
According to Leslie Cauley in USAToday, the NSA has a massive database detailing calls and e-mails sent domestically -- to and from US citizens -- all saved in a massive warehousing of information. All obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In violation of FISA and other laws and regulations. All in violation of our notions of liberty and freedom in this nation of ours.
...With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information....The government is collecting “external” data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting “internals,” a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for “social network analysis,” the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together....
The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans....
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: “I wouldn't rule it out.” His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.
The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.
With the history of this Congress' decided lack of oversight, I sure as hell don't feel confident that there are any remotely adequate questions being raised about these programs. And I'm sure you feel the same way.
With that in mind, please take time to call your Senators and Representatives and tell them how you feel about the illegal NSA domestic spying without the required lawful warrants, in violation of the 4th Amendment and the FISA laws, and without following the probable cause standards required for such spying on American citizens on American soil. To find your House representative, look here. For your Senators, look here. If you have access to a FAX machine, call and then follow up with a FAX.
Write a letter to the editor. Call your local talk radio station. Call your family, your friends, talk with your co-workers. Whatever it takes. It's time the so-called silent majority stood up and said we are no longer going to take the crap that the Bush Administration is foisting on us.
Follow the laws -- or leave office. Stand up for your Constitution and your country.
UPDATE: Georgia10 at dKos has some further information on actions you can take. And Glenn has a fantastic preliminary analysis of the legal issues.
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ah, Fitz…
Can we impeach him now?
do we have to stop with impeachment? Can’t we also imprison and then impale him on something tall and strong?
And do we have to stop with just him?
Sorry, Karl, it’s not my Fitz to bear . . .
Rah Rah Fitz Boom Bah …. !
EPU’d
This country’s political house is on fire, and the arsonist wants us to continue arguing about whether it should be painted red or blue. Meanwhile, the foundation is starting to crack.
Well, we already knew this stuff but it’s huge that it’s in USAToday.
Colbert, take me away!
My reading of the tech side is that ALL cell phone calls are considered ‘international’ because of how they are relayed.
We have all been waiting for the “big one,” the action of the administration that finally gets people out of their chairs and turns enough people against the administration so that something actually happens. We thought maybe that last 30% approval rating was the floor, but I think we’re headed for the 20s now, for reasons that Glenn outlines below.
I think this one has legs. I will admit for that for the first time, I’m not only angry, but scared. And I’m angry that I’m scared. This is totalitarianism, period. This is no longer America, or even close enough to it to hide with more slogans and spouting of “9-11, 9-11.” When you use a word or a phrase like that constantly, it begins to lose its emotional content. Had they only used it sparingly, it would still have power, but now they have to trot it out for everything, almost daily now.
Once he gets in the 20s, anything can happen. This administration is close to over, and the only question is how many more of our traditions will they take down before they are forced out. And how ugly is it going to be to push them out. My prediction: Nixon’s impeachement will look like a model of civility. I thank God, in a werid way, that they have alienated so much of the military, for obvious (Seven Days in May, anyone?) reasons…that fact may save the republic.
Glenn:
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.....d-for.html
But beyond that, when the NSA scandal first broke, the administration’s principal political defense was to continuously assure Americans that they were eavesdropping only on international calls, not domestic calls. Many, many Americans do not ever make any international calls, and it was an implicit way of assuring the heartland that the vast bulk of the calls they make – to their Aunt Millie, to arrange Little League practice, to cite just a few of the administration’s condescending examples – were not the type of calls being intercepted. The only ones with anything to worry about were the weird and suspect Americans who call overseas to weird and suspect countries. If you’re not calling Pakistan or Iran, the Government has no interest in what you’re doing.
That has all changed. We now learn that when Americans call their Aunt Millie, or their girlfriend, or their psychiatrist, or their drug counselor, or their priest or rabbi, or their lawyer, or anyone and everyone else, the Government is very interested. In fact, they are so interested that they make note of it and keep it forever, so that at any time, anyone in the Government can look at a record of every single person whom every single American ever called or from whom they received a call. It doesn’t take a professional privacy advocate to find that creepy, invasive, dangerous and un-American.
——————
Charles
I’d especially like to learn more about the emails. All the talk is about pen registers and phone # to phone # database (no content, supposedly). But the email database probably has all content — seems like wiretapping to me.
Lawyers? Is this true?
Bush drool transcript repost:
_____
SPEAKER: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
BUSH: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack.
