Cancelled TIA project is on-going.

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In summary, the Total Information Awareness project was on-going, but was shut down two years ago. It is the lead story for 2/27 on Democracy Now, which can be viewed in streaming video format or listened to as an audio stream.
  • #36
russ_watters said:
Search warrants, as you must know, do not apply to information that is voluntarily given and/or in the public domain. Those cops sitting on the side of the road with radar detectors and the ones watching the cameras at the mall have no search warrant and no probable cause - they are simply trolling for information that is in the public domain.

That is the key to this issue, and you guys know it and ignore it every time we discuss it. If there is no search there is no unreasonable search and siesure. If there is no increase in the scope of data available, there is no decrease in privacy. All that is changing is the way already available information is analyzed.
First, I have given no one permission to listen to my phone calls, monitor my email, read my mail, etc., and information such as my medical history is not public domain.

As for sting operations, these activities have been limited according to entrapment, and likewise road blocks must be advertised to the public in advance. In regard to private industry, I always ask if my information will be shared (sold), otherwise I won't provide it.

If the "how" of data mining is done via key words, then the "who" is indiscriminate and without probable cause, and the NSA is in clear violation of right to privacy. Why do you continue to ignore this?

Moonbear said:
SOS, just to quickly address the search warrant/ probable cause issue, probable cause IS publicly available data; it's any data about a person and their actions that can be gathered by observation of them and evidence left out in public or at a crime scene, as opposed to found on their private property. The search warrant based on that probable cause is used to further search on their private property. So, if a store owner has information in their computer about what your recent purchases are, and they agree to share that information with the police/government, there's nothing illegal about it. If the store owner refuses to share that information, however, then a search warrant or subpoena would be required to obtain it from them. So, what data could be collected without any warrants would depend on how willing people who own the property where it's stored are to share it. If large corporations decided they could make a small fortune selling their data to the government, they can do that and haven't broken any laws.
Right. What I am referring to is as stated above in which data is collected indiscriminately per key words or in a dragnet manner.
 
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  • #37
The Attorney General has changed his previous testimony. Can he do that?


Correcting misleading testimony to Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has signaled that George W. Bush’s warrantless surveillance of Americans went beyond the known eavesdropping on communications to suspected terrorists overseas.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 28, Gonzales recanted testimony he gave on Feb. 6 when he declared that Bush had only authorized a narrowly constructed warrantless wiretapping program by the National Security Agency against Americans in touch with foreign terror suspects.

Referring to a part of his testimony in which he said Bush had approved the NSA program “and that is all that he has authorized,” Gonzales withdrew that language, saying “I did not and could not address … any other classified intelligence activities.” [Washington Post, March 1, 2006]
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/030206.html

I would say that for $40 billion per year the NSA must have an extensive world wide information gathering system, including domestic. The limited "wiretaps' on terrorist, which Bush claims is the case, does not account for the spending of that much money.
 
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  • #38
The Attorney General is now admittedly in contempt of Congress, having lied to them. He probably knows or fears that another of the domestic surveillance programs is going to become public knowledge and needed to cover his butt. The Republican-controlled Congress will not take any action against him - they stand by mute while the Bush administration strips us of our rights.

Why is this important? First off, all the authority conferred on the Administration and Congress resides in "We the People". When the administration lies to Congress, they are lying to US, who are the source of all political authority in this country. We are supposed to have a representative government (as opposed to a democracy), and the administration is subverting that process of checks and balances to their own ends, claiming Imperial powers in "wartime".
 
  • #39
turbo-1 said:
The Attorney General is now admittedly in contempt of Congress, having lied to them. He probably knows or fears that another of the domestic surveillance programs is going to become public knowledge and needed to cover his butt. The Republican-controlled Congress will not take any action against him - they stand by mute while the Bush administration strips us of our rights.

