Slashdot Mirror
The NSA Wiretapping Story Nobody Wanted
CWmike writes "They sometimes call national security the third rail of politics. Touch it and, politically, you're dead. The cliché doesn't seem far off the mark after reading Mark Klein's new book, Wiring up the Big Brother Machine ... and Fighting It. It's an account of his experiences as the whistleblower who exposed a secret room at a Folsom Street facility in San Francisco that was apparently used to monitor the Internet communications of ordinary Americans. Amazingly, however, nobody wanted to hear his story. In his book he talks about meetings with reporters and privacy groups that went nowhere until a fateful January 20, 2006 meeting with Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Bankston was preparing a lawsuit that he hoped would put a stop to the wiretap program, and Klein was just the kind of witness the EFF was looking for. He spoke with Robert McMillan for an interview."
It was called "The Spy Factory".
Here's a transcript (search for "Folsom" 4/5ths down the page):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3602_spyfactory.html
That was a lie promulgated by the Bush administration. The device copied _all_ communication that traveled through this facility, domestic and foreign. There is good evidence also that this wasn't the only place were AT&T, or other carriers, were imposing dragnet surveillance.
From EFF.org
The undisputed documents show that AT&T installed a fiberoptic splitter at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco that makes copies of all emails, web browsing, and other Internet traffic to and from AT&T customers, and provides those copies to the NSA. This copying includes both domestic and international Internet activities of AT&T customers. As one expert observed, "this isn't a wiretap, it's a country-tap."
Of course, we may never know all the details thanks to Bush, Obama and all the other assholes that voted for FISA2008:
I've spoken to a cop who was ordered to systematically search any Arabic persons and arrest any who didn't have proper ID in the months following 9/11. So yes, this was happening.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
The ironic part of it is, all the 9/11 terrorists had proper ID along with full and legal documentation. So even if every law enforcement officer in the US been given those orders BEFORE 9/11 happened, they still would not have caught the hijackers.
This just shows the general incompetence of government, and how the larger a government is the more likely it is to attract incompetents to it's rolls.
Just another argument for the conservative ideal of smaller, more local, limited government.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Padilla_(prisoner)" This was an American citizen grabbed off the street and "disappeared."
We know all about this guy *now*, but we didn't when he was first grabbed... I'm more conservative than liberal, I voted for Bush both times, but I am not a fan of ignoring the foundation of American government, the Constitution of the United States of America. The Bush administration vastly overstepped the powers given to the Executive Branch of the federal government in the Constitution.
Yuhuh. And Jesse Macbeth supposedly took part in the murder and rape of entire Iraqi villages. Of course, upon actual review of his record, it turns out he got booted out of the military before even completing basic training. He wasn't the only one, either - there are multiple examples of people claiming to be soldiers in order to tell insane stories about all the horrible things they've done. Not only are there at least 3 examples I can name off the top of my head, but those 3 are just the ones who managed to get enough media attention for everyone to hear about them. There are tens of thousands of people doing similar things who don't make the news.
The moral of the story - don't believe everything you hear. Lots of people seek attention by pretending to be something they're not.
Actually he voted against immunity for telecoms but the amendment failed (see the post below).
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/11/obama.netroots/index.html
What's even more frightening is that they modded you informative when it's public record that he voted to strip the immunity provisions out although the amendment failed.
Yes, he did vote for the larger bill with the amendments that basically put the warrant requirements back in for any American they may have eavesdropped on whether on US soil or abroad.
True. But in the real world the military industrial complex has replaced social security. Look at the F-22. It's basically a nation-wide welfare and jobs program. It's never been flown in combat, the pentagon doesn't want any more, each one costs the equivalent of 11,000 family health insurance policies, and, apparently, it can't survive rain. But, fiscal conservatives are falling over each other trying to keep the program running.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
I don't think what the parent was asking about was whether you think it's ok to detain people who has, or very certainly will, "kill thousands of [your] contrymen". Or at least that's only part of it.
The bigger issue is that your soldiers, and their allies (which are either mercenaries or Afghan war lords), have been running around arresting and torturing people, against whom there is zero evidence that they have done or even wished, as you put it, anything wrong.
For instance, Mehdi Ghezali from Sweden who has not been charged with any crime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Ghezali
And the Uighur Adel Abdulhehim, who might have been fleeing his occupied, far-away country or might have taken part in "military training" (which may have consisted of firing a couple rounds with an AK-47, and that's it). The point is, there's no evidence, he won't be convicted, and yet he was locked up and tortured by American soldiers in Guantanamo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adel_Abdulhehim
It's hard not to find it absurd that American soldiers are traveling to the other side of the globe to arrest people who may or not may have done or "wished" anything, and take them back to yet another country, Cuba (because they don't want to do their dirty business on American soil) and arrest and torture them.
Trying to understand some concept of "universal" rights given nationalistic differences is difficult for me.
Yeah, you know what? Let's agree that it's a universal right not to be tortured, no matter what. We decided on that in 1949 because we didn't want to keep on with the same shit that had kept us in wars since the collapse of the Roman empire. I guess we'll just have to enjoy that brief period of dignity, since you are the largest military empire in the history and you seem to have a knack for electing war lords as leaders.
:wq!
The F22 is an insurance policy. It doesn't run flights in Afghanistan because it's not our best tool for that job. For firing on targets with a moments notice and cheaply, a Predator drone is cheaper and does the job faster.
The F22 is an air superiority fighter. If the Taliban had fighters of their own, we'd fly F22 sorties until they didn't anymore. If we do get into another air war, the F22 would save pilot, airmen, soldier, and civilian lives doing a job that no other plane does as well. I hope we never have to use the F22, but I'm sure glad we have it. I hope the maintenance issues get worked out as well, but that's unfortunately not always something that's foreseeable.
I hope that we continue to build defenses for all types of threats. When anthrax in the mail was the terror tool of choice, we placed hazard detectors in the USPS. When global superpowers were our likely next threat, we prepared with the F22. Now, with insurgent conflicts, we are designing tools for unconventional warfare.
It's only by preventing all possible threats that we have that insurance policy. How much worse would it be to develop our entire capability towards fighting against insurgents only to be threatened by a nuclear armed nation with cruise missiles, fighters, and a standing army and be unprepared again. I'll keep my F22s, just in case.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!