NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping

ma11achy was one of several readers to write about claims made by two former military intercept operators who worked for the NSA that "Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home." Ars Technica has a brief report as well, and reader net_shaman adds a link to Glenn Greenwald's opinion piece on the eavesdropping at Salon.

Comments

Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[daveschroeder]

...and reporting that I can't help but wonder has some political motivations, given the timing of its release.

That's not the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), and not related to foreign intelligence collection programs in that were in place in the United States. That's the NSA working in a foreign military operations theater, and is vastly different. These intercepts were happening in realtime and were focused on an area of military operations.

When working in the dynamic environment of an operations theater, it's difficult to make distinctions about what traffic should be monitored and when. That is not to say that US Persons should continue to be collected on after their status is known, even under these circumstances.

Additionally, we have to keep the actions of the individual vs the actions of the agency in mind. What individual intercept operators at times did with their capabilities does not necessarily represent organizational support for such actions. Individual intercept operators have misbehaved in this way forever. Does that make it right? Does that mean the organization "condones" it? Of course not. Did UCLA Medical Center support individuals looking up the medical records of Britney Spears and other celebrities, just because they were technically able to do so, and worked under the guise of UCLA Medical Center? Of course not. But these employees also need continuing access to such resources to do their jobs.

Further, "'all employees of the US government' should expect that their telephone conversations could be monitored as part of an effort to safeguard security and 'information assurance.'" The Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity, traditionally responsible for monitoring activity on government communication lines, is hampered by the increasing use of wireless-, (unofficial) internet-, and satellite-based communications devices for official business. The distinction about where and how such communication might occur can't easily be made, and thus often falls to NSA -- which should then make the appropriate determination as to the disposition of the communication and act accordingly. That can include conversations of an embarrassing or personal nature. These are all humans here, not robots. Yes, they are trained professionals. But they're still human, with all the foibles and flaws we all share.

A spokesman for General Hayden said, "At NSA, the law was followed assiduously. The notion that General Hayden sanctioned or tolerated illegalities of any sort is ridiculous on its face." Those of you who laugh at this comment and think you know everything about the illegality of NSA surveillance would be well served to educate yourselves a bit.

It's unfortunate that ABC misunderstands -- misrepresents? -- NSA operations with respect to a military theater during wartime as having anything to do with the so-called (and now defunct) "Terrorist Surveillance Program".

In fact, two separate "whistleblowers" came forward, separately. The allegations from both, independently, only dealt with endpoints in the Middle East. Once definitively identified as as US Person who is not military personnel, an employee or contractor of the US government, or covered by an active, individualized warrant, and the other end of the communication is also a US Person who doesn't meet any of these requirements, collection should cease.

But the failure to adhere to such longstanding law and policy does not mean that the organization at large condoned such behavior. And, lest we forget, "the intercepts helped identify possible terror planning in Iraq and saved American lives. 'IED's were disarmed before they exploded, that people who were intending to harm US forces were captured ahead of time,' Faulk said."

This is, again, how a few individuals

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[philspear]

When working in the dynamic environment of an operations theater, it's difficult to make distinctions about what traffic should be monitored and when. That is not to say that US Persons [wikipedia.org] should continue to be collected on after their status is known, even under these circumstances.

One wonders why Bush bothered to pledge that US citizens would never be spied on in the first place. It certainly sounds like something that's impossible to know until afterward. Did he intentionally lie to try to get us to forget about it, did he mean "intentionally," or did he just not realize how it worked?

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Jabbrwokk]

I wouldn't call it terrible reporting. It says right on the first page of the ABC article who was being eavesdropped on, specifically American soldiers, reporters and diplomatic personnel in Baghdad's "Green Zone."

However, I think more should be made of the fact that reporters were on the eavesdrop list. Journalists had to give up a lot of freedom of the press to be "embedded" in Iraq, the fact they were also eavesdropped on shows how tightly the government was trying to control the media message.

It's no wonder there's been less critical, fact-based reporting (not just opinions) of the war in Iraq than Gulf War I.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Galactic Dominator]

Maybe the timing has something to do with whistle blower protection. Seems likely that a whistle blower can have a bit more confidence coming forward after the current neo-brotherhood is removed from power. I'd also imagine an Obama administration would be more friendly to these whistle blowers but even McCain could use it show he's cleaning things up if so inclined.

I actually thought it was one of the better reporting jobs I've seen recently. They had two independent sources and discussed both sides of the issue including your reference to American lives saved. After watching the video and reading the article, I did not suffer from any confusion as to which program/agency was involved with this as you imply there is. Organizations are responsible for their employees. They are supposed to keep themselves in check since no one watches the watchers.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[rtfa-troll]

And we don't condone or support that kind of activity, either.

it's not enough to not "condone" or to not "support" it. When you engage in listening to conversations, you get a certain responsibility. There should be a filter on what is listened to. If a recorded is identified as not worth listening to it should be immediately destroyed. The story at Abu Ghraib was not that what was done was a bad thing. The story was that nothing was done to stop it and when they were caught, everthing was done to sweep the issue under the carpet.

This story has the same issue. Instead of talking about the safeguards they have in place and the actions they are taking, they are trying to minimise and deny much ever happened.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[mpapet]

I think most would agree that surveillance probably began under the conditions you describe.

1. The crux of the problem is the relentless acquisition of power and influence that creeps into what could, in principal, be a good program. Maybe the power-mongering doesn't happen at first, but history has repeatedly shown stuff like this is turned against citizens. There is no reason to believe there would be an exception here.

2. The Office of the President currently operates under the notion that their powers shall be unconstrained by any other branch of government, tradition and legal history be damned.

Mix #1 and #2 together and publish it on Slashdot and the conspiracy minded come flying out to condemn it all.

The rest of the political/legal world generally agree that the Cheney administration views executive powers as unlimited. Therefore, they would probably agree that it's likely the office of the President would willfully sodomize any survielance(sp?)law with signing statements and executive orders.

Finally, I think it's the case that most Americans know there is "something wrong" with the way the Executive branch has been operating. Media coverage like this is a kind of indirect measurement.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[daveschroeder]

The latter is the most likely.

To expand on that, it's an oversimplification.

These intercept operators had no more power than they have ever had. The only new and controversial issues relating to NSA monitoring during the Bush administration have related to collection within the United States[1], and this has nothing to do with that.

Since the beginning of SIGINT and the beginning of the NSA, collectors have had effective and routine access to myriad conversations with endpoints in the United States, conversations where at least one end is a US Person, or both.

That happens all the time, and has always happened. Often, you'll hear things you're not looking for. Hell, most of what you hear isn't what you're looking for. But once you determine that a US Person is involved, you're not, however, supposed to record, store, or disseminate such information. Unfortunately, what we have here are people -- many mostly kids -- misbehaving, and sometimes misbehaving badly.

Anyone who is surprised by this or thinks it has anything to do with Bush has a serious lack of understanding about how Title 50 activities and SIGINT collection have worked for decades.

Again, to be clear: the "new" capabilities the President authorized dealt with NSA foreign intelligence collection within the United States. That doesn't mean one end of the conversation might not be a US Person. In fact, under the law, it can be...but then the information must be treated with care; e.g., identifying references to US Person redacted, and so on. What you can't do -- then or now -- is target US Persons without an individualized warrant. If traffic from US Persons is intercepted in the course of foreign SIGINT collection, it is NOT a violation of the law, and never has been, as long as it is handled properly.

So ABC is attempting to conflate Bush administration initiatives -- which don't even exist any longer (TSP) -- with NSA overseas operations, albeit with regard to US Persons. Unfortunately, the latter has nothing to do with Bush or any initiatives of the Bush administration. The intercept operators had no more or less power, save for technological improvements, than they've ever had.

And surprise, surprise: individuals with the power to listen to things sometimes listen to things they're not supposed to, and by virtue of these people having the necessary resources to actually do their jobs, there really isn't any easy way to prevent it.

From day one the handling of US Persons in the context of foreign intelligence is hammered into your head. But I guess sometimes immaturity and a cheap laugh at someone else's expense trumps common sense and the doing the right thing.

[1] NSA facilities for interception may often be physically in the United States, but the interception is still occurring outside the United States

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Original Replica]

You seem to be unfamiliar with Dubya's tendency to say what ever he thinks will sell, with no relation to his true intentions other than to offer a thin justification for the course of action he has decided to take. Why would he bother with that? Because there is so much sensationalism in today's 24 hour News media, that As long as he can draw out any objections to his desired course of action, public furor will die down in about a week. Our entire culture has serious ADD. So any bullshit statement that can allow the pundits to debate back and forth for a few days is pretty much a carte blanc for Bush and his handlers to do whatever the fuck they want to do.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[daveschroeder]

Successful information handling is critical to the success of a military operation as much as anything else. But beyond classified information, there have not, to my knowledge, been any cases of embedded reporters being disallowed from reporting. This is the most realtime and extensive coverage the world has ever seen for a military operation, ever.

Does the Pentagon want to shape the message? Absolutely. But this alleged monitoring with respect to reporters was passive. I.e., it did not result in reporters' stories being suppressed. (I know that some here would ask, "How to we know?" Because no reporter has claimed that to be the case.) You're assuming reporters were targeted. They weren't. They were a part of Green Zone communication monitoring along with everyone else.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

While you on the other hand can not even realize that all actual information stated in the grand parent was obvious, and he only several insults like you did. Is that really all that your party can do now? Is it that weak and fragile? Pitiful.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[lawpoop]

One wonders why Bush bothered to pledge that US citizens would never be spied on in the first place.

He was telling us what we wanted to hear. If he told us the truth, there would have been a public outcry, a congressional investigation, and they would have shutdown, or seriously hampered, the program. By just telling us what we wanted to hear, he got a pass for two or three more years, perhaps more.

See how that works? You can't trust what they say. You have to investigate and hold them accountable.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

'Shape the message'.. almost sounds like.. a euphemism for .. propagandize?

The American government does not propagandize. It 'shapes the message', 'neutralizes targets' (assassinates people), 'kills insurgents' (murders innocent Iraqi people under the premise of freeing them.. but it was an ACCIDENT SO IT DOESNT COUNT THAT THEY DIED)........

Nice.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's no wonder there's been less critical, fact-based reporting (not just opinions) of the war in Iraq than Gulf War I."

Yeah, because the government can keep those reporters quiet when they come back to the states, too...

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things:

1)When I was doing this 20 years ago, it was drilled and drilled and drilled that we were NOT to intercept Americans.

2)There was (and I'm sure there still is) a thing called "tip off"; if you came across a conversation not targeted you were supposed to "tip off" to the appropriate group/individual and roll on, staying on your assigned target. You never knew when the trick chief was listening and we did not get caught staying on something we weren't assigned.

Is this generation not so strenuously warned against intercepting Americans?

What happened to targeted topics for intercept and 'tip off'? Is it anything and everything now?

I'm thinking things have changed and not for the better.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

big.....
huge......
replies......
by.......
a.....
NSA......
agent.....
defending.....
his......
job......

Go look for another job, fella. I heard Putin will be hiring unethical spies like you... Better to get your resume ready because January, 20 is approaching....

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[PopeRatzo]

"the intercepts helped identify possible terror planning in Iraq and saved American lives."