Why is this important? First off, all the authority conferred on the Administration and Congress resides in "We the People". When the administration lies to Congress, they are lying to US, who are the source of all political authority in this country. We are supposed to have a representative government (as opposed to a democracy), and the administration is subverting that process of checks and balances to their own ends, claiming Imperial powers in "wartime".
It will all come out, for example:

Saudi Group Alleges Wiretapping by U.S.
Defunct Charity's Suit Details Eavesdropping

By Carol D. Leonnig and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 2, 2006; A01

Documents cited in federal court by a defunct Islamic charity may provide the first detailed evidence of U.S. residents being spied upon by President Bush's secret eavesdropping program, according to the organization's lawsuit and a source familiar with the case.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030102585_pf.html

It's just a matter of time.
 
  • #40
SOS2008 said:
First, I have given no one permission to listen to my phone calls, monitor my email, read my mail, etc., and information such as my medical history is not public domain.
I already mentioned the caveat about medical records, but again, you don't need to give permission for those other things (except mail - that has nothing to do with this): you don't own own the content.
 
  • #41
russ_watters said:
I already mentioned the caveat about medical records, but again, you don't need to give permission for those other things (except mail - that has nothing to do with this): you don't own own the content.
Proof please as to the legality of government monitoring of telephone calls or email without a warrant (i.e., without probable cause). Certainly not personal telephone calls from a privately owned phone, and even in the workplace, employers must warn employees beforehand that their email might be monitored before the employer can have the right to do so.
 
  • #42
Edward said:
I would say that for $40 billion per year the NSA must have an extensive world wide information gathering system, including domestic. The limited "wiretaps' on terrorist, which Bush claims is the case, does not account for the spending of that much money.
:confused:
You do realize that the job of the NSA is world wide intelligence gathering right? What ever wiretaps that Bush has requested or granted regarding terrorist activity in the US is easily insignificant next to their main operations.
Any one who does not believe that the NSA should be conducting their wiretaps here in the US should really be completely against the NSA's mission in toto, except perhaps very limited activity spying on known criminals/terrorists/ect.
 
  • #43
TheStautoryApe said:
Any one who does not believe that the NSA should be conducting their wiretaps here in the US should really be completely against the NSA's mission in toto, except perhaps very limited activity spying on known criminals/terrorists/ect.

Not so. It is a quite clear dichotomy that requires NSA and CIA to direct their efforts against foreign powers, not domestic targets. The problem arises because that is no longer sufficient to protect us.
 
  • #44
SOS2008 said:
Proof please as to the legality of government monitoring of telephone calls or email without a warrant (i.e., without probable cause).
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/isa/ [Broken]
9. MONITORING THE SERVICES
EarthLink has no obligation to monitor the Services, but may do so and disclose information regarding use of the Services for any reason if EarthLink, in its sole discretion, believes that it is reasonable to do so, including to: satisfy laws, regulations, or governmental or legal requests; operate the Service properly; or protect itself, its employees, its customers or others. See our Privacy Policy. EarthLink may immediately remove your material or information from EarthLink's servers, in whole or in part, which EarthLink, in its sole and absolute discretion, determines to infringe another's property rights or to violate our Acceptable Use Policy or other policies or laws.
Yes, your isp can read your email and give it to the FBI if they choose to.

This one is interesting because it uses a specific example of a company looking for crimes via electronic communications:
The provider exception is proving to be a strong ally to employers desiring to monitor their employees' e-mail. Concerning this exception, "commentators have predicted that most private employers will be exempt from the ECPA under this exemption if they provide their employees with e-mail service through a company-owned system."24 In fact, a few courts have already applied this exception to employer e-mail monitoring. In one of the most interesting of these cases, the provider exception allowed United Airlines to monitor the online reservation system that it provided to employees in an attempt to discover falsifications by a travel agent.
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2001dltr0026.html

The "provider exception" is what allows the service provider - whether your ISP or your employer - to monitor your communications.
 
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  • #45
russ_watters said:
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/isa/ [Broken] Yes, your isp can read your email and give it to the FBI if they choose to.
The Earthlink terms of service say that they reserve the right to remove or disclose the materials you store on their servers. This is a common type of clause in ISP-user agreements. It is not a law, and it does not authorize the FBI to monitor your emails without getting a warrant.
 