As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaida and related terrorist organizations.
In other words, if Al Qaida or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying.
Today, there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down Al Qaida to prevent attacks on America. I want to make some important points about what the government is doing and what the government is not doing.
First, our intelligence activities strictly target Al Qaida and their known affiliates. Al Qaida is our enemy, and we want to know their plans.
Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.
Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat.
Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities. We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to Al Qaida and their known affiliates.
So far, we’ve been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil.
As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people from another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country.
Thank you.
END
____
I watched the video over on WaPoo. He looked REALLY pissed at having to deal with yet another disclosure du jour. It’s Hard Work.
The timing of this relevation was no accident. LMAO!
Christy,
A few weeks ago someone posted an internet address where you could send a free fax to your congressman/senator. I bookmarked it on another computer which I don’t have access to. It sure would be nice if someone would post it again…. (or even better, if there was a permanent place we could find it on the site). E-mails are OK, but faxes are better???
Next time I buy a printer I will get a fax… but alas, for now I do not have one.
I updated the post above to include links to find contact information for members of Congress. Just FYI.
From the previous post
But I’m also more than aware of what an abuse of power can do to the overall integrity of the process, having spent time in the middle of our judicial system throughout my legal career. When you have consistent abuses of power, over and over, unchecked and unquestioned, there cannot help but be damage done — long-term damage, which will take years beyond this Administration to ever begin to regain.
The damage was done before Bush, he is only a symptom, not the cause.
When did USA Today become the newspaper of record, and the NY Times become cat box liner?
BobbyG - Drool World Order
Christy -
Here is another suggestion, which you may have already considered: contact the ACLU as soon as possible.
Done, Done and Done Christy first thing this am! Though with Senators like Schumer and Hil, I am not particularly hopeful.
BTW - Salon’s Sidney Blumenthal has just posted a great article on Goss & the CIA: Killing the CIA.
BobbyG:
“relevation”?
:-)
They have our voice prints, at least for the majority of people, think about all the times you call a company and they record your voice. Then data is provided to the government “to help fight the terrorists.” What, the company is gonna say no?
Then if you are a target, the computer zips through a large number of current phonecalls looking for your voice.
Datamining is done partly by the government and partly by contractors, who may or may not care about the legalities of privacy. Some of these contractors are outside the U.S., why should they care about our privacy?
While not a technical expert these are my conclusions from reading thru other material, sorry no link since it was a long time ago. YMMV
Just for fun, let’s assume that the NSA really is only using these phone numbers as part of a data-mining effort to identify “terrorist networks.” Well, the NSA does share plenty of information with other agencies, including the FBI. Now, recall that the FBI has been identified as actively monitoring a number of perfectly legal activist organizations because of their purported links to “extremist special interest groups.” So the next time I get an unsolicited call from Greenpeace’s fundraising people, thanks to the NSA’s data mining, my number is automatically linked to theirs, and by extension to the “domestic terrorist networks” the FBI apparently associates them with. Kind of makes the no-fly list look circumscribed and limited by comparison, doesn’t it?
Today is a sad day in America. Our country has been taken over by an evil dictator. We are no longer in control. Let’s hope today and everyday from here on is a very angry day that will spring the silent complacent citizens into action to take our freedoms back- by the courts, of course.
Let’s hope the courts do not fail us.
The alternative would be a shame.
I blazed a couple calls and emails off to Harman and Feinstein.
Enough is enough. What the fuck ELSE are they doing that we don’t know about, that’s the really scary part.
Q: When did USA Today become the newspaper of record, and the NY Times become cat box liner?
A: When they and Judy Miller became a propaganda outlet for BushCo, imho
They know this is trouble for them – no other reason for Bush to go on TV this morning to make a statement about it. Too bad he didn’t have his “inner voice†with him to tell us all what he was really thinking.
Do you think there is anything these people have told the truth about? Do you think they even know what the truth is?
Do we even have a government anymore? And if we do, where the hell is it?
What will be done about it? These people won’t even use their own Justice Department anymore, so as Glenn says, this president has usurped both legislative and judicial authority, and no one is doing anything about it!
I am so angry I can hardly see to type this.
Sophist 13 –
A Presidential Candidate who runs on a platform of rolling back the Bush Dictatorship will get a lot of traction — I’m not sure I’d trust Hillary to do more than pay lip service. Feingold, for sure — but does he have what it takes to win?