If you believe that, I've got some WMDs to sell you. I'll give you a great price, but you'll have to pick them up in Iraq yourself.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[sleigher]

Kinda like when you get home from your girlfriends, and your wife asks "where have you been"? Then you answer "nowhere".

wait, did I click AC

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[PopeRatzo]

individuals with the power to listen to things sometimes listen to things they're not supposed to

That's why they invented these things called "warrants". To prevent people from search or seizure without due process, which is after all, clearly spelled out in our Constitution, you force people who want the "power to listen to things" to tell a judge exactly what they're listening for, what crime they're trying to prevent, and what evidence they have that such a crime is being planned.

I understand that this seems like a lot to expect of the courageous NRA, daveschroeder, who after all are just trying to protect innocent Americans from the billions of Americans who want to blow us up, but it is in the Constitution, though that doesn't seem to mean a motherfucking thing to you.

I understand your fear, I just wish you'd talk to a professional about it instead of fucking with our civil liberties.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[PopeRatzo]

I'd also imagine an Obama administration would be more friendly to these whistle blowers but even McCain could use it show he's cleaning things up if so inclined.

Actually, Senator Obama co-sponsored legislation to strengthen whistleblower protection. McCain? Wasn't there for the vote.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[blhack]

I understand your fear, I just wish you'd talk to a professional about it instead of fucking with our civil liberties.

Okay, the vast majority of us either work or have worked in IT, right?

How many times have you been sitting at somebody's desk, and Outlook happily pops up a new message that came into the inbox, you SHOULDN'T BE READING THAT!!!! How many times have you looked through maillog and seen the to and from on a bunch of mail messages, thats private data, dude! Ever had to do recovery on a dead drive and seen some pictures that weren't explicitly sent to you? Ever been poking through a squid log and seen a few of the gets that people are doing?

The point is that sometimes you come across data that you're not supposed to see (or in this case, hear). Be it in IT, the us postal service, or anything inbetween you do what you're supposed to do and IGNORE IT.
It happens.
If you have a problem with it, move to another country with no infrastructure.

Dave, thank you for the well thought out, informative post. Sometimes the OMFG BUSH DID IT! people need a wake up call.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[PopeRatzo]

How many times have you been sitting at somebody's desk, and Outlook happily pops up a new message that came into the inbox, you SHOULDN'T BE READING THAT!!!! How many times have you looked through maillog and seen the to and from on a bunch of mail messages, thats private data, dude! Ever had to do recovery on a dead drive and seen some pictures that weren't explicitly sent to you? Ever been poking through a squid log and seen a few of the gets that people are doing?

Honestly, never.

Maybe you are less like the "vast majority of us" than you think.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[cpghost]

From day one the handling of US Persons in the context of foreign intelligence is hammered into your head. But I guess sometimes immaturity and a cheap laugh at someone else's expense trumps common sense and the doing the right thing.

It's not the cheap laugh of some little monitoring guy (or gal) that's dangerous: let'em laugh at our expenses, if only as a little compensation for the incredibly boring work they've signed up to and are forced to do day in day out.

The problem isn't the little guy in the system, it's the whole surveillance mind set, as dreamed up by increasingly authoritarian and corrupt governments. In most dictatorships, governments use to monitor the populace, and (and this is where it really gets nasty), they also routinely archive all kinds of misbehavior they gather, that they wouldn't have been looking for in the first place.

E.g.: you talk with your buddy on the phone about how you managed to evade some kind of tax, or you are talking about your extra-marital affairs or whatever. All this is pretty harmless in itself, but it won't be any longer if this conversation gets monitored, recorded and archived. As long as you remain unpolitical, government wouldn't care, but suppose that, a few years down the road, you decide to politically oppose the government in some point. As soon as you gather enough followers, government officials WILL start to dig into the big archives of the surveillance apparatus for material that would shatter your credibility or to start a blackmail. Were you talking about tax-honesty? Good bye credibility. Are you still loving your wife? Good bye marriage, hello divorce.

That's why spying on the whole population as a pro-active measure is evil.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[pugugly]

Fundamentally the problem with your post(s), is that you are explaining that "It would never happen that way" in the face of two former NSA employees that are stating on the record that yeah, they were explicitly told to keep listening to Americans on phone calls completely outside purview that was explicitly promised by the administration.

So, maybe you're honest, maybe your not, maybe you do this for a living and you and your boss were doing it right.

But I am currently faced with believing two people I don't know who have only been vetted by ABC, or . . . believing an administration that has lied, threatened, and tried to be above the law on everything from weapons of mass destruction to failing to properly report a hunting accident.

I don't care if you believe the administration is honest, competent, or the exact opposite, but the fact is that I can't come up with a verifiably true statement in the history of the Bush Administration.

Only statements I have yet to see proven incorrect.

If the dice keep rolling snake eyes, perhaps it's *not* random chance.

Pug

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[blhack]

Honestly, never.

Do you work helpdesk? Are you tier 1 tech support for AOL? Have you NEVER looked through a log file before?

Honestly, if you haven't seen any of this stuff, and you work in IT, then you probably aren't doing your job.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[dwarg]

Thank you Dave Schroeder for that insightful and informative response all my fears have been put to rest and I can't wait to vote republican again. And if you don't mind me saying so, my that's a low UID you have--very impressive :o)

...

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Is he gone?...

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Quick! Ide Hay the Ugs Dray from the Arc Nay!!!!!

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

No lies. You have to at LEAST tune into a conversation to see whether or not it's one you need to listen to. How do you think this works? Magic? They're not "spying" on innocent citizens, but if you're a U. S. citizen who is talking to the enemy, you have no right or expectation that your conversation won't be listened to by the government. Got it, you bunch of numbskulls?

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, ABC News did not mention that the two whistleblowers have an anti-war political axe to grind. Or if ABC didn't know, their investigative reporting investigators aren't.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did UCLA Medical Center support individuals looking up the medical records of Britney Spears and other celebrities, just because they were technically able to do so, and worked under the guise of UCLA Medical Center? Of course not. But these employees also need continuing access to such resources to do their jobs.

But in this example, while employees need access for their jobs, those specific employees get fired for breaking the law. ...Unlike the story in question.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[internic]

I agree with the core of your argument, that intelligence gathering in a theater of war is a totally different thing than on domestic soil. I have to disagree with a few other things, though.

A spokesman for General Hayden said, "At NSA, the law was followed assiduously. The notion that General Hayden sanctioned or tolerated illegalities of any sort is ridiculous on its face." Those of you who laugh at this comment and think you know everything about the illegality of NSA surveillance would be well served to educate yourselves a bit.

Some fairly educated gentlemen seem to think it was illegal. So do I, for what it's worth. In addition, I can say that I think it's wrong. Using the "extraordinary" threat of terrorism as a justification is absurd, when you rationally appraise the magnitude of that threat, and the administration did everything possible to avoid going about getting those powers the right way (they decided not to go to congress specifically because they didn't think they'd get approval). When even Ashcroft, the guy who helped push through the USA PATRIOT Act, says you've gone too far, it raises alarm bells.

"'This story is to surveillance law what Abu Ghraib was to prison law,' Turley said."

Indeed. And we don't condone or support that kind of activity, either.

I'm not sure how much evidence there is for that statement. I guess, for one thing, it depends on what you mean by "that kind of activity". It also depends on who "we" is (the CIA, the military?) or what you consider condoning it. We do carry out extraordinary renditions to countries that practice various kinds of torture (I'm not sure how one can compare them to Abu Ghraib). Not to mention things like the incident in Afghanistan where, "[a] CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets" (after which he died of exposure).

Now, realistically, we the public have little way to get an accurate idea of how bad things are. It's reasonable to presume we hear about some of the cases where they screw up and go further than was intended, but we probably don't hear about all of those, and we probably hear about very few of the rest, where they go just as far as intended. Rendition makes it even harder to determine what sorts of things we may, ultimately, be responsible for. So I won't claim to know that Abu Ghraib was run of the mill, but I think it's foolish to assume without evidence that it was so exceptional or "just a few bad apples".

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Kagura]

I am HUMINT, not SIGINT, but we are warned about not collecting on US persons. Military Intelligence personnel also have to watch a yearly video about it and "intel oversight", a related, if not the same, issue. That video also talks about the dangers of government or administration decrees about collecting on US persons, such as in the era of McCarthy-ism, when "un-American" activities were a valid reason to illegally collect on people.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[BountyX]

ABC wasnt the only oen that reported this story CNN did too. Just an FYI.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Kagura]

Also, an interesting story, although I can't personally confirm its truthiness: The service member who initially collected the information on John Walker Lindh, the American member of the Taliban back during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan, had his intel report sent up to the desk of Condoleeza Rice within an hour of having submitted it, but that along the way he ended up getting in a bit of trouble. There is a specific bullet on every intel report that is required to be filled out every time, and it is to denote whether the report contains any information collected on US persons. He marked it "US: NO" like 99.9% of all intel reports should be, but since this intel report contained information collected on a US person, it should have been marked "US: YES" so that appropriate measures could be taken with the handling of the report.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Kagura]

Look at the timing: huge 05:56PM post for the story opened at 05:54PM

The user "daveschroeder" is a Slashdot subscriber... that means he is able to see stories and start writing his posts 20 minutes before the rest of us, and when the story appears on the main page he can post right away. That's how we often end up with walls of text as the first comments.

I can't believe you're serious, and somebody ended up modding you up somehow. Weird and bad things happen in the world, but it's not quite as tin-foily as you seem to think it is.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a weak troll. Try better next time.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a loony.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

This also applies to onelfbylan's post, but honestly twenty years ago was a far different time than today. That can be argued I'm sure, but we're dealing with a very serious enemy that doesn't operate on the sophisticated level that Soviet era spy games where played. If we operate as norm and only listen in on "the appropriate" calls there is a chance something will be missed. While in an active war zone something being missed could cost dearly, any American in Iraq privately is questionable.

I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way though, the people to be admonished are the "whistle blowers" by giving away any information relating to our foreign or domestic intelligence to the press, rather than handling things internally, I think they're the ones acting rather irresponsibly. To me it is simply sacrificing our country for their own five minutes of fame. That can be argued but in the end it's a matter of opinion, in mine the folks running off at the mouth are the disgusting ones.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

So your reasons for not wanting monitoring is you might get caught evading taxes or cheating on your wife?

Ok, that was an oversimplification but my point is it appears your saying that it's evil for someone to look at what you're hiding? Besides if we had a politician running for office that was lying about tax evasion wouldn't you want to know?? If he was cheating on his wife - as many have - do you really think they'd need phone records? The government/NSA/CIA/ETC simply do not have the time or the manpower to monitor and archive all the calls in the US - that's simply an astronomical amount of data.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

When the original poster said "Article", he meant "Summary" And it's not biased, it's just a slashdot summary.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's OK; I don't think your mistress reads Slashdot so neither the wife or the girlfriend should be a problem...

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[aussie_a]

I have also never done it. At least, if we assume that we're doing it merely for gossip and not because its part of my job to check e-mail.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

But beyond classified information, there have not, to my knowledge, been any cases of embedded reporters being disallowed from reporting.

