"Cancelled" TIA project is on-going.

SOS2008

Though related, this is a bit OT, but I didn't want to start another thread about the NSA:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...-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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...erm/watergate/

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.

turbo

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.

TheStatutoryApe

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?

russ_watters

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.

HERE is a link to an archive of information about this issue (with a nice history summary), including the original NYT news article (not the opinion piece referenced in the OP and later news stories) that broke the story in 2002, linked HERE You need a password (free), but the relevant portions are: 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: 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. 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. 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 THIS 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: 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 THIS quote: 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. HERE is one such article. One relevant point: 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 cancelled - 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.

SOS2008

http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles...asp?a=113&z=31

And a 2003 Report for Congress:

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:...s&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.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013106J.shtml

Too bad they didn't go public.

SOS2008

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.

TheStatutoryApe

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?

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.

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?

SOS2008

This just in:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/po...rtner=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...

loseyourname

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?

turbo

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.