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  • #46
selfAdjoint said:
Not so. It is a quite clear dichotomy that requires NSA and CIA to direct their efforts against foreign powers, not domestic targets. The problem arises because that is no longer sufficient to protect us.
Right, there is not objection to the project, just that it be done lawfully, including proper oversight. What is with the "all or nothing" thinking out there?
turbo-1 said:
The Earthlink terms of service say that they reserve the right to remove or disclose the materials you store on their servers. This is a common type of clause in ISP-user agreements. It is not a law, and it does not authorize the FBI to monitor your emails without getting a warrant.
And in regard to telephone calls, if there is a van parked outside my place with wiretaps, I assure they must have a warrant based on probable cause. Electronic communications is electronic communications and all are protected by privacy laws. If a relative dies and I want access to their email history, it will be denied (based on an actual case BTW).
 
  • #47
turbo-1 said:
The Earthlink terms of service say that they reserve the right to remove or disclose the materials you store on their servers. This is a common type of clause in ISP-user agreements. It is not a law, and it does not authorize the FBI to monitor your emails without getting a warrant.
No, it allows the FBI to request email from the ISP and for the ISP to grant it if they choose to. They don't need a warrant, but I never said the FBI could monitor your emails, because they can't.
 
  • #48
SOS2008 said:
And in regard to telephone calls...
I shouldn't have let this go before, but the article in the OP says nothing about telephone calls. You're expanding the scope and setting up a strawman. I rather suspect the article is doing the same thing when it talks about other confidential things like medical records.
 
  • #49
A review of what you've said:

Originally Posted by russ_watters
I already mentioned the caveat about medical records, but again, you don't need to give permission for those other things (except mail - that has nothing to do with this): you don't own own the content.
"those other things" referenced were telephone calls and email.

First:
russ_watters said:
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/isa/ [Broken] Yes, your isp can read your email and give it to the FBI if they choose to..
Then:
russ_watters said:
No, it allows the FBI to request email from the ISP and for the ISP to grant it if they choose to. They don't need a warrant, but I never said the FBI could monitor your emails, because they can't.
A bit of a change--therefore confusing.

russ_watters said:
This one is interesting because it uses a specific example of a company looking for crimes via electronic communications: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2001dltr0026.html

The "provider exception" is what allows the service provider - whether your ISP or your employer - to monitor your communications.
Yes, within the law. If there is probable cause (from evidence elsewhere) then computers can be confiscated and everything on it investigated including email. But there must be a warrant first. Second, as I said, in the workplace in which equipment and Internet/email service is provided by a company, they may monitor employee use of it, but only with advance warning to employees of the policy.

russ_watters said:
I shouldn't have let this go before, but the article in the OP says nothing about telephone calls. You're expanding the scope and setting up a strawman. I rather suspect the article is doing the same thing when it talks about other confidential things like medical records.
As I stated, electronic communications is electronic communications, whether a telephone call or an email. Within the law the comparison is referred to as precedence--it's not a strawman. Also in the debate of what is public domain, the determination is made by differentiating, for example my publicly listed telephone number versus my medical history and doctor-patient confidentiality. This is why congress has fought expansion of government access to such areas of our private lives. It is related, and very relevant--and it isn't OT just because it isn't directly mentioned in the OP.
 
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  • #50
SOS2008 said:
(snip) This is why congress has fought expansion of government access to such areas of our private lives. It is related, and very relevant--and it isn't OT just because it isn't directly mentioned in the OP.
As the original poster, I find your comments to be relevant to my initial post re: the TIA. The NSA casts a very broad net, and when they apply their information-gathering techniques to domestic data streams (as opposed to foreign, to which their charter restricts them) we are all subject to the machinations of the administration currently in power. I don't want any political party to have access to huge databases of personal information. For the record, although I absolutely loathe the secretive Bush Imperium (because of their incessant defiance to a reasonable checks-and-balances form of governance laid out in our Constitution), I regard the differences between the Republicans and Democrats to be equivalent to the differences between Time and Newsweek or Coke and Pepsi. At one time, Maine had Bill Cohen (R) and George Mitchell (D) as senators, and I would support either or both of them enthusiatically should they return to politics. They were both decent ethical people, and both major parties are burdened with some creeps who are decidedly not.
 
  • #51
It is very obvious that with a 40 billion dollar per year budget, NSA must be doing a lot more than Bush Claims. ie intecepting phone calls and e-mails between suspected terrorists that have one person in a foreign country and the other in the USA.