Ah well, that's reassuring, then. I'm sure that if some unfortunate reporter or humanitarian worker had to be silenced to protect our freedumz, a public relations shill like you would be the first to know. I'm absolutely fine with leaving uncontrolled unconstitutional power in the hands of a warmongering and human rights ignoring government, seeing how as far as you know, they have yet to abuse this specific power in this specific way.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[dbIII]

But they're still human, with all the foibles and flaws we all share.

However they have extra-legal powers and are controlled only by the executive branch which currently does not have adult supervision. If we are not careful things may end up like Russia where ex-spooks are running the entire country with little or no respect for the rule of law.

Having a group with an "obeying laws is for the little people" mindset left to do whatever they like is an incredibly dangerous thing in a society that believes in justice. Even a completely incompetant, late and ultimately unecessary effort by such a group to destabilise the Australian government in 1975 had a fallout where it was used by disgruntled spooks to sell information to the USSR - there was a court case, book and fictionalised movie about it (Falcon and the Snowman). It is nice for the poster above to point out that a section of the NSA states that they are currently complying with the law, if that is the case we really should be reigning in those groups that do not becuse there is certainly a lot of extra-legal activity going on.

Perhaps we should be turning our attention to some of those contract groups. Their very existance outside of the apparatus of a sovereign state makes my head spin. What happens when for instance a Chinese company employs them to look into things these contract groups have previously investigated or set up? In more mundane terms, what's stopping them doing an Oliver North with embezzlement and a spot of treason?

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Majik Sheff]

Hmmm, an AC railing against a member of an organization that (s)he has NO FUCKING CLUE about the inner workings of. I know I'm feeding the troll here, but please keep your idiocy and ad hominems to yourself.

The only thing sadder is that this garbage got modded up as insightful, which while I hope indicates sockpuppets, probably means that the cancer is spreading.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[oreaq]

They were given the power to spy on innocent people's private telephone calls. They didn't put the necessary checks and balances in place to make sure theses powers don't get abused. They are either way to stupid for their jobs or they are criminals. Your cognitive dissonance is flabbergasting.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Also, an interesting story, although I can't personally confirm its truthiness..

One does not confirm truthiness. One feels it in ones belly.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[tbannist]

There's reasonable doubt and then there's willful ignorance.

These guys were recording private conversations that they should have been listening to, then gathering around it listening to the "exciting parts" making fun of the people they were listening and generally whooping it up.

Anyone who complained that this was inappropriate behaviour was dressed down for rocking the boat. They were told that their bosses "were ordered" to "record everything" including private calls that were obviously between Americans. As reported by actual people who used to work in intelligence, this was clearly illegal and they used to drop those calls as soon as they knew it was between Americans and flag then so other people wouldn't listen to them.

This sounds like a dramatic departure from the previous operating mode, not an innocent "oops". The behaviour of the majority of the employees indicates a lack of respect for the law and the people they were illegally spying on.

If anyone needs a wake up call it's the indolent people who just don't care that their government is breaking laws because it would be inconvenient to follow them.

Even scarier is the part where the one intelligence operative notified her superior that a building targetted for an airstrike was a hotel with American journalists in it and her superior told her it was none of her business who they decided to kill.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Benfea]

You find out that our government has been spying on us like some demented Soviet-era Politburo, and your first concern is that this information might be politically inconvenient for the Republican party? You, sir, have very confused priorities.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[FredThompson]

Being an American citizen doesn't exempt surveillance in all cases. Conversation WITH known targets and being outside US land change the conditions. The basis goes back to separation of intel agencies where the NSA wasn't supposed to do stuff inside US lands. That was possible when phone numbers were trackable to physical locations because they used wires. US citizenship is not lifetime immunity.

Also, there's a 70-year gag agreement when you leave NSA. These "leakers" just broke that.

This is a non-story that stinks of pre-election "mud on a wall."

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[GP]

Therefore, they would probably agree that it's likely the office of the President would willfully sodomize any survielance(sp?)law with signing statements and executive orders.

It says something about our community when we're sure how to spell sodomize but not surveillance.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[sumdumass]

lol.. No, I'm pretty sure he was assuming that you were doing your job and something popped up or by the nature of your job, you notice that the boss was frequenting gay dog sex sites.

Imagine if you had to clear spyware off a computer. In the process you have to empty the temporary internet files and something won't delete so you have to root through the directory and delete everything else manually then unlock the stubborn files to delete them. In the process, you see that your boss has cookies for a login at a major competitors website. You have now been put in the position of knowing something you should by the nature of your job. The question becomes, do you report it to your superiors, do you ignore it, or do you tell people that the boss is working for them when the company does layoffs and the competition is hiring?

Do you see the potential problems now? I did some data recovery once from a formatted drive and it had a bunch of jpegs of the girl naked and in the middle of sex acts with her previous boyfriend. She deleted those 3 months before her partition got corrupt and had no clue that I would find them. of course you test the files your recovering to make sure your not getting only garbage. I ended up seeing her in the descriptions I gave before. I have to this date told no one that knows her directly and only mention it in a vague or generic manor that couldn't identify her or make her feel uncomfortable.

In the course of doing your job, you are exposed to all sorts of personal and privileged information that you have to keep quite about. I used to work with a guy who was asked to figure out why a file wouldn't open. It was pictures of the CFO's children and somehow he had Nero Burning Rom set as the default file to open them with. The CFO had moved and started the job a few months before but his family stayed in another state until his wife finished something. Anyways, the pictures included his 3 and 4 year old kids playing while in the bath and after the guy told others, the rumor started that the CFO was a pedophile which got everything traced back to the source and the termination of the guy I knew.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[PopeRatzo]

did some data recovery once from a formatted drive and it had a bunch of jpegs of the girl naked and in the middle of sex acts with her previous boyfriend. She deleted those 3 months before her partition got corrupt and had no clue that I would find them. of course you test the files your recovering to make sure your not getting only garbage. I ended up seeing her in the descriptions I gave before.

Remind me never to borrow your mouse.

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[rtechie]

These intercepts were happening in realtime and were focused on an area of military operations.

Not true. Surveillance was not restricted to military staff and they were not looking for leaks of classified information (perfectly legitimate activity). They were conducting intelligence gathering on diplomatic and human rights organizations, and most importantly, journalists. This is both illegal and IMMORAL. The ability of reporters to operate without government surveillance is critical to the survival of any democracy. And yes, protecting reporters is certainly worth a few soldiers getting killed. Their lives are on the line telling us the truth about the situation in Iraq. Democracy and free expression is supposedly what we're fighting for in Iraq.

The distinction about where and how such communication might occur can't easily be made, and thus often falls to NSA -- which should then make the appropriate determination as to the disposition of the communication and act accordingly. That can include conversations of an embarrassing or personal nature. These are all humans here, not robots. Yes, they are trained professionals. But they're still human, with all the foibles and flaws we all share.

What bullshit. Just a few bad eggs, right? Why then were the techs cited ORDERED by their superiors to record, transcribe, and forward conversations they had identified as personal? Sounds like blackmail or political surveillance to me. Did you read the article? The whistleblowers were saying, just like Abu Ghraib, that they were being ORDERED to commit crimes. Either they're lying, and they have no incentive to do so, or General Hayden and the higher ups are lying. Unlike the whistleblowers, General Hayden and other senior members of the Bush administration are proven liars that have lied repeatedly to Congress about surveillance and other activities.

A spokesman for General Hayden said, "At NSA, the law was followed assiduously. The notion that General Hayden sanctioned or tolerated illegalities of any sort is ridiculous on its face." Those of you who laugh at this comment and think you know everything about the illegality of NSA surveillance would be well served to educate yourselves a bit.

General Hayden should go to prison for this. Retaining the entire contents of conversations of Red Cross employees is blatantly illegal. Even recording the names, numbers, and durations of the calls is illegal. According to the whistleblowers they specifically informed their superiors that these conversations were not intelligence-related and the continued surveillance was probably illegal, but they kept doing it anyway. A quote from the other post:

Also, TSP, in its entirety, was never as clear cut as being simply "legal" or "illegal" (court decisions on individual aspects aside). Those who claimed that it was "illegal" did so largely for political reasons.

Those who claimed it was legal did so largely to protect themselves against prosecution. The FISA statue was crystalline clear, FISA has SOLE jurisdiction over surveillance. No exceptions except those defined in the statue. In order to expand surveillance the President must go to Congress. The FISA law was specifically created to prevent Presidents from conducting surveillance programs outside of Congressional oversight.

The Protect America Act legalized EX POST FACTO certain parts of the surveillance program President Bush was previously conducting. His surveillance program was clearly illegal before then (ipso facto, that's why new law was necessary). The Protect America Act did not legalize any form of political surveillance. President Bush has conducted political surveillance. Nor did it authorize treaty violations to conduct surveillance on foreign diplomats (as with the UN Security Council). There is far more going on here than just one limited program, as Bush claims.

This story is to surveillan

Re:Terrible reporting. A little perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence data mining, TIA, etc. Tell me why the fuck the government has any right to do any of this without a warrant? Domestic surveillance, sans a warrant, is unconstitutional and dangerous. Go fuck yourself, kthx

Well...

[djcinsb]

I'd comment, but the NSA is listening...

Re:Well...

[gerf]

There's a reason we have a "Declaration of War." To make things like this legal in a time of War.

Ironically, ole Bushie would have had his way a lot more if he'd gone through the correct channels initially.

Re:Well...

[thenewguy001]

Didn't you hear? they've declared The War Against Terror (TWAT)

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole "war" thing is bullshit. Just who is the US at war with? "Terrorists" is an impossible thing to gauge. WWII it was German and Japan. Easy enough, those countries surrender and you win the war. This "war" was declared on an intangible thing. It just opened the door for abuses such as the article cover. You can rest assured the "war" will never be won as it means returning your liberties.

Re:Well...

[blindd0t]

I thought something was fishy...

Re:Well...

[gerf]

My contention is that there is no war, unless declared. War is over after a peace treaty is signed, a country overtaken, or surrender accepted.

Re:Well...

[Attila Dimedici]

What, according to the U.S. Constitution, constitutes a declaration of war? I would contend that the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" passes Constitutional muster as a declaration of war by Congress. If Congress did not mean it as a declaration of war than they were derelict in their duty, because the Constitution does not contain a provision for the use of military force (other than in defense of the territory of the U.S.) except for declaration of war. When the U.S. Congress authorizes the President to use military force, they are declaring war.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the NSA could be listening, this is a PUBLIC comment posted on a website. Anyone could be listening. How is this Score 5 funny?

Re:Well...

[EllisDees]

If you'll have a look at the declaration of war from World War 1 and World War 2, you will notice that they both contain the words 'declare' and 'war' in close proximity to one another. Authorizing the president to use military force is simply *not* a declaration of war, and the president should have no war powers without a real declaration.

Wow

[Gat0r30y]

Who could have possibly seen this coming? I mean the government rampantly abusing powers it took in a time of national tragedy? I for one am totally shocked. Shocked i say.

Re:Wow

[Haoie]

This isn't the sort of thing any "free country" should do.

Re:Wow

[Gat0r30y]

If this is still a free country I have been ill informed sir.

Re:Wow

[rtconner]

People don't learn from history very well, do they?

