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NSA Had Domestic Call Monitoring Before 9/11?
MarkusQ writes "Bloomberg is reporting that, according to documents filed in the breach of privacy suit on behalf of Verizon and BellSouth, the NSA asked AT&T to set up its domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Could it be that they were intending to monitor domestic calls (and internet traffic) all along, and the 'Global War on Terror' was just a convenient excuse when they got caught?" From the article: "...an unnamed former employee of the AT&T unit provided them with evidence that the NSA approached the carrier with the proposed plan. Afran said he has seen the worker's log book and independently confirmed the source's participation in the project. He declined to identify the employee."
According to the UN. You know, that international body that the US blatently ignored when they invaded Iraq because those double-u em dee's were such a threat... oh right, what weapons were those again??
Iraq war illegal, says Annan
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> Illegal according to what law? You know that when they are attacking other countries they are not required to obey the laws in that country.
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Invading another country, when not in self-defense, is a war crime ("supreme crime"),
by the Geneva conventions, and USA has signed those and are bound by them. War crimes
carries the death penality in USA. As an invader you are also required to follow
local laws, with some exceptions. Of course, the invader may make new laws, but they
may be illegal as well. Instituting new laws in order to loot Iraq is not legal, and
you might have noticed oil companies reluctance to invest there...
Notice how the Bush Administration tries to avoid beeing persecuted for war crimes:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemI
...Welcome to the world of ECHELON, the world-wide surveillance system.
The EU recommends European citizens use cryptography in all communications to protect them from commercial theft and invasion of privacy, of which ECHELON is suspected of doing. But this advice really applies to everyone, as UK intercepts communications on behalf of the US, and visa versa, to avoid the constitutionally illegal act of spying on ones own citizens, although this in itself has recently emerged as a bit of a legal grey-area.
> Do you honestly think that the Hague would indict an American for war crimes?
They may very well do so.
> And even if Bush were indicted, do you really think that anyone would try
> arresting him when the Marines would immediately be sent in to kick ass and
> retrieve the president?
It's unlikely that they'll indict while Bush and his croonies while he is in
office, but hey, there is no limit of stature for War Crimes. Note that the Bush
Administration has bullied many states into agreements of not delivering US citizens
(officials only?) to the International Court in Hague. This is an attempt to protect
themselves from persecution of their war crimes.
Do you remember Admiral Poindexter's Total Information Awareness proposal that came out shortly after 9/11? A gigantic database that aggregated all available electronic information on US citizens -- financial and credit card records, grocery store shopper cards, movie rentals, library books, maybe even medical records? And how people raised such a stink that congress cut off funding for it?
Well, guess what. It's still up and running.. It simply moved over to the pentagon, that's all.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
They already knew Iraq had sarin and other ancient pre-1991 WMD's because the US gave Saddam these weapons. A certain photograph of Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands comes to mind. There was a concerted effort a couple of weeks ago by Republicans in Congress to promote these ancient and non-functional weapons as "OMG the WMD's! Take that liberals!!"
It is an important but often overlooked fact that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were planned before 9/11.
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http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.a
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/15503
http://www.sundayherald.com/39221
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
If you're referring to the cache Hoekstra and Santorum have been parading in front of the news services, they were known about and listed on intelligence reports back in 2003. They were degraded beyond the possibility of use even back then.
rawstory
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Because its not really 'domestic' spying, in the form of listening to conversations between two people in the United States. It is monitoring the phone conversations in which one person is in the US and other out. As such, a domestic terrorist attack (in which both parties are in the US) would not be affected by such surveillence. Now there are accusations that the NSA also listens in to domestic to domestic calls (or the FBI, I suppose they would have the jurisdiction), but that was not part of the program leaked last year and there is no more evidence that it exists than there is evidence that the US has an alien flying saucer in Area 51.
"Anyway, 'terrorism' (both domestic and Islamic) weren't a significant problem before 9-11 and they aren't a significant problem today, despite what the 6 o'clock news wants you to believe."
Much of that is because the government actively combats terrorism. If you don't think terrorism can possibly amount to any more than an insignificant number of deaths, get out from under the rock you are living under and take a look at countries like Isreal or Iraq. There terrorism is a constant problem.
Yes, there will always be more people dying of natural deaths due the the inescapable fact that humans are mortal. But I would much prefer that people liven long enough to be allowed to die of something like cancer.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
And no, you cannot argue that old, non-functioning weapons are the same as functional weapons. That is just inane. Did you even read the linked article?
The naturally occuring "false positives" would eat up the budget for the program (under any sane spending plan).
With almost 300 million people
1% false positives mean 3 million people investigated (and the people they know)
0.1% means 300,000 people investigated (and the people they know).
0.01% means 30,000 people investigated (and the people they know).
Now, even if you limit each investigation to just that person and the 5 closest people to him/her
Spying does not work randomly.