That kind of money buys a lot of high tech information.

But if they are really doing the job of protecting us that they claim, they are going to have to open snail mail, and and a lot of it. It would also be necessary to Seal our borders, and to search every person who enters the USA by all forms of transport.

Any crew member of a foreign airliner or ship that has entered this country could easily re-mail a letter from Bin Laudin himself then send it from one U.S. city to another and it would be totally under the radar.

40 billion dollars per year to hear the administration say: "trust us", is actually quite ridiculous.
 
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  • #52
Though related, this is a bit OT, but I didn't want to start another thread about the NSA:

US launches drive to plug leaks: Washington Post
Sun Mar 5, 2006am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has launched several investigations to discourage government employees from leaking classified information to news reporters, The Washington Post reported in its Sunday edition.

...Employees at the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department and other agencies have also received Justice Department letters prohibiting them from discussing the NSA program, the Post said, citing anonymous sources.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-03-05T042641Z_01_N04168491_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-LEAK.xml

Here's the real report:

WASHINGTON: In advance of NSA domestic spying investigations, the Bush administration has launched a cooperation prevention attack with harassing interviews and threatening letters to employees of various intelligence agencies.

The former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, W. Mark Felt, who was identified as Deep Throat, is considered a hero by many.

Decades after Richard Nixon resigned the office of the president, Watergate remains one of the top presidential scandals of modern time. ...In the end, after 40 government officials were indicted and a president resigned, many would conclude that the system of checks and balances worked. Yet, the triangular relationship between public officials, the media and the public was altered forever.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/ [Broken]

Is the system of checks and balances, and relationship between public officials, the media and the public about to be reversed? It would seem so.

There must be a delineation between protection of national security (i.e., military plans) versus publicly known information, such as the existence of the NSA, and government programs in general.

Here's a definition: "National security refers to policy enacted by governments to ensure the survival and safety of the nation-state, including but not limited to the exercise of diplomatic, economic, and military power in both peace and war."

Are activities such as domestic surveillance programs or CIA prisons in other countries matters of national security? No. These programs do nothing to "ensure the survival" of America, and are purely illegal and shameful activities that need to be exposed and stopped.

The real harm to our country has been Bush's destruction of our economic independence.
 
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  • #53
The post is sufficiently on-topic, in my opinion. We both see a pattern of behavior that is disturbing. This administration does not give away real information willingly - they leak it to their pet reporters with the proper "spin" already in place. Everything potentially embarrasing is classified, not for purposes of national security, but to protect it from unapproved leaking. Bush et al want the head of whoever leaked the existence of the ongoing TIA program that Congress ordered to be cancelled. I wish they were even a fraction that determined to identify who outed Valerie Plame. That was a classic Nixonian dirty trick, and Cheney is trying to give himself a "Get out of Jail Free" card by proclaiming that he has the authority to declassify classified information, in case Scooter Libby rats him out. There is the little difficulty that Plame's identity as an undercover agent remained classified, and the covers that she used (putative employer, job function, etc) may have been also used by multiple agents who could also have been put in jeopardy. We may never know the extent of the damage that leak did.
 
  • #54
SOS said:
selfAdjoint said:
Not so. It is a quite clear dichotomy that requires NSA and CIA to direct their efforts against foreign powers, not domestic targets. The problem arises because that is no longer sufficient to protect us.
Right, there is not objection to the project, just that it be done lawfully, including proper oversight. What is with the "all or nothing" thinking out there?
Concerning their primary purpose they have no need for warrants. Warrants to spy on people in other countries would be a rather inane endevour. My point being that so many people seem to be up in arms about this organization prying away at their right to privacy. Yet it's the very purpose of the organization to do just that except to people in other countries. Essentially we have hired these people to do to others what we apparently destest being done to us.
So do our principles falter once we leave our borders or does anyone have some way of reconciling this apparent hypocracy?
 