Re:Wow

[Digital End]

I wonder how much different the world would have turned out if people were required to read the documents that keep them free. Read and understand.

Re:Wow

[beav007]

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

- George Bernard Shaw

Never!

[Anonymous Coward]

They would never spy on us! /sarcasm

You can never be trusting of government. We have to keep it check.

Bbboogguss Alert

[Anonymous Coward]

The N.S.A. intercepts EVERYTHING including domestic.

P.S.: John McCain pals around with radicals.

Sincerely,
Kilgore Trout

ÐsÐÐÐÐ¾Ñ ÐÑÐÑfÑ

SatPhones?

[MozeeToby]

I've only read the first page of the article but it mentions that the people being eavesdropped were talking on satelite phones from the Middle East. I was under the impression that as soon as you broadcaste something you could no longer claim it was private. Isn't this why it's legal to sell police and cell phone scanners? Is this different for satelite phones or am I completely off base here?

Re:SatPhones?

[HTH NE1]

Isn't this why it's legal to sell police and cell phone scanners?

You'd better check those assumptions against your local, state, and federal laws before you post again.

Re:SatPhones?

[ClioCJS]

okay then - your phones are private. your calls are being broadcast over phone lines. So why do warrants exist at all? Gee, maybe because you're wrong about this :)

Re:SatPhones?

[Mesa MIke]

Scanners that cover the cellphone bands aren't legal.
That legislation was bought by the cellphone carriers back in 1985 (when everything was still analog) because they wanted to tell their customers that using a mobile phone was just as private as using a landline phone.

Re:SatPhones?

[justinlee37]

Uh, you obviously have no grasp on the "state of privacy" in the United States whatsoever. Your transmissions are protected under the 4th amendment, just like your snail mail. It's been that way ever since the supreme court case Katz v. United States in 1967.

Re:SatPhones?

[raind]

Is not your cell phone broadcasting? Does it matter if it's a radio (cell phone) or Sat phone?

Re:SatPhones?

[IronChef]

Police scanners are legal.* But it has been illegal for years to sell (or presumably build) a radio which can intercept cell phone signals.

Companies that sell scanners the US even had to modify their firmware to make it harder to unlock forbidden frequency bands. Originally, they'd make a simple firmware change, or a jumper change inside, but people who buy scanners are kind of nerdy and they figured out how to open up the receive range. The gov't forced them to make that harder to accomplish.

With phones being digital now, and I guess encrypted, a radio that can receive cell phone signals isn't so interesting. But back in the day, with a pre-ban scanner, you could tune in to analog mobile calls.

* For now, eh?

Re:SatPhones?

[Anonymous Coward]

To clarify, it is legal to listen to police traffic because it is considered in the public interest that emergency communication be widely available. If you use a police scanner in commission of a crime, it is typically considered a crime in itself. It is very much illegal to listen to cell phone communication, and most (legal) scanners are hardware blocked from receiving analog cell frequencies (though they aren't used much anymore).

Re:SatPhones?

[demachina]

"Police scanners are legal" ... though many police and emergency agencies are migrating to digital radios that can use encrypted signals and when they do its either much harder or nearly impossible to listen to them any more. Many agencies are getting Homeland Security money to do the transition. Anecdotally I hear the 800 MHz digital radios tend to suck compared to their analog counterparts but they are considered .... progress. It is probably a good thing that private citizens can't listen to police and EMT transmissions since it often violates the privacy of the peoples whose personal information is transmitted over them, and its probably a plus people committing a crime can't listen to the police response. On the other hand its about the only mechanism citizens have to know when there are crimes or other emergencies in their neighborhood especially if you don't live in areas with blanket media coverage and news helicopters. Maybe as they transition to encrypted digital radios communities should create a public broadcast system on the old analog channels and intentionally announce sanitized updates on crimes and emergencies in the community.

This just in....

[Anonymous Coward]

And in a related story, it was recently discovered that water is, indeed, wet.

Gee...the government doing what it darn well pleases under the cry of "national security". Whoda thunk it?

We Love our Soldiers

[HTH NE1]

"Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home."

<spin>We love our soldiers and listen to everything they have to say.</spin>

Re:We Love our Soldiers

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent insightful.

Re:We Love our Soldiers

[HTH NE1]

"Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home."

<spin>We love our soldiers and listen to everything they have to say.</spin>

Mod parent insightful.

Apparently Insightful mods on Funny posts attract Flamebait smackdown mods.

Re:We Love our Soldiers

[HTH NE1]

For the public record, here's the mod history:

We Love our Soldiers, posted to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping, has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (2).

We Love our Soldiers, posted to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping, has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (3).

We Love our Soldiers, posted to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (4).

A user had given a moderation of Funny (+1) to your comment, We Love our Soldiers, attached to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping. That moderation has now been undone, probably due to the user posting in the discussion after moderating in it. Your comment is currently scored Insightful (3).

We Love our Soldiers, posted to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (2).

We Love our Soldiers, posted to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (1).

We Love our Soldiers, posted to NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of Eavesdropping, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (0).

foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if we're in a foreign military operations theater, we should start our call with, "I'm an American citizen calling my girlfriend. Get the fuck off the line you pervert." ?

I've never been in a foreign military operations theater, what kind of shows do they have? Is it mostly war movies? John Wayne and Arnold?

Re:foreign military operations theater

[philspear]

FTFA:

NSA awarded Adrienne Kinne a NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal in 2003 at the same time she says she was listening to hundreds of private conversations between Americans, including many from the International Red Cross and Doctors without Borders.

"We knew they were working for these aid organizations," Kinne told ABC News. "They were identified in our systems as 'belongs to the International Red Cross' and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them," she told ABC News.

That wouldn't have helped. The NSA continued to listen in even after they realized it was the case. Common sense would dictate that while it might be impossible to never listen in on a US person's phone calls, you would not continually do it. Yet the NSA did.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[jd]

I think it's more a reference to Greek tragedies.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Nutria]

Common sense would dictate that while it might be impossible to never listen in on a US person's phone calls, you would not continually do it.

So what you're saying is that it's impossible for US Persons to break COMSEC protocols during pillow talk?

One word: Honeytrap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(espionage)#Sex.2C_honeypots_and_recruitment

Yet the NSA did.

Good for them.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

But those policies do not apply to Doctors without borders. Surveying them is unforgivable interference with humanitarian aid.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Nutria]

Surveying them is unforgivable interference with humanitarian aid.

I call bullshit, unless you provide a damn good reason why clandestine electronic eavesdropping on DWB prevents them from doing their work.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

The organization must be free to act and not provide special aid to any one side in a conflict. Any interruption of that by any party by any means endangers their ability to aid populations controlled by the opposition.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[PopeRatzo]

So, if we're in a foreign military operations theater, we should start our call with, "I'm an American citizen calling my girlfriend. Get the fuck off the line you pervert." ?

You should also be doing that if you're a Quaker, a member of any anti-war group, a civil rights worker, a Democratic candidate for public office, a journalist, a member of the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, or the ACLU, and, of course, the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

You have to understand that you're just a threat to the American Way of Life (TM) and be willing to give up your privacy (unless of course you have Something to Hide(TM)).

Re:foreign military operations theater

[PopeRatzo]

I call bullshit, unless you provide a damn good reason why clandestine electronic eavesdropping on DWB prevents them from doing their work.

Are you serious? That's the new threshold for civil liberties? "Whether you can provide a damn good reason why eavesdropping prevents you from doing your work"??

Has the whole country gone fucking nuts?

Re:foreign military operations theater

[uniquename72]

He didn't say it was right; he said it didn't interfere. And it doesn't.

(It's still fucked, tho.)

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think non-governmental organizations exist? Because not being one subjects them to government influences, and that adds complications when trying to fulfill their purpose. Government listening in on their communications violates that separation. Is this somehow hard for you to understand?

Re:foreign military operations theater

[philspear]

I call bullshit, unless you provide a damn good reason why clandestine electronic eavesdropping on DWB prevents them from doing their work.

I'll give you three

1. Anyone paying attention knows that the US is not always the good guy overseas these days. Say for example they are trying to save some innocent civilians which the US is trying to kill, the NSA tapping their phone lines would compromise that.

2. What they do is stressful work, if they can't relax with some phone sex because they know they're being listened in on, they might be too stressed to do their good work.

3. Provide me with a damn good reason why the NSA needs to be eavesdropping on DWB or else fuck off, Nutria. ... I guess that last one wasn't really what you were asking for, in a literal sense anyway.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[uniquename72]

Ummm, no. It IS a violation. But that violation of separation is in no way "interference". Is this somehow hard for you to understand?

Perhaps this will help you.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

The organization operates only if all parties involved allow it to operate. With this news, why should anyone accept them if the U.S. taps their communications, and gains advantage from that? Don't play ignorant here, you understand.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Nutria]

Say for example they are trying to save some innocent civilians which the US is trying to kill, the NSA tapping their phone lines would compromise that.

The US tries not to kill innocent civilians. Sure it happens, but not for lack of trying.

Otherwise, we'd still be doing WW2-style massed car[et bombing, and not have spent so much money on guided missile/smart weapon systems.

if they can't relax with some phone sex because they know they're being listened in on, they might be too stressed to do their good work.

As if we're the only countries that have ELINT capabilities...

Anyway: if you want privacy, use encryption.

Provide me with a damn good reason why the NSA needs to be eavesdropping on DWB or else fuck off

Doctors can't be spies, agents, traitors, dupes, victims of blackmail, misguided do-gooders?

Sure they can.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the whole country gone fucking nuts?

Apparently, yes.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if it doesn't interfere, it's not "unforgivable interference", and calling it such is bullshit.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[rich_r]

misguided do-gooders?

WTF?

Re:foreign military operations theater

[PopeRatzo]

It IS a violation. But that violation of separation is in no way "interference".

Son, you've got to read that over a few times for yourself.

You're terribly mistaken.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Nutria]

misguided do-gooders?

WTF?

Are you saying that you don't know what a misguided do-gooder is?

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's saying that you're a prick.

Re:foreign military operations theater

[uniquename72]

The organization operates only if all parties involved allow it to operate.

...and tapping phones in no way disallows the ability to operate, particularly when that tapping is done in secret. I understand entirely.

Exhibit #1 against your notioin is that the organization IS STILL OPERATING -- it's just business as usual. Apparently, even DWB doesn't consider this 'interference.' Jeez!

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Nutria]

No, he's saying that you're a prick.

Gotta love those Leftists and their ad-hominem attacks...

Re:foreign military operations theater

[Tenebrousedge]

The US tries not to kill innocent civilians

Recently, you mean. Contrast with every other war/conflict we've been in.

if you want privacy, use encryption.

What's the difference? If they use encryption, they have something to hide, and we should break the encryption and continue to wiretap, right? right?

You seem to be operating under a weird set of ideas here. Here's the way that it should be: the NSA is not the police. They are not a police organization and police activities should not be part of their purview. Their activities need to be confined solely to foreign issues that impact national security. For domestic crimes, we have police organizations: note that neither the FBI nor CIA fall under that category. Now, pay attention because this is important. If the privacy and free speech of a citizen of the United States is to be infringed upon, there has to be a warrant involved.