Save us, Al Gore — save us from the BushCo GOP criminals, and save us from the faint-hearted Democrats!
I’ve come to believe that whenver this Bush admin says ‘We’re not doing that bad thing, I reflexively believe the opposite. If they are stressing it, its because the accusation exists somewhere, and they are countering, rather than burying the question.
NSA wasting time
GrandmaJo -
Telephone Calls and faxes are ‘better’ than e-mails -
the fax link was for an outfit called efax
I wonder if telco cooperation with the NSA is some sort of quid pro quo on the net neutrality issue. ie. give us information and we’ll give you control over content.
NSA = no secrets anymore
It occurs to me that the leaking has become active sabotage. I wonder who.
Hey leagal eagles out there, but I was just curious - couldn’t the administration or the phone companies be prosecuted under the RICO act for this? I mean, it is a massive instance of lawbreaking, it is a pattern, it is ongoing, and there are people profitting from the lawbreaking - AT&T, etc.
I’m not a lawyer, but this is starting to sound like a RICO case to me, and I would love to hear imput from true legal eagles like Christy and Jane.
The silence is deafening– somebody better come out soon with some fire and brimstone or all is lost. Nothing but business as usual thus far.
Oh here’s Doktor Frist on cnn and his band of rethugs…
Fitz meets with GJ tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!
andy @ 11:06 am (#11) - As a technical person, I’ll give you a technical answer. E-mail is divided up into the same sort of information that phone information is: routing information and content. The routing information is what’s contained in the “header” - that’s the equivalent of the phone number, except there’s also a subject line that’s part of the header. The information is a separate field, or set of fields, in the e-mail. It can be left out. In fact, it would be possible, though I have no idea if they’re doing this, to strip the subject line from the header before storing it in the database.
Now the legal folks can take it from there, but I see potential Fourth Amendment violations here, depending on how they’re processing the information they’re collecting.
NSA - Not Sparing Anyone
OK, we all need a momentary respite:
_____
A group of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, accompanied by two female teachers, went on a field trip to the local racetrack (Churchill Downs) to learn about thoroughbred horses and the supporting industry (Bourbon), but mostly to see the horses.
When it was time to take the children to the bathroom it was decided that the girls would go with one teacher and the boys would go with the other. The teacher assigned to the boys was waiting outside the men’s room when one of the boys came out and told her that none of them could reach the urinal.
Having no choice, she went inside, helped the boys with their pants, and began hoisting the little boys up one by one, holding on to their “wee-wees” to direct the flow away from their clothes. As she lifted one, she couldn’t help but notice that he was unusually well endowed.
Trying not to show that she was staring the teacher said, “You must be in the 5th grade.”
“No, ma’am”, he replied. “I’m the jockey riding Silver Arrow in the seventh race, but I appreciate your help.
_____
We now return you to your regularly scheduled BushCo outrage.
Oh yeah- the fact that the prez says our privacy is being protected is
the biggest bullshit so far…
A fucking garbageman just found a minute-by-minute schedule for the President’s trip to Florida in the garbage.
And we should trust this man to protect OUR privacy in any way?
http://www.wusatv9.com/news/ne.....ryid=49159
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Act NOW.
Now is the time for all good men (and ladies too) to come to the defense of their country… America, the Land of the Free.
JWR @31:
http://www.firedoglake.com/200.....ment-98909
Darkblack is all over that.
Tis John Snow, Frist, Allen, McConnell, Santorum, Lott pushing the tax cuts.
blech
We don’t just need to kick these criminals out of office; we need to make examples of them. For the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our own - and the world’s - ability to ever believe again that America stands for its founding principles, we can’t stop with removing them from power. They need to be investigated, tried, and imprisoned, every one of them - up to and including the Vice President and the President. The fantasy that America is always right, and its leaders above reproach, must be repudiated if we are to survive as a democratic nation.
Captain at #34
I really hope you are on to something there, that could tip things tremendously if some sort of high visibility legal proceedings were launched on Telco/NSA meddling.
Could tip the scale on Net Neutrality as well. Would love to see the cozy Gov’t/Telco trysts get shaken up.
The ACLU is organizing a chapter in our town tomorrow night. By George (no pun intended), I’m going!
