News The crux of the NSA spying smoke screen

[SOS2008]

Spying is quite a harsh word for that.

When thousands of phone calls, emails, mail etc. are being monitored without probable cause, what should we call that...something nice, but strong, like…"terrorist surveillance?” Yeh, that’s the ticket.

What the NSA is trying to do is to be sure if these people are not legitimate terrorists, or if they are not. I seriously don't understand why I would care about people doing this "domestic spying," about/around me. But I see you said domestic spying is about civil liberties. I think at times we must give up certain liberties to preserve our security. I am reminded of "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

So you believe everything you hear? A word of advice: Question Authority. As already quoted above: "He who is willing to sacrifice freedom for safety deserves neither freedom nor safety." - Ben Franklin

More secretive? Sometimes the government needs to be secretive! Or people will go nuts about things.

Sure, but does everything need to be classified? Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

One of the main developmental advantages of democracies stems from the system of checks and balances that characterize self-governing political systems. Power is not monopolized by anyone individual or branch of government. A whole lot of people have to agree on a subject before it is put into place. It is much more cumbersome than autocracy, but it produces better results. It wasn't just Bush, being an absolute monarch. And the American populace voted for him, after much reviewing, they decided on Bush being the best person in the United States to lead the country.

I was with you the first two sentences, but then...

A dictatorship is the most efficient form of government therefore we should want it? Ah, how cumbersome democracy is and our court systems to protect the rights of the innocent, or in this case our right to privacy.

After much reviewing, Americans decided Bush was the best person to lead the U.S.? I take issue with the very first claim about "much reviewing" and overlooking election "irregularities" Bush has never enjoyed popular support from a clear majority.

Most of the prisoners in say, Guantanamo Bay's prison are found not to be terrorists or leaders of terrorist groups and cells? Torture certainly results in reliable information if you do it right and you are trained on how to do it correctly.

Okay, enough--please present credible (unbiased) evidence to back up these claims.

 

[SOS2008]

I find this a bit amusing (sorry).

The NSA was formed in 1952. In June 1952 by President Harry S. Truman. Truman's Executive Order was itself classified and remained unknown to the public for more than a generation. The NSA for all its history, up to current has been almost the very definition of secret.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/NSAHQ.jpg"

The NSA, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government Communications Headquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), and otherwise known as the UKUSA group, is believed to be responsible for, the operation of the ECHELON system, formed to monitor the world's communications back when the Soviet Union was around. Its capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic. Sugar Grove, West Virginia, intercepts all international communications entering the eastern U.S., while a site near Yakima, Washington intercepts traffic in the western U.S..

Technically, almost all modern telephone, internet, fax & satellite communications are exploitable due to recent advances in technology and the 'open air' nature of much of the radio communications around the world.

This has been going on since the sixties.

ECHELON monitoring of mobile phones in Pakistan was reportedly used to track Khalid Shaikh Mohammed before he was arrested in Rawalpindi on March 1, 2003.

The NSA is believed to be the largest United States intelligence agency, with a staff of ~38,000. Despite being the world's largest single employer of Ph.D. mathematicians, the owner of the single largest group of supercomputers, and having a budget much larger than that of the CIA, it has had a remarkably low profile until... a few months ago. For a long time its existence was not even acknowledged by the US government. It is often half-jokingly said that "NSA" actually stands for "No Such Agency" or "Never Say Anything".

I also invite you to visit the NSA's website at http://www.nsa.gov/intro.htm Its quite fun to dress geek, go to Starbucks for free wireless in a public area, and have people think you're hacking into some secret government organization no body has heard of before (until a few months ago.)

Wow, that made me feel a lot better. Abuses in our history is why the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was established. It has been made as lenient as possible. It IS the balance between freedom and security.

 

[Mk]

Bush has never enjoyed popular support from a clear majority.

But he has from THE majority.

So you believe everything you hear? A word of advice: Question Authority. As already quoted above: "He who is willing to sacrifice freedom for safety deserves neither freedom nor safety." - Ben Franklin

GAH! I knew this was coming as soon as I posted it. You guys at PF are too smart. Benjamin Franklin said this at the time of the American Revolution, obviously. Quotes are pretty general, and are used to support points, and you can get quotes that sound smart to back up whatever you say. I don't like them anymore after I thought about it. Anyway, before I go sleepy-bye, I will say that <cut off>

 

[Art]

Out of interest what happens if in the course of this spying a plot to kidnap or murder somebody is unearthed? Is the information ignored? Moving down the scale what happens if plans for a bank robbery are unearthed? Will this be ignored? If not at what point does it stop? Should ALL information relating to crime be acted upon? In fact why not install spy cameras and listening devices in every house in America. Afterall if you're not doing anything illegal what is there to fear?