The general process would be something like this: I am a police officer, I have evidence or reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. I take my evidence to a judge and get a warranty "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I then go and tap your phone, and get to listen to your calls as described in the warrant. In the NSA, this might be a FISA court issuing the warrant; I could even obtain authorization for this activity afterwards. The NSA is, again, not a police organization, but it's always possible that what you're doing affects NS somehow.

If there is no warrant, tapping phones of US citizens is unconstitutional. Where you are is irrelevant, you are protected by the Constitution of the United States. This is even true if you are committing treason (a terrible crime, for which you might be justly punished). You don't forfeit your rights by doing anything except renouncing your citizenship. Certainly not by making a fucking phone call.

Should be tagged with....

[istartedi]

...areyoureallysurprised or ...nosurprise or ...shocker (which is often used sarcasticly where I'm from) or something like that.

Wow!

[JPortal]

I'm shocked. I'll never look at the Bush administration the same way again.

"No way," they said.

[magus_melchior]

("they" being Bushies)

"There's no way they're spying on us, using 'terrorism' as an excuse!"

Then we found out that Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Bush, McCain, Rove, and a whole host of Bush administration people lied about WMDs in Iraq, and the al Qaeda connection.

Lying, it seems, is a job requirement in the Bush administration.

Of course, most public offices require deception in some form, but do they really and regularly lie in such a blatant way?

Re:"No way," they said.

[dogmatixpsych]

The Bush administration never lied about WMD or an al Qaeda connection in Iraq (please read my whole post and the two articles I link to before dismissing my comment. As a note: I don't think we ever should have invaded Iraq but we did and there's no changing that). I think it's pretty convenient for so many people to forget that all major intelligence agencies around the world (and all major, interested nations) said repeatedly that there were WMD in Iraq. No one seriously doubted this - not even the UN weapons inspectors. Here are a couple articles about the whole topic (one is from the Wall Street Journal, the other the LA Times):

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007540

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kirchick16-2008jun16,0,4808346.story

As far as al qaeda connection goes, the WSJ article also mentions that:

"What of the related charge that it was still another 'lie' to suggest, as Mr. Bush and his people did, that a connection could be traced between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11? This charge was also rejected by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Contrary to how its findings were summarized in the mainstream media, the committee's report explicitly concluded that al Qaeda did in fact have a cooperative, if informal, relationship with Iraqi agents working under Saddam. The report of the bipartisan 9/11 commission came to the same conclusion, as did a comparably independent British investigation conducted by Lord Butler, which pointed to 'meetings . . . between senior Iraqi representatives and senior al-Qaeda operatives.'"

Re:"No way," they said.

[esocid]

I'm sorry, do we live in the same universe?

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations address, September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio address, October 5, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the nation, March 17, 2003

Just because someone believes a lie to be true doesn't mean it still isn't a lie.

Re:"No way," they said.

[dogmatixpsych]

Let's look at it this way. Think of this like scientific research. 15 years ago everyone believed that you were born with all the brain cells you'd ever have. Now we know that that is not true. Those earlier researchers were not lying, they were going on the best knowledge they had at the time. It just tuned out to not be true.

It's not a lie if all the best intelligence from around the world said it was true. A lie means intentional deception. If Pres. Bush was lying then so were the leaders of Britain, France, the U.N., and many other countries. That also means that almost all of Congress were lying as well. It even means Pres. Clinton was lying back in the 90s. The question never was whether or not Hussein had WMDs, it was what should we do about it. That's where other countries (and some within the U.S.) and entities differed with Pres. Bush.

Besides, just because WMDs were never found does not mean Iraq did not have any (I'm not saying they did, I'm just saying that having a lack of evidence does not mean you can categorically say there were no WMDs).

Re:"No way," they said.

[shentino]

If you believe it is true, then you are NOT lying.

We call that "mistaken belief"

You can be honest and wrong at the same time.

Re:"No way," they said.

[esocid]

The difference between scientific research and "intelligence" is that scientific research never postulates itself as the absolute truth. If you look at the philosophy of statistics, scientists form a hypothesis and a null hypothesis and only find evidence or a lack of evidence to reject the null.
It never gathers evidence to prove a claim, only to refute the opposite of their claim.

With intelligence that never occurs; and the most stressed thing I remember from stats is that correlation != causation. That evidence in "intelligence" is gathered with the intention to prove a claim and intense action is taken when some correlation occurs.

A belief that people are born with all the brain cells they will ever have never cost people their lives and taxpayers trillions of dollars.

Re:"No way," they said.

[blahplusplus]

"It's not a lie if all the best intelligence from around the world said it was true."

Wrong, the truth always is true, therefore anyone claiming to know when the don't, is a lie. I'm sorry but any half-truth is by necessity a lie. Would you say 1 is greater then 2, and say "if all the best intelligence from around the world says 1 is greater then 2 it is not a lie!".

Sorry but a truth is a truth despite human deficiency.

Re:"No way," they said.

[dogmatixpsych]

I agree with you completely (although many scientists in actual practice do not understand the philosophy of statistics and therefore do not use statistics in the correct way).

I used the scientific research example to refute the claim that lies were being told about what was occurring in Iraq. If any group is to blame it is the intelligence community (world wide), which is not necessarily trained in the methods of scientific research. Again, we can't really blame the administration because they did not lie to the public; they just had what turned out to be faulty intelligence.

The implications of intelligence gathering are huge, as you pointed out, and any actions based on intelligence should be thoughtful and well-planned. The problem is that sometimes you need to act quickly to prevent attacks or disasters. It's important that our intelligence is correct but operatives and governments don't always have the time that scientists have to gather their information and test hypotheses. In any case, operatives are doing "social" research which is far from perfect; social sciences are notoriously difficult to study because there are so many unknown variables.

Well no shit

[n3tcat]

That's why everytime we were talking on the damn AT&T phones and some dumbass gave a hint as to where he was or what he was doing, a huge fuckin red light went off and all the phones died.

They flat out told us we were being listened to. Just like they tell us everyday with little stickers on our phones on every military installation in the world that say that we're being watched, listened to, recorded, etc etc.

I'm not saying that it's not bullshit. Just saying this article's spun worse than a gyroscope.

Re:Well no shit

[schwaang]

So then, which are you -- a journalist or a Red Cross aid worker?

Sounds bad but its probably worse

[sdemjanenko]

Well i mean since we know about this there is probably more under the cover. Not to mention, think of all the NSA spying over our own communications that we do not know about and probably no one will whistleblow.

Re:Sounds bad but its probably worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm..It's their job to do that since the agency was started! Sheesh. The only real problem is that some of the immature employees were getting their kicks by sharing recordings with their buddies of calls that should have been dumped since they weren't relevant to national security.

It's the preview button, stupid

[magus_melchior]

Upon reflection, McCain was probably a "me too!" man back then, when everyone still trusted Bush with a visceral paranoia.

Listened into hundreds

[Anonymous Coward]

he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans

Unless they were embedding microphones inside their bodies, just because two words can be joined together to form another word doesn't mean that it is correct to do so.

Whose error was this: Brian Ross, Vic Walter, or Anna Schecter?

And President Obama will do what?

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll sign the extension, after saying he won't.

Meh.

Re:All together now...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you have nothing to hide..."

... you are either lacking genitalia or a brain

cell phone scanners are not sold in the US

[YesIAmAScript]

They used to be, but now scanners sold in the US have the analog cellular freqs blocked, even though there is no more analog cell coverage anyway.

It's really lame, actually.

Re:cell phone scanners are not sold in the US

[TooMuchToDo]

This is true, although in most cases the restriction put in place is superficial. You can unlock the frequencies by cutting a resistor that is well documented.

The More You Know(TM)

Re:What exactly does this mean though?

[Ortega-Starfire]

Nothing, even if the revised FISA law gets repealed, this is now protected under ex post facto restrictions in the constitution. GG two party system for throwing our liberties away.

What happened to my country?

[lupis42]

This makes me angry. Not just 'vote for a third party' angry, not even just 'rant on a blog' angry, but shoot a congressman angry. I honestly want to shoot the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). I believe that his negligence in the matter of oversight is not merely appalling, but actively treasonous. Line him up in front of a firing squad treasonous. What's more, he's not alone. Even Senator Barack 'Change' Obama voted against the rule of law and for the FISA bill that extended immunity to the big companies that participated in, and allowed this.
I think it's high time we did something. But by something, I don't mean voting for somebody else, that doesn't amount to much. I mean bringing officials, elected and appointed, up in front of tribunals, and making them explain why they have consistently voted to turn this country into a surveillance state to a degree comparable to Communist Russia, or the very same current China that these very same elected officials reprimanded Google and Yahoo for complying with. This is ridiculous. We don't have elected representation any more, we have elected oppression, and it's time we fought back. Really fought back, not just with votes but with riots, and criminal charges. We still, in theory, hang traitors in this country, so why the hell can't we hang the worst enemies our constitution has ever had? Our President, George W. Bush, has been making war on this country, on our constitution, and on our way of life for eight years. His appointed lackeys have been even worse. It's time it stopped.

Re:What happened to my country?

[baldass_newbie]

I honestly want to shoot the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).

So are you a Second Amendment proponent? Remember, they didn't put that in there about hunting. It was about killing politicians. If everybody's armed, nobody can oppress.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Qrlx]

Come on, the Second Amendment isn't about shooting politicians, despite the Slashdot bias towards that little chunk of Libertarian mythology.

If you look at the history and discussion from back in the day, the people's right to bear arms was granted in order to maintain slavery. That's what the militia was for; to put down a slave uprising.

If people couldn't own guns they would have a much harder time holding slaves, that should be quite obvious.

Re:What happened to my country?

[PopeRatzo]

If everybody's armed, nobody can oppress.

If they've got a great big gun and you've got a little bitty gun, I've got news for you: You can be oppressed.

Re:What happened to my country?

[networkBoy]

Just to be clear here...
[mic check]123 alpha bravo charlie[/mic check]
you appear to be advocating for violent overthrow of the United States Government. Is that correct sir?

Re:What happened to my country?

[blhack]

they have consistently voted to turn this country into a surveillance state to a degree comparable to Communist Russia, or the very same current China that these very same elected officials reprimanded Google and Yahoo for complying with.

It must really suck to see the world like this.

Honestly, the world is NOT out to get you. Bush is NOT hiding under you bed.
You might seriously have some psychological problems if you feel this way, I would suggest consulting a psychiatrist because it sounds like you a borderline paranoid schizophrenic.

I suggest less internet and more "talking to other human beings". You'll find that the world is actually a much more pleasant place that it appears from behind whatever filter you're watching it through.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Digital End]

Come on, the Second Amendment isn't about shooting politicians, despite the Slashdot bias towards that little chunk of Libertarian mythology.

Why is it whenever I see the terms for liberal used in a derogatory way the comments are always wrong? Just an observation...

Anyway, my point. 2nd amendment is:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That really doesn't sound like maintaining slavery to me.

Maybe I'm wrong, lets ask someone who knows a bit more on the subject then us shall we?

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington (who is a Grade A Badass) January 8, 1790, First State of the Union Address

I don't like guns at all, and would love to see them gone... however I dislike people who bend history to their own ends more.

Re:What happened to my country?