As the president dismantles a genuine intelligence agency (scores of disgusted operatives quit under Goss) in a fit of political pique, he turns his ire on the American public … if anyone can’t imagine that the NSA domestic spying isn’t for the purposes of setting up a mechanism to suppress political dissent is living in a bubble. These people are not going to relinquish power easily. I would love to know what they are cooking up for the Nov ‘06 elections. Now that they have managed to steal two elections (we are living in the embryonic phase of a facist dictator folks) it is unimaginable that they aren’t certain that they can do it again and again and again.
Blumenthal ends his excellent article with this:
A note to my provider … feel free to reuse
Most providers, including mine, have internal customer email which I think can be treated as official customer communication. I did this … you might want to do something similar:
NSA-
Nothing’s Sacred Anymore
I see potential Fourth Amendment violations here, depending on how they’re processing the information they’re collecting.
Fourth Amendment? The Cheney Administration don’t need no steenkin’ Fourth Amendment, and they don’t need no steenkin’ Constitution either.
Dear the captain,
I think so too!
Let’s sue the bleedin’ bastards and while we’re at it, WHY CAN”T WE SUE THE MONSTER WHO SOME CALL THE PRESIDENT.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
He’s a freakin lyin monster baby killer
Tech stuffabout domestic spying.
I remember as a young person horrific stories of the KGB. This was in the days of “duck & cover” when everyone feared incineration by Russian ICBM’s and bomb shelters were vogue. We thought “How unfortunate those poor Russians have spies snooping into everything they do, reading their mail and listening in on their phone calls. What a bunch of, bunch of, well, Soviet bastards!!”. Now we have our own KGB. At least I don’t fear nuclear annihilation, it’s the rest of the world that needs to be digging shelters.
As a follow-on, I made the point here months ago that one motivation of collecting so much data is to compare “normal” traffic with “suspicious” traffic. This is how many e-mail spam filters work, for instance. Give them a good sampling of normal e-mail and spam, and they’ll generally be able to tell the two apart automatically. My e-mail client does an excellent job of such filtering - I only need to occasionally feed it new spam, and it is able to separate this stuff reliably.
The NSA has a big data problem in tracking any form of suspicious traffic. There is a tremendous amount of data. As the USA Today article points out, just keeping track of the call records has produced what may be the biggest database on record. Sifting through all that crap to find something suspicious or threatening takes computers and effective filtering software. Thus, the NSA is collecting all sorts of traffic in order to try to figure out what the “normal” traffic is.
Or, that’s what they’re saying. Of course, with no technical or legal review of the program, we have only a few tidbits of information to go on.
I’m not trying to excuse this program, BTW, which I think is wrong on several levels, but I’m trying to point out the apparent motivation.
“…Democrats reacted angrily to the USA Today article and its description of the program’s vast size, including an assertion by one unnamed source that its goal was the creation of a database of every phone call ever made within the United States’ borders.
“Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with Al Qaeda?” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee’s ranking minority member, asked angrily…”
____
Well, that had been MY immediate reaction.
a friend of mine, born and raised in Kansas is planning to call me on saturday from Pakistan where she is now living. I wonder what the NSA will do with that one?
W.’s thinking: God spies on ordinary Americans, why can’t I?
The 4th Amendment, a product of such a quaint, pre- 9/11 worldview.
We don’t need a Constitution. We have George W. Bush to protect us.
Democrats and patriotic Repubs, campaign ideas:
Pro-Constitution
Article 2: CONGRESS is the ‘Decider’
4th Amendment: COURTS review domestic spying
Pro-Geneva Conventions
No wars of aggression
No torture and secret prisons
……….This is truly the minimum. If we can’t even agree on these basics then we have lost all of our moral authority as a nation. Some beacon of freedom.
[EPU’d from previous thread, but elevant here, as well.]
Over at the WaPo blog, Andrew Cohen has written about today’s NSA story:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com.....efines_abo ve_the_law.html
While not as critical as we’ve been, he takes the Administration to task for having lied about this program and having tried to cover it up. He makes this point about the program’s legitimacy and the phone companies that cooperated:
As a commenter pointed out, the motive may have been money. The NSA offered to compensate the companies for their efforts. How profitable that compensation might have been, like everthing else in this case, is yet to be determined.
#48 - great letter.
Is there a cell phone provider out there who didn’t supply the records? Quest doesn’t operate where I live (The Southland). Curious as to my alternative choices.
BobbyG @ 11:30 am (#58) - We don’t need a Constitution. We have George W. Bush to protect us.
Personally, I think an old piece of parchment is better protection.