  • #55
SOS2008 said:
A review of what you've said...
We got way off topic there and I'm not going to continue that. I'm going to go back to the beginning and get us on point here, because the problem with this thread - this issue - is that the fear is based on a lack of information that fed unwarranted speculation. To be more specific, my earlier objection to speculating about what type of information would/could be collected appears to be correct. I have done some research and the things listed in the OP are largely a product of the imagination of a New York Times opinion columnist and various political figures. Part of the problem is the name provokes the imagination - when people see "total information awareness" they think that it is going to include all of the information that exists anywhere. This is false. Not only were things like phone calls (the content, not the records) and medical records never mentioned by those on the project, they were very specific in pointing out that all examples they gave were just hypotheticals. Ie, the project was in the development stage and they hadn't even figured out yet what information they would/could collect. They were also specific in pointing out that they were not recommending any changes to any relevant laws.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/" [Broken] You need a password (free), but the relevant portions are:
As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.
I've bolded the parts where it talks about the information. This information is factual in nature, but factual in that it was stated in speaches as hypothetical examples. Whether or not that information could have or would have actually been included is unknown to anyone right now - even to those who worked on the project, because it was still early in development. Also:
Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.

"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options," he said in a speech in California earlier this year.
Again, he's talking in generalities and stating a personal opinion (also of note, he's focusing on electronic data, not things like phone conversations). He's pushing his project, but that doesn't make even his speculation a reality.
In order to deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.
This quote is key: it points out that new legislation would be required, some of which has already passed in the Homeland Security Act, but in doing so, it makes the reader aware that the system has not been deployed, the necessary legislation has not been passed, and therefore, the scope has not been pinned-down.
An F.B.I. official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the bureau had had preliminary discussions with the Pentagon about the project but that no final decision had been made about what information the F.B.I. might add to the system.
Straightforward - again, what information would be in the system (in this case, from the FBI) had not been pinned down.

The site linked in the OP references http://www.prisonplanet.com/you_are_a_suspect.html" [Broken] editorial, published the week after the NYT initially broke the story, as its source of the claim of what would be covered. Among other things, it says:
If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
Where does he get these from? He makes them up. (he's allowed to do that: it's an opinion piece.) How do I know this? Because, his only source of information at that point was the speeches by Poindexter. But this is what was picked up - and even expanded on - by the conspiracy theory sites. After the story broke, Poindexter didn't give any interviews, but one underling clarified what was going on in http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1202/121202h1.htm" [Broken] quote:
Poindexter has repeatedly refused to grant interviews to the news media. However, his deputy, Robert Popp, has spoken to journalists and at public gatherings. He has emphasized that DARPA isn't building a machine to search information, but is testing the technological viability of the concept using fictional or legally obtained data. Additionally, Popp said, the agency is building privacy protections into the system's design, looking for ways to encrypt data so that only authorized people could see the name of a person associated with a piece of information.

Once DARPA's research is complete - probably in about three years - the agency would share the plans with agencies interested in using the system, Popp said. Likely interested parties would include the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security Department and National Security Agency. [emphasis added]
So at the point when the story initially broke, TIA was little more than a research program with no privacy implications yet.

By January of '03, Congressmen (from both sides of the aisle) were pontificating about the evils of the program. They demanded the DoD submit a report elaborating on what the program was. It was submitted in May of '03 and again, while it used hypothetical examples, it gave no specifcs about what would actually be collected because there were no specifics to give. In addition, it again pointed out that it was not proposing any additional legislation (HSA wasn't passed for the sake of TIA, but had implicationsn for it) - it was simply too early to even consider the question of what to collect. Unfortunately, I can't find the report itself, but many articles reference it. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,58936,00.html" [Broken] is one such article. One relevant point:
The report is disappointing -- after more than a hundred pages, you don't know anything more about whether TIA will work or whether your civil liberties will be safe against it," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "DARPA is constantly trying to assuage privacy concerns. Their mantra is, 'We always operate within current law.'"
And again, there is a reason why that is so: the specific information that they want to know does not exist yet. The point of an R&D program is to find out if it'll work. After that, they can figure out how to deploy it. The project hadn't even completed that first step by that time.

------------------------------------------------

So, with all those facts laid out, I will reiterate my earlier opinion, with some minor modifications (mostly that it is better substantiated than it was before so I can be more forceful in my wording):

1. The privacy concerns here are largely a product of people's imaginations. Worse, many people are reading opinions and taking them as facts - partially due to the way the news is reported and then re-reported and re-reported in a whisper-down-the-lane fashion where the distinction between opinion and fact is lost.