[khallow]

If you look at the history and discussion from back in the day, the people's right to bear arms was granted in order to maintain slavery. That's what the militia was for; to put down a slave uprising.

Interesting spin. And clearly wrong. The right to bear arms was the second change to the Constitution after the various rights of free speech, practice of religion, and assembly. That indicates to me that the amendment was considered unusually important even among the Bill of Rights. As I see it, it means that the US citizen has a right to defend themselves with weapons that can kill people easily and effectively. What's unspecified is what dangers the citizen is allowed to defend themselves from. I think that's deliberate. Dangers of the time would include slave uprisings, Indian raids, crime, and tyranny.

As far as killing congressmen goes, I think it should be a very high threshhold for armed rebellion against the State. You shouldn't do it just because Congress passes a law that you think is unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court is there to undo that, not you. But if the organs of government are dissolved, say that Congress and the Supreme Court are dissolved or destroyed and the President decrees law and appoints judges by fiat, when the Constitution has clearly and utterly been vanquished. Then that would be a time for armed rebellion.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Alpha830RulZ]

The transcripts from the recent Supreme Court 2nd amendment case do not support this assertion. The testimony, and the historical precedents that they cited from the time, make it clear that the topic under discussion by our forefathers was the rights of a citizen militia to be armed in contemplation of resistance of a tyrannical government.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that right-wingers always want to shoot someone to effect political change?

Re:What happened to my country?

[TooMuchToDo]

I can understand your dislike of firearms, but whomever said "the pen is mightier than the sword" didn't have two in the chest and one in the head.

Re:What happened to my country?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

And your attitude is precisely the reason the US is in (and will continue to slide deeper into) shit. Your Founding Fathers were violent revolutionaries who saw the principles they embedded into the Constitution as dearer then their own life. You see your "lifestyle" of credit-card funded mountains of Chinese plastic crap amassed near your huge ass TV from which an endless river of brainless "entertainment" spews forth, and from which you only drag your ass away in your SUV to the nearest McDonald's, far, far more important than anything else, particularly these "silly" rights and freedoms, and including things like hundreds of thousands of "furriners" being murdered and maimed in the name of the "superiority" of that "lifestyle" of yours.

To which I can only say that I hope you get what you truly deserve. Neither security, nor freedom. And a bankruptcy to boot. All of which are pretty much knocking on your doors already. Perhaps you should hide under your bed with your iPod and turn up the volume.

Re:What happened to my country?

[BDF]

You said:
...Maybe I'm wrong, lets ask someone who knows a bit more on the subject then us shall we?

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington (who is a Grade A Badass) January 8, 1790, First State of the Union Address


------- While I agree that the 2nd Amendment is there to protect the people from enemies including their own government (they just shook off one corrupt govt)...

The quote in your comment was not in George Washington's State of the Union Address that you referenced.

The reference at that time to being armed and disciplined was due to concerns with hostile Indians, particularly in Virginia.

The Address was as follows:

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity which now presents itself of congratulating you on the present favorable prospects of our public affairs. The recent accession of the important state of north Carolina to the Constitution of the United States (of which official information has been received), the rising credit and respectability of our country, the general and increasing good will toward the government of the Union, and the concord, peace, and plenty with which we are blessed are circumstances auspicious in an eminent degree to our national prosperity.

In resuming your consultations for the general good you can not but derive encouragement from the reflection that the measures of the last session have been as satisfactory to your constituents as the novelty and difficulty of the work allowed you to hope. Still further to realize their expectations and to secure the blessings which a gracious Providence has placed within our reach will in the course of the present important session call for the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.

Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is on e of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.

The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed indispensable will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy.

There was reason to hope that the pacific measures adopted with regard to certain hostile tribes of Indians would have relieved the inhabitants of our southern and western frontiers from their depredations, but you will perceive from the information contained in the papers which I shall direct to be laid before you (comprehending a communication from the Commonwealth of Virginia) that we ought to be prepared to afford protection to those parts of the Union, and, if necessary, to punish aggressors.

The interests of the United States require that our intercourse with other nations should be facilitated by such provisions as will enable me to fulfill my duty in that respect in the manner which circumstances may render most conducive to the public good, and to this end that the compensation to be made to the persons who may be employed should, according to the nature of their appointments, be defined by law, and a competent fund designated for defraying the expenses incident to the conduct of foreign affairs.

Various considerations also render it expedient that the terms on which foreigners may be admitted to

Re:What happened to my country?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I have great big guns :)

Re:What happened to my country?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not subjective. Read the fucking news and make an objective comparison.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Sabriel]

Bush is NOT hiding under you bed.

He doesn't need to. Executive Order 1984: The NSA shall hide under everyone's bed.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Anonymous Coward]

A free people ought not only to be armed and *disciplined* but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington (who is a Grade A Badass) January 8, 1790, First State of the Union Address

Hmmmmm

Re:What happened to my country?

[thelexx]

If you are inferring that he was alluding to, in an extremely vague way, anyone wanting to be armed necessarily be in a professional fighting force, you'd be wrong.
 

Re:What happened to my country?

[AliasMarlowe]

I can understand your dislike of firearms, but whomever said "the pen is mightier than the sword" didn't have two in the chest and one in the head.

Two pens in the chest and a third in the head? Sounds fatal enough to me.

Re:What happened to my country?

[PopeRatzo]

That's why I have great big guns :)

"They" will always have bigger guns than you.

It's the law.

Re:What happened to my country?

[lupis42]

I still think that the system can work, but the individuals with power in that system need to be held responsible, and that means more than just not re-electing them, it means charging them with crimes, bring out evidence, and punishing them if they are guilty. Up to and including capital punishment, for the crime of High Treason.

Re:What happened to my country?

[lupis42]

I don't for one minute think they're out to get me. They are at best out to get a chunk of my pocketbook. I don't think that even that is the case, however. They're out to maintain their own positions, or improve them. They do not care about us except insofar as we further or hinder those goals. But the NSA *is* listening to my phone calls, and they *are* confiscating whatever the hell they want, and imprisoning whoever the hell they want, and that's not supposed to happen in America. That was, in fact, the *point* of America.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? There is 'armed' as in 'I have a gun' and then there is 'ARMED' as in 'Lay down your weapons or we will be forced to kill you'.

How you second amendment nuts can still think that carrying a weapon makes you anything else than a target is beyond me.

Re:What happened to my country?

[tbannist]

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597

Privacy International ranks the U.S. at the same level (their lowest level) as Russia, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the U.K.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Unlikely_Hero]

There are also those of us trapped in this country who still hold those freedoms, rights and principles to be more important than our own lives. We are few, but we are vigilant and god help us vicious. You may be right about a majority of those in this country, but please remember that there are those of us in whom the fire burns brightly.

Re:What happened to my country?

[Unlikely_Hero]

because its gotten to the point where shooting the bastards is becoming one of the only workable options. I maintain that a) the voting system is rigged (thank you ever so much diebold...) b) the economic system has cancer (thank you fed/congress/inflation based economy) c) the rights of the US citizen have been stripped away bit by bit for the last 150 years or so. We are effectively serfs. What would you have us do?

Re:What happened to my country?

[PitaBred]

Discipline in that context means trained in the use of aforementioned arms, not as in "following the rules of government".

It's amazing how many illiterates there are who can still read simple words and misinterpret them. And then get modded up by similar intellectual giants.

Re:What happened to my country?

[owndao]

I suppose Washington is often misquoted on this. With a little searching I found:

"And yet another bogus Washington quote:

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government"

The actual quote:

"A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies."
---George Washington's First Annual Message to Congress (January 8, 1790)"

What should he have said?

[CannonballHead]

As many have brought up, it is nearly impossible to say exactly what is going on minutely in a huge operation. So what should Bush have said? "We have no way of knowing whether or not we are spying on individuals."

Isn't this sort of statement more or less a statement of non-condoning of an activity? The same as if Bill Gates or Steve Jobs said "We will not pirate software" but then some of their employees DO pirate software, and they don't know about it. So when we find out, are Gates or Jobs the ones in trouble for saying it? Because obviously, they should know about every single thing their employees are doing.

Oh, wait, sorry, I shouldn't compare governments to people's organizations, because governments can be made perfect, as long as we give them more control...

I'm conservative, Bush wasn't very conservative, and I disagree with a lot of what he has done, but it is interesting that it seems the upcoming election features an "agent of change" that is really no different or even worse with the whole deception thing than people easily think about the ENTIRE Bush administration... and yet Obama and possibly McCain both support larger and more controlling government than Bush did or at least said he did, so I don't understand. Many are so upset at Bush that they are doing a pendulum vote for someone that wants government to be involved in pretty much everything, including your commute to work and what car (or at least, what that car's technology can be) you drive. But of course, he won't spy on anyone. He won't HAVE to. [[[ -5 Troll for "Conservative Viewpoints" :) hehe ]]]

Re:What should he have said?

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet Obama and possibly McCain both support larger and more controlling government than Bush did or at least said he did, so I don't understand.

All I have to say is "Department of Homeland Security"
You let me know what "larger and more controlling government" McCain & Obama are supporting.

Re:What should he have said?

[Digital End]

go go plausible denibility!

Re:What should he have said?

[timq]

You're forgetting something: just in a private enterprise, the administration by order and by example sets the rules and the climate that the various government agencies operate under. To accomplish their goals, the administration is given vast powers. In exchange for these powers, in a functioning republic they are to be held responsible for the deeds of their underlings, whether they can rightfully claim ignorance or not.

The administration is responsible for good government, and after an eight-year presidency doubly so.

Re:What should he have said?

[wurp]

If Gates were to say, *in defense of installing CD presses at MS*, that the users won't be pressing illegal copies of CDs, and then they do, then absolutely Gates should be held responsible. If he says they won't do it, then he should institute policies that ensure that they don't do it. Saying that they won't do it puts a burden on the one saying it to make it so that it doesn't happen.

This is exactly the same as the "Iraq has WMD" statements. What they really meant was, "I'm pretty sure, based on no real evidence, that Iraq has WMD". Their statement was a statement of opinion given as a statement of fact.

Of course, even if they can correctly claim that spying will only be done on people for whom they have real evidence of criminal behavior, it is *still illegal*.

"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." -- the 6th amendment.

Without a warrant, it is illegal to snoop on people's private conversation. Period. This is not some legal puzzle put out there so that only people smart or charismatic enough to convince other people that they have a "really good reason" to spy without a warrant can do it. It is a legal principle to help protect you and I (presuming you're American) from an overreaching or oppressive government.

And, regarding Obama supporting a more controlling government than Bush: give me examples. If those examples are "he wants to regulate the health care industry", you're a nut. That's not the government controlling me, that's the government providing me a service. I'm willing do discuss that it might not be the best way to provide it, and even that it might be unconstitutional. But it is not a more controlling government.

Regarding Obama being more deceptive than Bush. Again, give examples. I don't think you have them. I can think of a few examples where Obama put forth mild deceptions to avoid innocent connections that could be made to look ugly by political opponents. I cannot think of examples where he lied about something that got tens of thousands of people killed and wasted *trillions* (multiple of the T-word) of dollars on a war that made the world despise the country.

Re:What should he have said?