Bush is "trying to protect us from mass murderers", when he responds to the Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" with the words "All right, you've covered your ass, now" and went fishing on his Texas estate?
No, he's attacking us while leaving us undefended, while Bush worshippers like you cover his ass.
Like when you lie about FISA, the law that prohibits Bush from wiretapping any call including a US person without a court order. Which he did, which he continues to do, which he has publicly insisted he will do - all in violation of the law. The law, BTW, that was passed after Rumsfeld, Cheney and their cronies spied on us in their first attack, during the Nixon administration, then made stronger by Clinton in the 1990s, to cover physical searches as well as wiretaps.
I've been watching this gang since the early 1970s. I watched them wage covert war in Iran/Contra in the 1980s. And I've watched them move from the fringes of the government to a takeover of all the branches. And I've watched people like you hurl lies to cover their attacks on our country. But I don't watch silently, and I don't think it's a joke. Because it's not funny.
--
make install -not war
Why do you assume he's so incompetent? Because of Iraq? They're building permanent bases there now. The growing civil war ensures that the current Iraqi contractor heaven continues for all forseable future. Was it 10 more years they said? It's all going as planned.
Ignoring security warnings? Google for "you covered your ass". They didn't ignore anything.
Because he talks funny? See this. And this.
Treason is only a captial offence in time of war.
True.
But it's not a matter of a declared war, but a de facto state of war. And Bush likes to call himself a "war president", by which he means he is a president with extraodinary powers. But who are we at war with? It's hard to draw the exact boundaries, but one thing is certain: no such boundaries can be drawn without including Al Qaeda.
So the question is, when did the de facto state of war with Al Qaeda start?
It's not clear that the attempted '93 bombing of the WTC was technically an Al Qaeda operation. But at the very least, we can say that bombing the US embassies in Dar El Salaam and Nairobi in 1998 were acts of war. The '98 bombings showed the Al Qaeda trademark of simultaneous attacks that we'd see again on 9/11.
So, in 1998 Al Qaeda undoubtedly commited an act of war against us. Furthermore, if the Bush administration had evidence showing that in the following three years Al Qaeda had been preparing a larger follow on attack on US soil, this evidence would automatically establish that the de facto state of war continued to exist.
Therefore, if the administration knew about 9/11 and chose to allow it to go forward, it would constitute an act of treason in war time.
So -- prove your case, and you'll have your capital case. No need to apply to international bodies. In any case the Europeans aren't as enthusiastic as we are about putting people to death.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm pretty sure the most common reason people kill each other (or themselves, or a combination) is somebody drunk being behind the wheel of a car.
...but I'm interpolating from other sources as well. Cheerful subject...
If you want to talk about murder instead of "accidental" causes, something like 40% of murders are due to arguments, often between family members or relatives or friends, murders commissioned in relation with another felony crime (theft, rape, etc) are about 25% of the total, and murders related to narcotics being around 8%. Lots of data here:
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html
"The human race's favorite method for being in control of the facts is to ignore them." -Celia Green
For those non-Brits who don't know who Tony Benn is:
He is a raving nutter and extreme leftie who was a minister under one of the most left wing government this country ever had and is best known for his support of Sinn Feinn, a mouthpiece organisation for Irish Republican terrorists and organised crime.
Tony Benn carries no weight with any political organisation or individual of any consequence, although he occasionally manages to get himself on television because producers can rely on him to say something provocative and/or stupid.
He may be old but he is certainly not wise and if he said "good morning" to me I'd check my watch. The man is widely regarded as an object of ridicule in the UK.
Is there any evidence from TFA that the Bush Administration ordered the NSA to do this?
How about the fact that Adm. Poindexter was appointed to do this? How about the Total Infromation Awareness Requests for Proposal under US DARPA, NSA, CIA etc? I read the proposals at the time.
Such evidence may appear in the future, but as of now, I don't think we can honestly assert that Bush ordered the NSA to monitor all domestic traffic.
The only shred of evidence to deny that Bush ordered this is the "Plausable Deniability" screen they constructed in the Whitehouse with Adm. Poindexter at the helm of the program. Honestly it was their highest priority. They had the Patriot Act full text written prior to 911. They had all of the RFP's out before 911! They were well on the way. To deny any of this is the height of ignorance. I know! I read the RFP's at the time! By the way, they were not secret! They may still be somewhere out there on the net.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Not at all. The US Constitution grants to Congress exclusively the power to declare war. It does not give them any option to delegate that authority, or shirk that responsibility. The *resolution* you refer to, to the extent it purports to delegate inalienable authority, is simply null and void under the Constitution.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You've hit on something there that I don't understand why we don't hear more often - a small risk of terrorism is part of the price of freedom.
100% certain? Hardly. Take off your tinfoil hat and quit accepting blogs as bible truth.