2. Imagined or not, the privacy concerns need to be paid attention to and the program needs to be monitored. I considered leaving this one out since it is almost uselessly general (every program needs to be monitored, of course), but left it in for clarity.

3. In its current (at the time it was canceled - I'm not sure of the current status), unfinished form as a research project there is nothing at all wrong with this program. It should be researched, and after it is deterimined if the general idea can work, it can be determined what specific types of information would work (ie, they may find that phone records were helpful but emails were not). Then they can submit a report on that and let Congress debate the real intent of the program instead of the imagined/hypothetical intent.

4. If the acquired data would have privacy implications (ie, adding airline reservations to the database would, adding your police record to the database would not), these could be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
 
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  • #56
The TIA systems program supports a variety of technology efforts covering areas such as data mining, link analysis, human language translation and biometrics. Other related research areas seek to develop systems and tools to help analysts sift through large volumes of data for meaningful patterns and clues. The results of these various research programs will feed the TIA systems effort, which is a transition point for new technologies. Popp notes that any shortfalls found within the program will be addressed using appropriate commercial and government technology solutions.

The IAO’s focus is not on collecting and disseminating conventional intelligence data, Popp emphasizes. While interested in providing analysts with different tools to process and exploit traditional information, the office seeks to collect other types of data such as unstructured text on Web sites or tracking and identifying patterns in communications, financial, travel and housing transactions. However, major challenges exist in collecting this data, much of which resides in the private sector. Because privacy laws restrict the federal government’s ability to access private commercial data without a specific court order, DARPA researchers are developing technologies that exploit a combination of traditional intelligence sources and other types of transactional information to locate potential terrorist activity.
http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=113&z=31

And a 2003 Report for Congress:

Summary

This report describes the Total Information Awareness (TIA) programs in the Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Department of Defense, and related information access, collection, and protection laws. TIA is a new technology underdevelopment that plans to use data mining technologies to sift through personal transactions in electronic data to find patterns and associations connected to terrorist threats and activities. Data mining technologies are currently used by federal agencies for various purposes. DARPA has underway a five year research project to develop and integrate information technologies into prototype systems to identify foreign terrorists for use by intelligence, counterintelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security communities. Recent increase and awareness about the existence of the TIA project provoked expressions of concern about the potential for the invasion of privacy of law-abiding citizens by the Government, and about the direction of the project by John Poindexter, a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair. While the law enforcement and intelligence communities argue that more sophisticated information gathering techniques are essential to combat today's sophisticated terrorists, civil libertarians worry that the Government's increased capability to assemble information will result in increased and unchecked government power, and the erosion of individual privacy. A coalition of public interest groups has asked Congress to intervene.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...gathering+techniques&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7

Note that this last source is dated 2003. The program has been common knowledge and controversial for some time--so why is Bush launching investigation into the leak about the NSA? Because he wants to pressure (with harassing interviews and threatening letters) anyone who may testify to the illegal nature of this program.

There's no chance that the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping initiative would have saved the lives of 3,000 American citizens if an intelligence memo titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside US" that President Bush received a month before 9/11 couldn't move Bush to take such threats seriously.

...During the summer of 2001, the counter-terrorism officers who were privy to intelligence reports on al-Qaeda threats "were so worried about an impending disaster that they considered resigning and going public with their concerns," according to a 9/11 Commission staff report released publicly in March 2004.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013106J.shtml [Broken]

Too bad they didn't go public.
 
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  • #57
TheStatutoryApe said:
Concerning their primary purpose they have no need for warrants. Warrants to spy on people in other countries would be a rather inane endevour. My point being that so many people seem to be up in arms about this organization prying away at their right to privacy. Yet it's the very purpose of the organization to do just that except to people in other countries. Essentially we have hired these people to do to others what we apparently destest being done to us.