[PitaBred]

No, the governments specifically gave the NSA the rights to listen without oversight. That's the point here... if someone at the NSA was going against the established rules, that's one thing, but they weren't. The rules were changed by the people in charge, and now we're seeing the fallout of it, and the people in charge SHOULD be responsible for it.

and he only several insults like you did?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

and he only several insults like you did

If you want to impugn someone in some way, please do so cogently.

Is that really all that your party can do now? Is it that weak and fragile? Pitiful.

Getting a decent thought out must be tough for you. I bet your three brain cells were working so hard when you composed your post that your face looked like you were trying to pass a pineapple.

Re:and he only several insults like you did?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off you idiot.

Thanks for the insight. It's terrifying.

[OneIfByLan]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the insight.

"And surprise, surprise: individuals with the power to listen to things sometimes listen to things they're not supposed to, ... there really isn't any easy way to prevent it. ... But I guess sometimes immaturity and a cheap laugh at someone else's expense trumps common sense and the doing the right thing."

My response and my honest question would be, what the hell ever happened to discipline and accountability? When I got an order, it was the Voice of God and woe be unto the man who dreamed of disobeying his CO.

There isn't an easy way to prevent people screwing around? Is that a joke? All I ever got was a growl that said "Don't screw around!" and we didn't dare, not if we valued our sorry asses.

You're literally arguing that there's no such thing as a chain of command any more, that the commanders have lost control of their men. In my day, admitting you couldn't keep your men under control was a wonderful way to lose your rank.

Re:Thanks for the insight. It's terrifying.

[PopeRatzo]

You really think that the worst thing we have to worry about from the unfettered power to listen to our communications is a few agents screwing around?

Do they just not teach history in school any more? Does nobody care about what it is that's made America a unique place? How easily frightened people will give up their liberty and privacy. It's really sad how so many of my fellow Americans will cower behind proto-fascism because they are scared.

Re:Thanks for the insight. It's terrifying.

[Anonymous Coward]

When I got an order, it was the Voice of God and woe be unto the man who dreamed of disobeying his CO.

Note that Faulk specifically said that the abuses were brought to the attention of NSA supervisors - the ones whom the Bush administration has repeatedly claimed were adequate substitutes for FISA judges in deciding who should be surveilled - and those supervisors said that they were ordered to transcribe the calls in question.

Dave can go on and on (and on and on, geeze dude) about how some dweeb with a tap was doing naughty things, but he can't change the allegations. If the allegations are true, these were by no means "cheap laughs" by bottom-rung "individuals".

Re:Thanks for the insight. It's terrifying.

[TubeSteak]

You're literally arguing that there's no such thing as a chain of command any more, that the commanders have lost control of their men. In my day, admitting you couldn't keep your men under control was a wonderful way to lose your rank.

He's arguing no such thing.

TFA: Faulk told Ross: "when one of my co-workers went to a supervisor and said: 'but sir, there are personal calls,' the supervisor said: 'my orders were to transcribe everything'."

Him and other posters are using the "few bad apples" defense in the face of completely contrary information.

Replace "spying" with "torturing" and we can reuse all the Abu Ghraib press releases.

Re:Thanks for the insight. It's terrifying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that everyone's home, investments and retirement plans have gone down the crapper, they are even more dependent on the state for their protection. As for the American experiment, it's high time to repeal the suicide pac^W^WFourteenth Amendment that created the civil rights culture that coerced the banks to loan money to those who were proven not to be able to pay. It seems that total economic collapse is the more politically correct alternative to having the mortgage industry branded as racist.

War or no war, authority will always be abused. As more and more people are being malaffected by the economy, it may well reflect in the jury box as (read: if) CEO's face prosecution. Jury nullification may follow revenge killings. Meanwhile, it's time to apply more "THIS PHONE IS TAPPED" handset stickers.

Non-story.

[nsaspook]

U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted. Boo Fucking Ho. If you are calling from the middle-east, Damn right your call is monitored.

Re:Non-story.

[Inkednpierced]

Honestly guy's... is anyone really that surprised?

Re:Non-story.

[Sabriel]

The meat of the story, however is that (a) they're continuing to be monitored and recorded even after being found to be personal conversations between US citizens who aren't military, and (b) this isn't misbehaving field personnel but "my orders were to transcribe everything".

I was under the impression that (a) was where the whole illegal thing started rolling and (b) was where people should be noticing they're in a handbasket and asking where they're going.

Re:Non-story.

[nsaspook]

The only possible thing that's illegal is that two retards talking about.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=900005545655

(f) Nothing contained in this chapter or chapter 121 or 206 of this title, or section 705 of the Communications Act of 1934, shall be deemed to affect the acquisition by the United States Government of foreign intelligence information from international or foreign communications, or foreign intelligence activities conducted in accordance with otherwise applicable Federal law involving a foreign electronic communications system, utilizing a means other than electronic surveillance as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and procedures in this chapter or chapter 121 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2511.html

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Achmed is the one who says, "Silence! I keel you!"

After the Election

[Danathar]

What WILL these people do once Obama is elected. I predict that all the reports of eavesdropping, etc will magically stop.

Conservatives

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why conservatives are better as a minority party than as a ruling party. They can't be held accountable for their own administration. The buck stops somewhere else. Think about what happened in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal. There was a lot of finger pointing, with no one at the top taking responsibility. Are we to believe that our military personnel are some of the most disciplined people in the world, and yet they are allowed to torture their prisoners for *weeks* without any commanding officers noticing?

You conservatives are great people, and I really mean that. I hope you'll keep an eye on the Democrats and make sure the checks and balances are in place. But until you learn to hold your leaders accountable, I desperately hope that you stay out of power.

No privacy in war zone

[Anonymous Coward]

1) There was no misconception about military networks - they had signs saying they were monitored. It has always been military policy to monitor communications in military camps in a war zone - always. I highly doubt that anyone in the camps wasn't aware of this fact.

2) Since there is no way you could transcribe the volume of calls entering/leaving American bases, obviously the calls that were transcribed had one layer of filtering at least. Since they were transcribed anyway, it seems very likely they were trying to figure out better ways of filtering. Either that or working on some killer voice recognition software...

all GSM traffic in a "warzone"...

[johnjones]

take a look at the encryption on GSM...

then take a look at the way the U.S. Navy fly over iraq etc...

privacy ? if they want to follow you they will

the best joke I heard was that emails from RIM devices where secure, people who claim that never have had any security clearance NSA keeps all the log's get over it

regards

John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk

(I was marked before)

i'm shocked!

[snakeplissken]

i'm shocked! shocked to find that illegal eavesdropping has been going on in here!
  > here are your intercepts sir!
oh, thank you very much!

This is why...

[interactive_civilian]

As someone from the US who has been living outside of the US since July 2001, this is why I semi-jokingly say hello to the NSA whenever I'm on the phone with my family or friends stateside.

Yeah, there is no reason for them to be listening to my calls (though I have made and received calls from/in Morocco, a *dum Dum DUUUM* Muslim country), but, well, if they are listening, I wouldn't want to come across as impolite. :-/

The "few bad apples" cliche

[OneIfByLan]

Yeah, I never really got the "It's just a few bad apples" argument either, since the saying from Poor Richard's Almanac goes "One bad apple spoils the bunch."

Re:The "few bad apples" cliche

[TubeSteak]

Yeah, I never really got the "It's just a few bad apples" argument either, since the saying from Poor Richard's Almanac goes "One bad apple spoils the bunch."

I'd have to disagree with that.
There are cases of "a few bad apples" that don't spoil the whole bunch.
But, with those, you don't end up with situations that become front page scandals.
A few government/military individuals rarely have the authority or ability to create that kind of mess

Bare minimum, you are looking at lax oversight
In the middle is permissive environment
And the worst case scenario is illegal orders

Who Cares About the U.S. Constitution?

[NeverVotedBush]

It's just a God damn piece of paper, isn't it?

At least according to the Worst President Ever .

The Germans Didn't See It Coming Either

[NeverVotedBush]

Back in the 1930s...

Hundreds?

[minus-sign]

Only hundreds? Considering the level of power we've given our intelligence community since 9/11 I think that shows inhuman restraint...

Re:Hundreds?

[Catbeller]

Hundreds in this one cell, per only two whistleblowers. The total number is probably in the tens of thousands. And,"ONLY"?

They were ordered to

[Insightfill]

These weren't renegades. If you go all the way to page 3 of TFA (I know, who reads these!) you'll read that they were ordered to record these calls, even those of the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, two groups that supposedly were exempt from such tracking.

They also indicated in the testimony that their higher-ups insisted on their continuing the recording and following of these groups even when they had protested.

Again: not 'a few bad apples', but something endemic to the system.

What a waste

[Insightfill]

As mentioned in TFA, while we have a backlog of untranscribed communications from more relevant conversations, these employees were ordered to listen to and transcribe inane conversations of American citizens calling their families back home. Meanwhile, legit intelligence sits decaying on the shelves.

Sheesh, in addition to firing employees because of their religious beliefs or being gay, they've now got them taking notes on American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders employees and volunteers who are calling home to check on their kids. I feel all warm and safe, now.<sarcasm/>

Am I the only one

[tjones]

Hasn't anybody read the book "The Puzzle Palace"? This stuff has been going on for a very long time.

I can remember throwing random mentions of the phrases "nuclear bomb" or "atomic bomb" to add chaff to the system in the late 80's and early 90's when I was in Europe.

Anyone who doesn't know that all international phone calls are being monitored by any one of several governments automated systems hasn't been paying attention for the last 25+ years.

Kinne already blew the whistle in May...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinne blew the whistle back in May, actually. The story was on Democracy now, and I am sorry in advance if anyone else has already brought this up.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080514_army_whistle_blower_palestine_hotel_on_target_list_in_baghdad/

From the story:

âoe[W]e were listening to journalists who were staying in the Palestine Hotel. And I remember that, specifically because during the buildup to âshock and aweâ(TM) ... we were given a list of potential targets in Baghdad, and the Palestine Hotel was listed. [P]utting one and one together, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think theyâ(TM)re safe, and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldnâ(TM)t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation? And unfortunately, my officer in charge ... basically told me that it was not my job to analyze ... someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.â

Makes sense to me

[dave562]

Lets see here... The United States government has sent thousands of troops to occupy and loot a foreign land. There weren't enough troops sent there in the first place to get the job done safely. As a result, many of the troops have faced extended Stop Loss orders that have kept them in the armed services for a year or more after they should have been done with their commitment. Meanwhile at home, the economy is falling apart and those soldiers are going to be coming home into harsh economic conditions where they will have a difficult time finding a job, paying their rent, car bills, child support and everything else. The economic hardship will be stacked on top of all of the PTSD cases from seeing their friends killed next to him, having to violate other human being's basic rights and a whole slew of other issues that arise in moral people put in positions where they are ordered to do immoral things.

If any group of individuals is going to get together and give Uncle Sam the middle finger, it is going to be the returning vets. Some of them actually believe that whole "protect and defend" the Constitution oath that they took. Some of them are even smart enough to realize that the country is being run into the ground by traitors intent on destroying the Constitution and completing the sell out of our economy and civil rights to international bankers in order to establish a single world government. Toss in the fact that those people are trained in urban combat and counter-insurgency operations and well... you have the tip of the spear for a full blown civil insurrection.