Dr. Bong @42 - Thanks for that. You too, Darkblack.
GOP
KGB
Whats the difference?
They are just phone numbers. Why do we care?
Do we really think that they are going to start modelling the behavior of known criminals and try to figure out from their calling patterns to identify other people who have those same calling patterns, kind of a virtual fingerprint?
Do we really think they will use those highly correlated calling records to start monitoring that person for criminal activity — based soley on correlation of calling patterns?
Do we really think that some of those people monitored would be innocent?
Do we really beleive that the government would put someone in jail, prosecute them, or hold them incommunicado for years just based on their calling patterns — because they are convinced that pattern recogniti9on works?
(Do we really believe that congress and the courts would stand for such behavior?)
Do we really believe the conspiracy theory that the neoCONs would use this information to identify people involved in political action in order to supress or discourage political involvement?
Do we really think the BushCo and operations would use such a program, if deemed legal, to scare the public at large by modelling their behavior and knowing each person’s personality type and predictable behavior?
Do we really think Bush is that bad?
And one last question, partially off topic: Does Bush have the constitutional authority to suspend the truth?
a girl just wants to know…
JWR: My pleasure… Hope you didn’t have to look too hard to find the comment I was referring to - I tried the linky and it just took me to the top of the page rather than directly to the comment…
WaPo has a video of Bush’s little speech up. It is really worth a watch. Not only is he obviously pissed, but every time he tells a flat out lie his eyes shift to the left - a classic indication of lying.
particularly just after 1 minuute in “the governement does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.” Watch his eyes veer hard to the left. Blinking frequently is another indication of obfuscation.
(I heard a fascinating interview with a guy who had written a book about how to read faces a couple of years ago and I remember the bit about lying - he said it is a great excercise to turn off the sound and just watch the face).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00819.html
Since the President says that he was only spying on Al-Qaida when he collected data on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, I don’t know why Al-Qaida bothers to attack us. With millions of voters in this country, Al-Qaida could take over by winning elections.
Oh,oh!
EPU’d
Shouldn’t Corporations be really, really worried about this too? There are no boundaries. What can be construed as supporting or undermining “National Security†is in entirely the eye of the beholder.
Is it in America’s interest that domestic corporations should have an advantage in bidding on global contracts? To a GOPer, that’s a no-brainer - it makes perfect sense to provide the US company with a bit of inside information about their international competitors. (And for added value, of course, once a company compromises itself by accepting such “helpâ€, it will be in the government’s pocket forever).
And now we know (as opposed to just *knowing*, as we did before) that the government knows about domestic calls as well. To these people, National Security concerns would justify fostering the growth of loyal, patriotic companies run by right-thinking, loyal and trustworthy (GOP) people. A little heads-up now and again about who their flaky, traitorous, liberal, unionized competitors have been in discussions with. What’s the harm in that?
cujo359 @ 54 –
What is your email spam filter? I use yahoo mail, and while it used to be good, the spam has gotten totally out of control lately.
It’s web based email, which I like — but it delivers a hundred spams a day to the bulk folder, and another 20 or 30 to the inbox. Plus, it’s not very good at learning what is and what is not spam.
LOL just heard a commercial on the radio for Verizon (unfortunately my cell phone co.)—the tagline is, “Verizon: always working for you!†It immediately makes one think, “Verizon: always spying on you!â€
I just hope this comes back to bite them in the a$$!
I’m very impressed that Qwest stood up to the guvmint on this one. I think they’ll be getting my business.
Charles (#10), I agree. This seems big, and it seems like it has legs. I heard people talking about it at work today, and I can’t remember ever having overheard a political conversation at work before.
When you worship the political philosophy of Leo Strauss and thereby contend that deception of the masses is necessary — even a virtue, then every public statement you make is tainted.
They way I see it, Mr. Bush has successfully challenged the veracity of his own statements.
OT - but I am reading ‘Before the Storm’ about Barry Goldwater’s rise to fame, and the people surrounding him. This book should be entitled ‘History is Prolog.’ An early Karl Rove type named Stephen Shadgg wrote a book entitled “How to Win an Election” working on the Indifferent voter and how to make him vote against his very own beliefs.
And more on topic, that many conservatives even in the 1950s would be willing to give up freedoms due to the threat from communists (now known as terrorists). And many were advocating small nuclear weapons for wars against the ‘communists’, or … well like I said, history is prolog.
