will not take a political stance against any non benign government. Governments especially in times of crisis can change for the worse. How would you oppose a non benign government which has advanced tools which peer into every aspect of your life. Dissenters can be rapidly targeted and removed with ease, freedom of speech won't save you in that situation. You only have to look at history to see how many times bad political changes have happened in the past and that was before governments had such powerful tools to potentially supress people.
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)
Tracing calls inbound or outbound to known terrorist phone numbers, in itself is probable-cause, no?
I'd say it is. I don't think anyone would disagree. Either you're intentionally missing the point in order to troll or you're just ignorant.
The point is the NSA needs A WARRANT to do the tap. Hell, FISA lets them get a retroactive warrant for up to 72 hours after the fact. What is stopping Bush & Co. from getting a warrant from a secret court that has never denied a single warrant application in all of 2004? Its very likely that they had no probable cause to monitor these people.
Just another non-issue.
Apparently the 4th amendment is a "non-issue".
SIGINT officer? Do they also have SIGHUP officer? ... :-)
Well, as long as they don't send you a SIGKILL officer
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
matter of choice.
What choices we do make is what will define us as a people.
Some people are making bad choices and hurting and killing other people by the tens of thousands, some people are hurting far many more but killing far fewer.
I resent the fact that the president just couldn't be bothered to go and get the legal authorization 'post-facto'; perhaps because there was no authorization or justification to be granted; in which case he is a more paranoid bastard than Nixon ever was and doesn't deserve to finish his term in office (but the alternative is the veep? Would we really trust him?)
The alternative would be worse unless we would watch him like hawks.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The FISA court denied a total of 4 requests betwen 1979 and 2004, out of thousands. The could have gotten the wiretap order if the wiretap was done for legitimate reasons, or on a person they could reasonably suspect. If it was emergency, they could apply up to 72 hours after the beginning of the surveillance.
There's no valid reason to have done things like this. Orders were clearly legally required, and if they weren't obtainable for some reason, the Bush administration should have sought changes to the law, not ignored the law. That's not how the US works. And since you want to make this a Democat/Republican issue, when did the GOP become the party of violating the law whenever it wants to, without any expectation of punishment? Do you think because Bush is a Republican, he gets the power to just decide he doesn't need to follow a given law if it suits him? I know you'd be howling if Clinton had done the same thing (and don't say he did, because the single thing you can legitimately point to in that regard [the Ames case], was a physical intrusion that wasn't covered by FISA till 1995).
If there is probable cause, there's no issue with going through a court. If the NSA was going through a court for warrants like they should, that provides judicial oversight of the executive branch, a necessary check-and-balance. If the NSA can do whatever the fuck they like, our government lacks transparency and there is no balance of powers -- facism results, as we can readily see. It doesn't matter *who* is being watched, or why. What matters is that we Americans are being spied upon on a widespread basis without warrants, which is a fundamental violation of the rights of all Americans. Terrorism itself is the a non-issue. One major terrorist attack, five years ago, killed almost 3000. Aspirin kills over 10000 people yearly by painful hemmoraging stomach ulcers, and no one even gives a shit. We should be focusing on real problems, real threats to American lives, rather than swallowing the bullshit propaganda our government and media systems alike publish.
Kidding aside, the overriding principle of intelligence in the U.S. used to be "Speak truth to power," once upon a time. The bending of those agencies' souls in the run-up to Iraq is terrifying to anyone who remembers the elder Bush's term at the CIA. George H.W. Bush didn't preside over an agency whose sole purpose was to buttress decisions already made by "instinct."
"Intelligence" groups do have their principles. They aren't what you'd call morality, exactly, but when they're distorted it ain't any good at all.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Whether it is or not is a determination to be made by a court, not an instrument of the executive branch or the Chief Executive himself. If the Adminstration cannot be bothered to even go through the motions of using the FSIA Court where warrants are virtually never turned down, and can be sometimes asked for AFTER an intercept in emergent cirucmstances, then the Adminstration must view itself as beyond the scope of the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures. This is dangerous, unprecedented and should not be tolerated.