Given all of that, if you were setting up a surveillance program with the intent of keeping an eye on people with the potential to upset the power that you're so precariously clinging onto, wouldn't you put the troops under surveillance too? If I were PFC Iraqi-Vet just back from the sandbox with a Purple Heart for wounds sustained and a Bronze Star for operating under fire while my squad was absorbing rifle fire with their bodies and getting peppered with shrapnel, the fact that the government was eavesdropping on my phone sex with my girlfriend might be one straw too many on the back of an already staggering camel.

Given the efficiency of the PsyOps folks, the troops probably don't care. Maybe they already know that their conversations are being eavesdropped on. After all, they sold their bodies and souls to Uncle Sam. It all comes with the territory.

Re:Makes sense to me

[dave562]

Whoever moderated by post Offtopic can blow me. (Go ahead and moderate this post into oblivion. Oh no... not my karma.) The initial post was perfectly on topic. It dealt with the NSA eavesdropping on US troops overseas and possible reasons for doing so.

Republicans are Fascists

[cc_pirate]

Well, at least GWB and Cheney are.

Need more proof? PATRIOT Act, Guantanamo, waterboarding, illegal wiretaps, TSA, Homeland (sound like Fatherland to you too?) Security, etc., etc., etc.

I used to be a Republican until GWB. Never again.

Re: NSA Whistleblowers Reveal Extent of

[freedom_india]

So?

c.f. Nicky Hager: The Secret Power

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've read Nicky Hager's "The Secret Power" (http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/sp/), you become aware that the business of communications interception is much more complex than even this whistleblower is making out.

For example, while the NSA cannot monitor US citizens, their counterparts in the UK can (and vice versa.) And to blur the lines even more, what happens when you've for a UK national on rotation as part of a "swap/rotation program" between the agencies working in an NSA listening post to an American?

This book might be hard to find now, but if you can get a copy of it, it's a damn interesting read. It is all very well researched, with lots of government public information cross referenced, leaving not much for speculation.

The only significant change since the writing of that book is that we've gone from using satellite communication between continents to using underwater cables.

These people are the reason I signed up ...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the NSA. I jokingly offered to anybody above who would listen that if they needed someoene not keeping the code to be choked with piano wire, then I'm their man...but they never would do it...oh well....

you gonna be da wormface

[Anonymous Coward]

"Despite pledges by President George W. Bush..."
THAT EVIL BASTARD! He assured us he would personally check each of the the tens of millions of wiretaps!

I say we hold him responsible for Echelon too. Heck...since the invention of the telephone! You KNOW he and Cheney are somehom responsible!

captcha:nothingismyfaultitsalwayssomeoneholdingmeback

COMSEC Monitoring, Info Assurance, & JCMA

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is a red herring.

COMSEC monitoring and Information Assurance (which these two guys admit they were taking part of) is used and designed to detect and track information leakage out of the DoD. The DoD is a massive organization, so lots of info gets out.

Realistically, it's not there to track phone-sex conversations, of course. It's designed so the DoD can at least KNOW when some piece of information is out in the wild (which it presumes it is once communicated on a clear line) and in the hands of the enemy.

There is no attribution by collectors. The fact that the info is out is reported, but not the source.

This has been and will always be completely legal and has nothing AT ALL to do with the Patriot Act (which I am fundamentally against). There is nothing preventing the military from monitoring its own communications. If you visit a military website, you may notice a large popup - this is a consent to monitoring banner. Any use of DoD communications links (computers, phone, etc) fall under this over-arching consent to monitor.

There are career fields specifically dedicated to this - 1N6X1 (Google it) in the Air Force specifically handles email and telephone monitoring under COMSEC authority.

Also Google JCMA.

Don't they have other people to monitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Arab Linguists be monitoring English speaking persons? Couldn't their talents be better utilized elsewhere?

Re:Don't they have other people to monitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

More important question: why are Arab linguists bound by 100 year non-disclosure agreements breaking their 100 year binding non-disclosure agreements by talking about this in public?

Oversight is missing. Freedom has been lost.

[aqui]

In Canada to get a wiretap the following is required (to my knowledge):

1) Reasonable suspicion that a crime is or has been committed.

2) A warrant signed by a Judge (oversight).

Canada still has a democracy.

In a police state "preventing crime" takes precedent over peoples rights to privacy, freedom of movement and association. The idea is "crime is prevented through surveillance and control."

This is a clear cut case of where everyone argues "oh its ok" we violated everyones rights, after all we stopped "TERRORISTS" for hurting people.

Every Americans rights are threatened when it is "ok" to monitor just one conversation.

Translation: "the ends justify the means."

This is the talk of people that have given up their rights in exchange for a a false sense of security and control (because they are afraid and feel out of control).

The truth is that freedom and control are at opposite ends of the spectrum. You cannot have true freedom in a controlled environment (you have the illusion of freedom).

We control the environments of our children to protect them from harm, but we leave them as much an illusion of freedom as we can, but even they find the boundaries. At some point after teaching them as much as we can we let them go into the world and TRUST them to start to manage the dangers and risks themselves as ADULTS.

So ask yourself America: Are you a nation of children that needs protection by a false parent "the state", or are you Adults and can be trusted to handle democracy, freedom and the risks that come with that?

Many more people die in car accidents then of terrorist acts. If you're ok with monitoring private calls, really our taxes should be spent on speed limiters, black boxes and remote ignition kill switches for vehicles, so that the state can protect us from ourselves when we go too fast and cause accidents. (oh and don't get me started on firearms...) Of course that would mean loosing your illusion of freedom in a trade off for a real gain in safety and security.

Wiretapping without Judicial oversight is a true loss of freedom with a limited gain in safety. It does not affect your illusion of freedom until you test the boundaries (disagree with the parent state).

If we give up our rights and begin to act like children, then democracy has failed and the Terrorists have succeed in damaging our society far more than we acknowledge. After all the objective of Terrorists is to cause "terror and fear" in the hope that it will change things to support their agenda.

The issue is not whether wiretapping is useful or not. It is. However being able to wiretap is a great power. With that power comes responsibility and the possibility for misuse and abuse. This is why oversight is needed (much like we can vote for a new government every 4-5 years).

The true issue is the lack of oversight (transparent processes that hold people accountable). As and Adult I am willing trust other Adults working to protect me as long as sufficient oversight exists to make sure abuses of power are prevented (or at least exposed and corrected). With oversight the control of wiretapping remains in my hands (admittedly indirectly through law) without it I become a child with the illusion of freedom being watched over by someone else.

Subject

[Legion303]

US Government overstepping its authority and trampling on rights? Gasp!

Slashdot: News for people who haven't been paying attention. Stuff that surprises no one.

This is what happens when you trust the goverment

[DJRumpy]

You should never give them this type of freedom and lack of oversight. I'm guessing no one remembers Nixon? I place this blame on both Bush, the republic congress, and ourselves for letting Bush and congress walk all over us with their fear mongering. What they've been doing is just vile.

This always was the case

[WillAffleckUW]

Back when I was in the Army with a clearance, I got to visit the shack in Yakima where all overseas phone calls got screened in.

We always got the whole feed, and then selected, and it's always been way more open than the legislators ever admitted in public.

Silly rabbit, privacy's for people not in the USA. Welcome to Soviet Amerika!

Re:Oversight is missing. Freedom has been lost.

[daveschroeder]

You're completely wrong.

A warrant is not required, and never has been required, for foreign intelligence collection. The same is true for Canada's Communications Security Establishment. Sorry.

What's different is that when traffic from protected parties are intercepted (in the US, that would be a US Person), special action must be taken depending on the circumstances. But a warrant is NOT required for foreign SIGINT, even if some of the parties to the communication may sometimes be US (or Canadian) citizens.

This is the way it's been since the dawn of modern foreign SIGINT six decades ago in both the US and Canada.

Re:FUCK THE FUCKING WHISTLEBLOWER.

[cryptodan]

What no fucking comments from the liberalistic backed Slashdotted people?

Picture the environment: This is how it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

At Ft. Gordon there is a big black square building surrounded by razor wire. It has no windows. There are a bunch of mean-looking antennas on top. Unless you're cleared Top Secret you won't get in. Inside are rows and rows of computer screens sifting through millions of signals intelligence. Hundreds of people work there. Most of the stuff is useless information, but once in awhile you get to save a life. At each cubicle is a person. Who is he?

If he's an Arabic linguist he joined the service at about 18, went to boot camp for nine weeks, and was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California for an intensive two-year language course in Arabic. He lived in barracks at the time and perhaps was lucky enough to be in a two-man room with a personal space no bigger than a walk-in closet. At the end of the two years he would be able to speak, listen to, and write Arabic at a high school graduate level, the level of the typical man on the street. That would be a '3' on the test. At this stage the linguist is promoted to E-4. That's a corporal (or in the Navy, Petty Officer 3rd Class).

After this 'A' school he would go to Texas for another few months of technical training. At this point he would be making about $2,000 per month. There's a bit extra for food and housing, but if you live on base, it all goes away. You then get sent to Fort Gordon. You are about 21 years old and you are on the front lines as far as SIGINT is concerned.

Now: You have been told over and over and over again about the 'regs' on listening to citizens. You KNOW you are not supposed to listen to Americans. You've signed papers to that effect. You've also gone to classes on the UCMJ, but you know, they're kinda boring. In fact, the whole job is kinda boring. You just listen to stuff for ten hours a day. Most of it is total crap, Arabic or not. Sometimes you might score, so you send it up the chain of command and it disappears. Nothing happens. It sucks. Politics so a bad guy gets away. What are you here for anyway?

They told you it would be easy to take college classes while at Gordon, but the fact is, the crazy shift changes make that almost impossible. You're in a group of other 21 year olds, all E-4's, and you shoot the shit with other kids from all over the country. Most of them are not educated, just country bumpkins who couldn't afford college, or won't be going for other reasons. It's not like we're from the middle class.

You start smoking because everyone else is. You talk about how boring your job is, how you wish you'd never joined, how the service is shit. Lots of your friends are getting married at 21, divorced with a kid at 22. You're still making $2K a month. It mighta gone up a hundred or two. If you're good and get promoted to E-5 you get $2247.30 a month, and lots more responsibility. Of course, only the biggest jerks get the 'outstanding sailor of the quarter' awards. They are such suck-ups!

So there you are and some dork says, "Hey, check this out. This is so funny!" and whaddya know, he's got the Chief talking dirty to his girlfrind - in English, no less. He's not supposed to do it. Are you going to tell the warrant officer about it and get him in trouble? Course not. You can't do that. Everyone would hate you. So you let it go. It IS kinda funny.

That's the level of what has happened here. Oh, I know. Bush lied again, right? Nope. It's a bunch of young adults bored to tears who sometimes do not follow regs. There is no orchestrated campaign, just a few 21 year olds being sloppy and a little stupid. And now a couple of their fellow E-4's have decided they can get a little air time over it. Little shits.

I have been there. This is how it really is and this is what really happened. Telling this is probably technically illegal, though I didn't give anything important away. I mean, it's obvious we, like, listen, right? Duh! Because I absolutely must protect myself and my friends I must post as AC. Sorry.