More importantly should this be something that is just slipped in quietly or is it deserving of serious national debate?

 

[Cyrus]

According to A. Gonzalez, Attorney General, last night on the Charlie Rose program, the NSA wire tapping is limited in its scope so that the traces can only be conducted between a suspected member of Al-Qaeda living within the United States to a foreign country outside the United States. They are not supposed to wire tip domestically: whether or not they actually do this is another story. So a situtation such as you describe would not be detected Art.

 

[Art]

According to A. Gonzalez, Attorney General, last night on the Charlie Rose program, the NSA wire taping is limited in its scope so that the traces can only be conducted between a suspected member of Al-Qaeda living within the United States to a foreign country outside the United States. They are not supposed to wire tip domestically: whether or not they actually do this is another story. So a situtation such as you describe would not be detected Art.

This admin has shown in the past it stretches the meaning of words it uses way past the accepted meaning - one could say everybody is a suspected terrorist until investigated and proven not to be so without a definition of what precisely they mean by supected terrorists this statement by Gonzales is meaningless.

From other posts I understood one spying method employed is robotic trawling of calls for key words. If triggered the full recorded conversation is then flagged for human review. It stands to reason many of the key words involved in terrorism would also appear in conversations regarding day to day crime and so that is why I am interested in what they do with this information?

Even if the spying is limited to what may be genuine targetted suspects, what happens if recorded calls show that although not involved in terrorism the suspect is involved in other crimes?

 

[SOS2008]

Even if the spying is limited to what may be genuine targetted suspects, what happens if recorded calls show that although not involved in terrorism the suspect is involved in other crimes?

That would be thrown out of court due to a search without a warrant. What law enforcement agents would probably do is find a way to establish probable cause for a warrant to collect additional evidence--without anyone ever knowing how they learned about the criminal activity in the first place (a slippery slope indeed).

Similarly have been the issues of entrapment via sting operations. Or random checking of vehicles for drunk driving--at this time they must advertise to the public where the roadblocks will be in advance, but it remains controversial.

 

[Cyrus]

It stands to reason many of the key words involved in terrorism would also appear in conversations regarding day to day crime and so that is why I am interested in what they do with this information?

Yeah, but like I said, this is not for local calls about daily activities. You would not call, say syria, and say ok umair, were going to rob the bank tomorrow. That would be an internal domestic call, which is not allowed to be monitored.

 

[Art]

Yeah, but like I said, this is not for local calls about daily activities. You would not call, say syria, and say ok umair, were going to rob the bank tomorrow. That would be an internal domestic call, which is not allowed to be monitored.

Are you sure domestic calls are not subject to the robotic key word trawling? But in any case with regard to overseas calls - off the top of my head you've got - smuggling to avoid duty, counterfeiting, fencing stolen goods, drugs, illegal aliens and I am sure many other crimes with international dimensions which are not involved in terrorism.

 

[Cyrus]

Yes, Attorney General Gonzalez said so himself last night.

Are you sure domestic calls are not subject to the robotic key word trawling?

Yes, but as I said before, that is an international call made to foreign persons. Not a call made from one state to another.

- off the top of my head you've got - smuggling to avoid duty, counterfeiting, fencing stolen goods, drugs, illegal aliens and I am sure many other crimes with international dimensions which are not involved in terrorism.

It would not surprise me if that did happen but you never heard about it.

There are a few issues here I will bring up based on what I have heard from the Rose program. One problem is that the Al-Qaeda have adapted to the wire taps by using international cell phones. Because both cell phones are international but used within the United States, it makes it much more difficult for the NSA to track and listen in on their calls. Furthermore, the wire tapping is not something that is new. In fact, is has been in use for the last 30 years, in connection with the mafia. The FBI has used the exact same intelligence gathering techniques when surveilling the mafia as with what they are doing with the Al-Qaeda. In both cases they were listening in on American citizens without warrants.