So do our principles falter once we leave our borders or does anyone have some way of reconciling this apparent hypocracy?
I didn't understand your point at first, that surveillance without a warrant is illegal within the U.S., so why not be consistent in how we treat other countries as well? The way we treat "our own" versus potential adversaries who may wish to do harm to us are two different scenarios. That is part of the issue -- first that of treating our own citizens as potential enemies by spying on them. And second, we need intelligence but it should collected according to international law and treaties. We shouldn't have secret prisons where suspects are tortured for information. But electronic surveillance of what is going on in other parts of the world, whether satellite or what have you, most certainly we should, and must.
 
  • #58
SOS said:
The way we treat "our own" versus potential adversaries who may wish to do harm to us are two different scenarios. That is part of the issue -- first that of treating our own citizens as potential enemies by spying on them.
There are no potential adversaries in this country that may mean to do harm to it? And why should we treat them any differently whether they come from our country or another?

SOS said:
And second, we need intelligence but it should collected according to international law and treaties.
I'm not sure what treaties and international law say about spying countries spying upon one another. If we have a treaty with a country and can trust them then we have no reason to spy on them and I have a hard time believing that the UN set up laws on what is and is not ok when spying on one another. If such laws exist I am sure they are being broken because they really defeat the point of something like the NSA.

SOS said:
But electronic surveillance of what is going on in other parts of the world, whether satellite or what have you, most certainly we should, and must.
But again how, in principle, do you abide the idea that we can go ahead and do things to them that we will not tolerate done to us? How would you feel about England spying on US citizens, reading their e-mails, listening to their phone calls, tracking their bank records, checking their medical files, ect?
 
  • #59
This just in:

G.O.P. Senators Say Accord is Set on Wiretapping
New York Times
March 8, 2006

Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight...
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The proposed bill would allow the president to authorize wiretapping without seeking a warrant for up to 45 days if the communication under surveillance involved someone suspected of being a member of or a collaborator with a specified list of terrorist groups and if at least one party to the conversation was outside the United States.
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The proposed legislation would create a seven-member "terrorist surveillance subcommittee" and require the administration to give it full access to the details of the program's operations.
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Republicans on the committee, however, emphasized the administration's resistance to the accord...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/p...&en=7402b982a1503c71&ei=5094&partner=homepage

First, why isn't 72 hours enough time to come up with enough probable cause for a warrant, and if it's not enough time, why increase this to friggin' 45 days? Second, who will be the seven members on the subcommittee--will it be all Republican? Third, why should these concessions prevent investigation into possible breaking of the law prior to this? And fourth, why was the White House so reluctant to agree to these concessions, which appear to be very favorable?

Excuse me while I contact my congressmen regarding these very questions...
 
  • #60
SOS2008 said:
First, why isn't 72 hours enough time to come up with enough probable cause for a warrant, and if it's not enough time, why increase this to friggin' 45 days? Second, who will be the seven members on the subcommittee--will it be all Republican? Third, why should these concessions prevent investigation into possible breaking of the law prior to this?

You actually don't even need probable cause for a FISA warrant, just "reasonable suspicion." Take the legalese for what you will, but my understanding is that there does not have to be any demonstration that the person under surveillance is engaged in criminal activity, just that he is a member of an organization under investigation and that tapping him might provide useful information. All of which further begs the question of why on Earth the administration wants to carry out investigations without warrants when it's so damn easy to get a warrant already.

What is the 72 hours figure you're citing? Is that the normal span of time between search and notification in a delayed-notice search warrant? Or is there actually some provision already in place whereby a law enforcement or intelligence official can carry out a wiretap without a warrant for 72 hours?
 
  • #61
loseyourname said:
What is the 72 hours figure you're citing? Is that the normal span of time between search and notification in a delayed-notice search warrant? Or is there actually some provision already in place whereby a law enforcement or intelligence official can carry out a wiretap without a warrant for 72 hours?
Under the provisions of FISA, the government can use all the intelligence methods at its disposal to spy on you, and can do so for 72 hours before notifying the FISA court, which approves about 99% of all requests, from what I can determine. The standard is set very low - the AG's office only needs to state that they suspect you of being an agent of a foreign entity. The reason that the Bushies want to side-step even this modest requirement is that they want to cast a much wider net, and they cannot do this under the oversight of the FISA court, since it would be pretty hard to prove that hundreds of millions of US citizens are agents of foreign powers.
 

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