They have long been planning this take down of our Constitution. Does our side having any long term ‘thinkers’ equalling Brent Bozell and Buckley?
I read the book for a while, and then come to read here, and the topics are so joined — no wonder this book is on the book club agenda.
Sorry for the interruption — now back to the thread — as it just keeps threading along.
FWIW and OT:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....an_nuclear
Iran ready to negotiate.
I spoke to Verizon in NJ earlier and they claim they do not sell our records to anyone. When I brought up the article in USA Today I got silence, and when I pressed for answer I got “We do not comment on National Security matters”
When I said this has nothing to do with national security, this has to do with Verizon willfuly breaking the law, I got the national security line again.
Tomorrow I switch to Vonage and I told them so.
dead last @ 11:34 am (#65) - Read my (#54) for a short explanation of what they might legitimately be up to with this information.
Unfortunately, they just went ahead and did this. The Congress rejected a similar database effort, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), a couple of years ago, so I suspect that they may have decided to just forget all those icky legislative and judicial issues and do what they wanted.
The problem, of course, is that you’re right. It doesn’t have to stop there. They could do many, if not all of the things you suggest with that data later, or could start collecting all the data - phone messages, e-mails, web accesses - and keep the stuff they find interesting for whatever reason. When there’s no review there’s no way of knowing what they’re doing.
I’m sure I’m stating the obvious to most folks here, but I’m continually amazed at how many people don’t get this.
NSA: Now Spying on Americans
I just watched the video at Wash Post, did you see the last visual they had at the end, his eyes squinty and his tounge slightly out??? Was that an accident? Maybe just my connection? It stayed that way until I linked back.
BTW, Google is great. I found that free fax service and my Senator’s fax number. Irate letter sent.
ck (#50): your post leads me to this:
(to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”)
We don’t need no constitution……..
somebody want to run with that?
Bush is misunderstood. He really has a cunning plan: The terrorists hate us for our freedom. Now if we didn’t have those freedoms the terrorists wouldn’t have a reason to hate us. So actually he’s doing us a favor.
#61 Siasl
this is a link to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several cases they have pending against cell phone companies - probably links in here to some of the good guys
celltracking
OT: I missed yesterday’s gender dialogue, & wanted to add 3 more names:
Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers Guild at Truthout — not a blogger, but always an essential read/wrap-up
janinsf- peace & social justive activist, filed lawsuit against TSA no-fly list: happening here
Elaine Cassels - civil liberties issues (inactive since Nov 05)
“I am naive enough to hope the truth will out. History may be a record written by the winners, but don’t forget Nixon taped himself for posterity. If you are a woman, archives hold perpetual ironies. Because the gaps & silences are where you find yourself.” (Susan Howe, The Birth-Mark, Wesleyan University Press, 1993, p. 158)
#67: Did you see the interview on Colbert with the poker champ woman who described the actions of people who are lying . . . it was a blow-by-blow description of GWB in his finest moments, no joke! Especially the constant blinking! It’s NOT HARD to see him lying through his teeth, once you start paying attention . . .
Careful with all this anger, people, Richard Cohen might be shocked and offended.
My silver lining in this disgusting cloud. Most of the Rethugs are in this game for the money. They could care less about Civil Rights one way or the other. As to Bush, he’s too stupid to understand what they are, like most other Americans. So this takes us to the true believers, who are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton and I fear, Ms Rice, all of whom would be quite happy with a dictatorship for its own sake, and theirs too, of course.
Although these people have been surprisingly successful in mounting a security state, mainly because the press has been complicit in it and the Democrats supine, they don’t have the Hitlerian ruthlessness to follow through and actually intern and murder enough people to make the rest of us very afraid to speak out. And now it’s too late to pull the revolution off.
Even the forthcoming attack on Iran won’t do the trick any more.
Cujo359 (#62)
personally, i think an old piece of used toilet paper is better protection………
ck @ 11:40 am (#70) - I use an e-mail client called evolution which runs on most modern Unix and Linux systems. It has several different spam filters, including something called “spamassassin”. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent program for Windows, but if you have a Mac you might be able to use it.
Dead Last,
Do you really think we’re going to take your stupid questions seriously?
Get a life and go back to your republican hideout.