One point that I thought was funny was when Gonzalez said to Charlie, "all this media attention has made it more difficult to track the terrorists. The more we talk about it in the press with such intensity, the more the terrorists are reminded they are being watched, and the more careful they become." First of all, the terrorists are not so stupid, they managed to elude us when september 11th happened, and there was practically NO mention about terrorism in the media for a long time. So his argument is basically telling the public to shut up because government knows best. That reminds me of Bush and how critizing the war means you don't support troops and your unamerican. Oh brother.

 

[BobG]

You've had uses of NSA data inappropriate enough to "infuriate" the chief justice of the FISA court. (Judges were warned about NSA spy data - Information may have been improperly used to get wiretap warrants). This might be the motivation to bypass FISA altogether - FISA and a DOJ official have some doubts about the legality and have been giving the administration a hard time.

 

[SOS2008]

Bush highlights foiled 2002 L.A. terror plot - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254053/

Bush gets the name and size of the building wrong in his speech, presumably just his usual struggle with details.

Though the plot was in no way diverted due to NSA spying, the implication was there. Bush’s approval ratings went up in one day to 48. He and his administration want to get the Patriot Act through, and to try to diffuse public concern about NSA spying---by fear mongering and insinuating a connection. Sound familiar?

The Mayor of L.A. wants to know why he was never informed about the attempted attack, and why Bush and administration have so relentlessly played politics by scaring the hell out of his city at this time.

 

[turbo]

Bush highlights foiled 2002 L.A. terror plot - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254053/

Bush gets the name and size of the building wrong in his speech, presumably just his usual struggle with details.

Though the plot was in no way diverted due to NSA spying, the implication was there. Bush’s approval ratings went up in one day to 48. He and his administration want to get the Patriot Act through, and to try to diffuse public concern about NSA spying---by fear mongering and insinuating a connection. Sound familiar?

The Mayor of L.A. wants to know why he was never informed about the attempted attack, and why Bush and administration have so relentlessly played politics by scaring the hell out of his city at this time.

Rove, Cheney, et al have the "Big Lie" down to an art. If they can keep Bush from ad-libbing, they can keep funnelling trillions of our tax dollars to the people who bought them, and the cowed US electorate will shut up. To Bush's benefit, many Americans don't have very high expectations of him in the areas of oratory or intelligence, so when he says something really stupid, they let it go, and do not try to determine how much his mis-step just revealed.

His father intentionally mispronounced Saddam's name to play up to the unwashed masses after Saddam "kicked the traces". Before that, Bush knew how to pronounce Saddam's name and did so with deference. Saddam was Reagan/Bush's favorite boy in the middle east, and they gave him the weaponry (military hardware, chemical weapons and satellite intelligence) to help him try to exterminate the Kurds. Then when Saddam attacked Kuwait, they were "Shocked, yes, shocked!" that he had attacked the Kurds and then tried to take over his neighbor's oil fields. These people are all cold-blooded murderers. To think that the US House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton for having an affair with an aide...nobody got killed over that.

 

[Mk]

I think you should never try to teach a pig to sing; it frustrates you and annoys the pig.

 

[ComputerGeek]

According to A. Gonzalez, Attorney General, last night on the Charlie Rose program, the NSA wire tapping is limited in its scope so that the traces can only be conducted between a suspected member of Al-Qaeda living within the United States to a foreign country outside the United States. They are not supposed to wire tip domestically: whether or not they actually do this is another story. So a situtation such as you describe would not be detected Art.

Oh... well then I don't think that any oversight or warrants need to be issued then since he said that on charlie rose.

.........
......... NOT!

 

[ComputerGeek]

You've had uses of NSA data inappropriate enough to "infuriate" the chief justice of the FISA court. (Judges were warned about NSA spy data - Information may have been improperly used to get wiretap warrants). This might be the motivation to bypass FISA altogether - FISA and a DOJ official have some doubts about the legality and have been giving the administration a hard time.

So? They are there to give oversight. If they do not agree with what you are doing then you can not do it.

 

[selfAdjoint]

So? They are there to give oversight. If they do not agree with what you are doing then you can not do it.

This is precisely the issue. The president and his lawyers say he can. He doesn't think he has to sit still for oversight.

 

[ComputerGeek]

This is precisely the issue. The president and his lawyers say he can. He doesn't think he has to sit still for oversight.

4 years in secret with no oversight is not simply moving swiftly, it is ignoring oversight rules.

72 hours to get a wiretap warrant. if that is not good enough, then he needs to go to congress and get FISA changed.