Under our system of justice, the ends (i.e., you're talking to Al Quaeda, so the government should listen) do not justify the means (i.e., let's not get a warrant, let's just listen). This fundammental concept is twice enshrined in our Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
On a very basic level this clause reflects a judgment that when the government wishes to act in certain ways, it must follow certain procedures; that is, provide an accused with what has been called "Due Process of Law." Sometimes the question of the extent of what process is due can be hotly debated. There is no debate, however, that the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures requrires that the police obtain a warrant from a judicial officer before such a search can take place. The Adminsitration no doubt is aware of this, but has chosen to ignore it.
It also ignores (not just here, but in other instances) that the Constitution regards the "process," of justice is so important, that in cases where the government fails to give an accused Due Process and obtains evidence in defiance of the accused's Constitutional rights, such evidence will not be allowed to be used in the prosecution (the "Exclusionary Rule"). Again, the administration ignores this judgment by our Constitutional Founders (which makes W's insitance on "Strict Constructionists" for the SCOTUS somewhat hilariously ironic) that individual guilty men may, in fact, go free, to protect the integrity of the system and insure that the executive respects the law it is charged to enforce. The is supposed to serve as a deterrent to instruments of the executive (police, FBI, etc.) to follow the system of checks and balances by, for example, asking a judicial officer for a warrant before (of, in the case of the FSIA, sometimes even after) executing a Fourth Amendment search.
Bush Lies On the Record.
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.
"Disbelieve whatever the President says and believe whatever his enemies say"
That's the trouble when you lie sometimes. Not only do people disbelieve you all the time, they start believing your enemies. Which is why its a bad idea to lie in the long run.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Who went after CUM stains on a dress rather than Bin Laden?
Is it too much to ask to have a 'smart' guy running the free world?
And quit blaming Clinton for Bush's solid performance as Village Idiot.
You do NOT own the information on who bought item X.
You, being the vendor, have more limited privacy rights than I as the private customer do.
Again, look at the vendors and the private customers.
Comcast is a public vendor so they don't own the info on my connection.
Comcast does own the info that they were requested to connect to
&
but
neither of them own my name.
One of these wiretaps was able to stop a guy by the name of Iman Ferris who was plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
And he reported that there was no way they could do it -- there was too much security. And, btw, where's the evidence that this guy was caught via the wiretaps in question? He was arrested by NYC police, not by federal agents. And there appears to be no information about him beyond this one CNN transcript.
There's been absolutely no explanation for why Bush couldn't use the FISA court, just as it was intended to be used. Except that, for some reason, he doesn't think the 4th amendment applies. Despite repeated US Supreme Court rulings stating exactly the opposite thing.
BTW, there's absolutely no evidence that the FISA court is obstructing the Administration's requests. Just go look at the reports yourself.
2004 -- 1758 applied for, 3 withdrawn, 1 withdrawn and re-applied for, 1754 approved, 0 denied, 94 modified (don't ask me about the discrepency; it's in the report)
2003 -- 1727 applied for, 1724 approved, 4 denied, 1 re-approved after denial, 79 modified
2002 -- 1228 applied for, 1226 approved, 2 denied, 2 appealed and approved, none listed as modified
2001 -- 932 applied for, 934 approved (2 from December 2000), 2 modified
I didn't bother looking back further than that, since it's not relevant to Bush's post-9/11 activities. Which just makes his abridgement of the 4th amendment and SCOTUS rulings that much more questionable.
Man, I love that guy!
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.
Bush ... repeatedly told the American people he would never do such a thing...
And you expect a politician (of ANY party) to not do exactly the opposite of what he says, huh?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
Martin Niemoller on October 14, 1968:
"When Hitler attacked the Jews
I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the Catholics,
I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists,
I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned.
Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church --
and there was nobody left to be concerned."
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
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
I hold out little hope for that approach. I applied to the NSA for a job once. They sent me two letters, declining my offer. On both letters, they got my middle initial wrong, and it was on my fricking resumeact on it.
Argue with me that that's not a good enough reason to maintain privacy, and I'll be forced to report what my imaginary penguin told me about you to Homeland Security.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
- the worst President in U.S. history was that prevaricating fornicator Clinton...
- you know, the guy who gave Iran nuclear weapons designs?
- who launched inept cruise missile attacks into Afghanistan?
- who let that murdering Islamist terrorist Bin Laden go?
- who desecrated the Oval Office?
- Bush is protecting America, and it is my sincere hope that every one of those murdering Arabs gets an early chance to meet Allah
Clinton lied about his personal sex life, whereas Bush has lied about the treatment of prisoners, the justification for a war that's digging us deep into debt and killing many fine Americans and countless Iraqi civillians, and about spying on Americans. He also lied about the cost of his prescription drug plan handout to his pharmaceutical donors, has repeatedly supported legislation to curtail the freedoms and privacy of Americans, raised the national debt by a third, and has alienated all of America's allies with unilateral "my way or the highway" policies.
Clinton's poisoned nuclear weapons plan idea was foolish as was letting bin Laden go. I'll give you that. He did at least pay attention to al Qaeda afterwards and did try to get Bush to pay attention, but Bush and Rumsfield were too wrapped up in the post-Cold War Pentagon obsession with China as the next big thing (hence all that missle defense nonsense and posturing over the spy plane). You, however, can't say that Bush's handling of North Korea was much better when he labelled them part of the Axis of Evil which prompted them to expel inspectors and start building nuclear weapons. Nor can you really say that the Iraq was has been a crashing success in lowering the amount of terrorism around the world or for getting people to unite behind US leadership. Nor can you really say much for the neglect of the Israel-Palestine situation.
As for the "desecration" of the Oval Office, which President has eroded the credibility of the US when we say that we don't torture people. Hell, which President has made it so that we have to tell people that we don't torture. Which President is burned in effigy wherever he goes? You want to talk about descrating the US, you should focus on Bush.
Oh, and yeah, Bush is doing such a great job of protecting Americans. I feel much safer travelling abroad than I would've under Clinton.
A "whistleblower," under Federal law, is someone who, whilst still employed at the offending agency/company, brings illegal action to the attention of internal resources...
Isn't that exactly what he's claiming to be? Didn't he claim that they hauled him in for a psychological evalution after he complained frequently about this being illegal, labelled him paranoid, and stripped him of his security clearance which prevents him from doing his job? According to him, when he complained, they took steps to proactively discredit him and effectively fired him.
The thing about whistleblower protection is that it is almost entirely enforced after an employer has taken punitive steps against an employee. It's like all other laws that way. You don't enforce them until they've been broken.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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.
(Boy, I'm gonna get flamed for my arrogance here, but damnit I do consider my nation, the United States of America, the single finest nation on earth)
That if I proclaim, "Give me liberty or give me death!" that I might be labeled as a threat to society or a terrorist...and I firmly believe that I would prefer death to a lack of liberty.