Dr. Bong @66 - Link went right to Darkblack’s comment. With all this refreshing and scrolling and reading, I missed that one. My overtaxed dial-up internets sure are movin’ slow today.
fahrender #80
slight correction… “to the tune of ‘Another Brick In The Wall’”
:-)
OT: Paul Keil has an interesting take on Duke Cunningham’s recent lack of cooperation:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000609.php
Here’s Trey Ellis over at HuffPo:
>>>>>>
Today Senator Leahy bravely said, “Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.” He also said, “Where does it stop?â€
It stops when the opposition opposes. It stops when Democrats defend American citizens against an administration so dangerously incompetent that it can find no other way to go after the terrorists who are trying to destroy our liberties than by destroying those same liberties themselves.
I am heartened by Senator Leahy joining Senator Feingold in urging his fellow Democrats to leap out of their foxholes and fight. Unfortunately, another hero of mine, Senator Obama, recently echoed the more prevailing Democratic conventional wisdom when he said that a rule of thumb in Washington is that when your opponent is failing you should do nothing, just simply get out of their way.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....20828.html
for sick of it all @ 89, dead last is a regular here. The questions were angry ones designed to get us to think.
#82 cbl - thanks. I see Vonage mentioned above and I’ll be researching them too.
I bet when the phone companies agreed to this, they begged the government to keep it secret. I’m hopeful (but not optimistic) those who chose to play ball will feel it in their pocket once this story gets more traction.
ck 16 - Exactly what I thought. And it has happened several times now - USA Today and two comedy shows are more reliable, in-depth, expositive reporting than NBC and Meet the Press? Strange times.
(DISCLAIMER - Dear Mr/Ms NSA/FBI/CIA person: The following is a JOKE, an attempt at HUMOR, lame and feeble as it may be. In no way should it be construed as representing the opinion or intentions of its author, nor of the wonderful and talented owners of this blog, nor any of the fine and patriotic people who comment upon it. Thank you for your understanding./DISCLAIMER)
SUSAN (#51) I like it better this way:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the
PresidentFLMBK of the United States, and, by so doing, will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.â€What do the Republicans have on Nancy Pelosi– why won’t she join the the amicus brief seeking to end the warrantless NSA eavesdropping? Same with Hoyer. Where is the Dem leadership, I’d really like to know. See below from Raw Story:
“Seventy two members of Congress filed papers late Wednesday seeking to end President George W. Bush’s warrantless NSA eavesdropping program, RAW STORY has learned.
The filing came just before a report Thursday in USA Today which revealed that the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program had collected call records on tens of millions of Americans through agreements with AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
It also comes a day after lawyers looking into the NSA program abruptly closed their probe after the Bush Administration refused to grant them clearances.
The 71 Democrats and one independent filed an amicus brief in two federal courts reviewing challenges to the warrantless wiretapping program in Detroit and New York, joining the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Both suits demand the program be stopped.
Top Democrats did not sign the call. Neither House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) nor House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have joined the brief.”
Sick of it All @89
I would venture a guess to say that Dead Last was being just a tad snarkastic (?)
Sick of it all - #89
Is that you, ghostman?
Sick of it: You were right about one thing, I am a troll. Not politically, but I am really a 45-year-old father of two. :)
We were young then
We were together
We could bare fire , floods and bad weather
We all had that sublime green light then that’s eluding us now - but that’s no matter.
Tomorrow we’ll run faster - stretch out our arms farther.
I mentioned this above, but has anyone considered that this could fall under the RICO statute?
Also, what kind of class action lawsuit would this look like against the government and the telcos.
The Court will now hear the case of Every Single Person in the Entire United State vs AT&T, Verizon, Bellsouth, and the U.S. Government
CNN.com headline: “Bush: We’re not trolling your personal lifeâ€
Oh SURE, Mr. President!
MSNBC headline: “President Bush says any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he’s approved are “lawful.”â€
I do not think that word means what you think it means!
ck @ 11:08 am (#16) - I think that Gannett just saw an unexploited market for real news, and jumped on it. The Times still does good reporting, but they’ve been so eager to please the wingnuts, and so ready to fold, spindle and mutilate the truth on their behalf, that it’s hard to take them seriously as a news organization anymore.
A google search on the Stephen Shadegg book,“How to Win an Election†came up with some interesting hits. It is a recommended text by the Leadership Institute, which is Morton Blackwell’s wing-nut-bot factory. If Karl Rove is Darth Vader, Morton Blackwell is the Emperor.
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
By Richard Hofstadter — Harper’s Magazine, November 1964
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/c.....style.html
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