Just ignoring the law for 4 years without any attempt at compliance is blatant illegal action. I do not care if his lawyers think it is legal or not.

 

[turbo]

There is a more fundamental peril for us in this - dictatorship. Our government was designed so that Congress makes the laws, the Executive branch executes the laws (duh!), and the Judiciary interprets the laws and rules on whether infractions have occured, or perhaps if the law is constitutional. This administration not only breaks the law and ignores the will of the people (as put into law by Congress), they then issue legal opinions absolving themselves of wrongdoing, as if they have the power of the judiciary, and they cite the necessity of secrecy to justify denying Congress' (modest) requests for information. Wary of infighting and scandal in an election year, the Republican leaders in Congress sit silently while our government is dismantled. Some Republicans have spoken out against domestic spying by the NSA, notably Arlen Spector, but they fail to address the larger pattern of abuse of power by the administration.

If there was a Democratic president in office and he did some of the things Bush has done, he would already have been impeached. Certainly, if Vice-President Gore or his top aide had blown the cover of a covert CIA agent in retaliation for an intelligence report they did not like, they would still be in a Federal penitentary today.

 

[Amp1]

Exactly!, and another thing about the spying - is Bushco can gather - in secrect - incriminating evidence about Republican congressmen and use it to coerce them to toe the line.

 

[turbo]

Exactly!, and another thing about the spying - is Bushco can gather - in secrect - incriminating evidence about Republican congressmen and use it to coerce them to toe the line.

Bush does not have to spy on Congressmen. He can go to his good friend Jack Abramoff (whom he suddenly cannot remember) and ask him who is dirty and who is paying them off. Jack will know, as will anybody on K street.

 

[Skyhunter]

Bush does not have to spy on Congressmen. He can go to his good friend Jack Abramoff (whom he suddenly cannot remember) and ask him who is dirty and who is paying them off. Jack will know, as will anybody on K street.

Actually it is Rove that twists the arms.

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/02/06/rove-threatens-republican_n_15216.html

 

[SOS2008]

Actually it is Rove that twists the arms.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/02/06/rove-threatens-republican_n_15216.html

You'd think this would be THE wake up call for them about the dictator of the U.S. If they made this public information, they would have a better chance for reelection without White House support—idiots.

<insert smilie smelling the coffee here>

God I wish Fitzpatrick would hurry up with an indictment of Rove.

 

[Astronuc]

Inquiry Into Wiretapping Article Widens
By DAVID JOHNSTON, NYTimes
Published: February 12, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 — Federal agents have interviewed officials at several of the country's law enforcement and national security agencies in a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding a New York Times article published in December that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program, according to government officials.

The investigation, which appears to cover the case from 2004, when the newspaper began reporting the story, is being closely coordinated with criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department, the officials said. People who have been interviewed and others in the government who have been briefed on the interviews said the investigation seemed to lay the groundwork for a grand jury inquiry that could lead to criminal charges

and

Republican Speaks Up, Leading Others to Challenge Wiretaps
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, NYTimes
Published: February 11, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — When Representative Heather A. Wilson broke ranks with President Bush on Tuesday to declare her "serious concerns" about domestic eavesdropping, she gave voice to what some fellow Republicans were thinking, if not saying.

Now they are speaking up — and growing louder.

In interviews over several days, Congressional Republicans have expressed growing doubts about the National Security Agency program to intercept international communications inside the United States without court warrants. A growing number of Republicans say the program appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that created a court to oversee such surveillance, and are calling for revamping the FISA law.

Ms. Wilson and at least six other Republican lawmakers are openly skeptical about Mr. Bush's assertion that he has the inherent authority to order the wiretaps and that Congress gave him the power to do so when it authorized him to use military force after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Hah!

The White House, in a turnabout, briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committee on the program this week, after Ms. Wilson, chairwoman of the subcommittee that oversees the N.S.A., had called for a full-scale Congressional investigation. But some Republicans say that is not enough.

"I don't think that's sufficient," Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said. "There is considerable concern about the administration's just citing the president's inherent authority or the authorization to go to war with Iraq as grounds for conducting this program. It's a stretch."

The criticism became apparent on Monday, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales was the sole witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing on the legality of the eavesdropping. Mr. Gonzales faced tough questioning from 4 of the 10 Republicans on the panel, including its chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

I am quite sure that the Congress did not intend for the president to circumvent FISA, which is quite clear on the limitations of wiretapping or eavesdropping in the US.