$NSA = "National Security Agency"; The NSA's job is to protect US National Security PERIOD! They have been in the intel biz for decades - this is nothing new. This was done with Congressional knowledge and approval. Certain people are "shocked" that this has occurred when in fact they were aware of this and past administrations have been doing the same if not much, much worse for decades. I am personally much more concerned about private companies abusing our privacy than the NSA. The vast majority of NSA staff are true patriots and are doing their best to protect us from the scum that are planning to smuggle and detonate nuclear weapons in the heart of our cities. This is serious people. Please wake up! There are people that hate us so much they want to utterly destroy us and our friends and allies and there is nothing anyone can do to get them to change their minds. These terrorists are NAZIs and they will attack us at every opportunity they get. This has nothing to do with anything we may or may not have done or our foreign policy or anything like that. There are a lot of evil people on this planet that wish to destroy us - this is a fact that we much accept. Terrorists cannot be reasoned with. If you give a terrorist an inch they will take a mile and more! We cannot give them what they want. They will never stop. Iran is already 0-48 months away from having 40-100 nuclear warheads and have been supporting terrorism for decades. Iran has already publicly declared they intend to destroy the US, Israel and Europe. This is not an empty threat, they are perfectly serious about it. Unless we do something to stop them the next 9/11 will certainly be a nuclear one. The free world needs to unite and defeat terrorists and terrorist states once and for all. You cannot appease terrorists or terrorist nations. The world is a mess and someone has to do something about it! Iran, North Korea, Syria and Lebanon need to be cleaned up, among others. Please stop playing politics with our national security! All parties need to grow up and stop playing politics with our national security! If certain people wish to hate the current administration that's their prerogative but if they compromise national security in the process then they deserve to pay the price. Live long and prosper!
Okay. You think these powers are so great and required, so surely you won't mind if President Hillary Clinton (or any Democratic President) uses them, right?
It might be more accurate and helpful if we always refer to it as the "PATRIOT Act" to call attention to the fact that the name is an acronym. It at least encourages people to remember that it's an arbitrary set of letters designed to politically shield the Act from discussion. Are you going to argue against the "Patriot" Act? Are you not a Patriot?
"Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism": What are these tools? Any tool is innocent, but many can be put to good or bad use.
Heck, might as well propose the "PUPPY" Act (Put all Urban People Permanently in Yugoslovia) and see who complains. You're not against puppies, are you?
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."
Additionally, the U.S. is in a legal state of war. There is no formal procedure or document required to create this condition and there never has been.
I have no idea where you get your information from. The last "legal state of war" the U.S. has been in was World War 2. As Congress never declared war, I'm afraid this assertion is patently false. Consequently, any wartime powers conferred on the executive are irrelevant and inapplicable.
Any other absurd right-wing talking points you want me to debunk?
Oh, Jeez.
The remark was clearly intended to describe how we have become, like the soviets were, a police state.
The only difference I ever saw between US Capitalism and Sovietism was in the US, the rich were powerful, and under the Soviets the powerful became rich.
All police states use the same techniques; I could have used the Nazis, instead, who used the same cry of "insanity" against those who spoke out against them, but I doubt the word "eugenics" would mean anything to a young person today.
Yes, the US has begun its intevitable trudge toward police-statism. I say inevitable because all empires when decline begins, use the same methods to try to keep control. Look to the British 100 years ago or to the Romans 1800 years ago if you want to see where we are headed.
I suspect you have a political agenda -- otherwise why try to refute my post? In that case, try these facts on for size:
Every elected president since the end of WWII except Carter has, in his first year, on the bad advice of the NSA and the intelligence community, has begun an adventurous and eventually disastrous war. Eisenhower invaded Guatemala; Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs; Johnson whipped the Dominican Republic into shape; Nixon found Cambodia inviting (and caused, indirectly, the genocide of the Kmer Rouge -- but that's another story); Ford was not elected; Carter was the sole exception, as I said; Reagan invaded Nicaragua; Bush One had Iraq; Clinton took a chance on Jugoslavia (Bechtel's VP of European operations died beside Trade Czar Ron Brown in the 199x crash approaching Sarajevo Airport), and Bush the Younger had Iraq, too.
So, if it is as it appears to be, how can you NOT call the US a police state? What other term so accurately describes unbridled federal executive power coupled with misuse of invesitigative (police) agencies?
You are such a coward that you disgust me. You will destroy everything that made this country great, the very Constitution that men fought and died for, because you're so scared of Osama Bin Laden. Read the words of a true American and a patriot in an editorial he wrote for the Miami Herald. Then maybe you can understand what it is to be an American:
AFTER 9/11
Fear destroys what bin Laden could not
ROBERT STEINBACK
One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.
Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat - - and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.
If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.
If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy.
That's no America I know, I would have argued. We're too strong, and we've been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.
What is there to say now?
All of these things have happened. And yet a large portion of this country appears more concerned that saying "Happy Holidays' could be a disguised attack on Christianity.
I evidently have a lot poorer insight regarding America's character than I once believed, because I would have expected such actions to provoke -- speaking metaphorically now -- mobs with pitchforks and torches at the White House gate. I would have expected proud defiance of anyone who would suggest that a mere terrorist threat could send this country into spasms of despair and fright so profound that we'd follow a leader who considers the law a nuisance and perfidy a privilege.
Never would I have expected this nation -- which emerged stronger from a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars, endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign in Southeast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principles of liberty -- would cower behind anyone just for promising to "protect us."
President Bush recently confirmed that he has authorized wiretaps against U.S. citizens on at least 30 occasions and said he'll continue doing it. His justification? He, as president -- or is that king? -- has a right to disregard any law, constitutional tenet or congressional mandate to protect the American people.
Is that America's highest goal -- preventing another terrorist attack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more important than this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written, "What's wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects me from death?"
Bush would have us excuse his administration's excesses in deference to the "war on terror" -- a war, it should be pointed out, that can never end. Terrorism is a tactic, an eventuality, not an opposition army or rogue nation. If we caught every person guilty of a terrorist act, we st
" Really? And it's not just as contemptuous to make up your mind about legality without case law to support you? (no, the 72 Nixon decision isn't conclusive and only partially applies because it didn't cover international suspects)"
I'm not as hip to the legal system as you are. I thought the stuff from the legislature would be good enough.
"Or, does the fact that it's Bush make it ok for you to ignore the courts and make up your own mind?"
You know what? You are right. Maybe I am a little biased against Bush. I think you are biased for Bush, and giving him a pass on an obvious mistake.
Well, since we are at a disagreement, and there is no established case law, surely you are in support of an impeachment to decide whether or not the President broke the law?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Is it war? How is it war?
No longer do we hear our leaders cry "Give me liberty or give me death!". Instead we hear only the quiet, secretive mumbling of career bureaucrats speaking to too-often-reelected officials in the halls of Washington, D.C., trading rights for goods. In Congress, men concerned only with maintaining their small piece of turf in the political landscape are fast becoming the creators of a new era, an era of suppression.
How long before these men too fall under the unrelenting purview of the intelligence machine? Or have they fallen already without our knowledge? How many have been compromised by information gathered surreptitiously and illegally? "Vote against this bill and your mistresses will be revealed." "Leave this unchanged or you will lose your Maryland home." "We know what your son did and we have the proof. Do what we want or he will go to jail." The mind boggles at the possibilities. Does anyone doubt this happening now?
Never forget that the first action that allowed Hitler to take dictatorial powers "above the law" was the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933 that was blamed on Communist terrorists, but perpetrated by the Nazi party. History has a way of repeating itself.
The Reichstag Fire Decree read: "Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Empire are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [ habeas corpus ], freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed." Sound familiar?
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
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.
The War on (some) Terror is no more a "war" than the War on Poverty or the War on (some) Drugs.
Better that hundreds of innocent people should be tortured than one guilty person go free, eh? Especially morons who want to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. It never ceases to amaze me how many people repeat the insipid argument that the drafters of the Geneva Conventions could not have foreseen non-state threats. Does the "Black Hand" ring a bell? Any assassinated royalty leading to wars? Any monarchies falling to internal coups, linked perhaps to international conspiracies?Terrorism is not new, Europe has dealt with its modern incarnation for decades. Britain dealt with the IRA without invading Boston.
In World War II, Germany did treat allied POWs better than eastern front POWs, because of a concern about how German POWs would be treated. The important issue that you're missing here, though, is that humane treatment of prisoners is morally correct.
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