NSA spying began before 9/11

Drocket

Drocket

CAGiversary!
A new report indicates that the NSA spying that Bush is currently accused of started in early 2001, well before 9/11. If true, this pretty much blows the theory used to defend Bush that Congress authorized Bush to take this action after 9/11, since in fact these illegal actions were authorized by the Bush administration well before then. It also raises the question of who, exactly, the Bush administration was spying on during the time before 9/11, since at the time, they clearly didn't give two shits about terrorism.

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.
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Also note that Echelon was a Clinton Administration creation.

Since President BJ didn't give two wits about bringing in Osama, even though he was offered twice, I doubt Echelon was intended as an anti-terrorism tool by the blue dress administration.
 
And this has what to do with the important point how?

On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.
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Read and learn dipshit. This stuff has been going on forever.


Under Clinton, NY Times called surveillance "a necessity"
January 12th, 2006

The controversy following revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored suspected terrorist related communications since 9/11 reflects a severe case of selective amnesia by the New York Times and other media opponents of President Bush. They certainly didn’t show the same outrage when a much more invasive and indiscriminate domestic surveillance program came to light during the Clinton administration in the 1990’s. At that time, the Times called the surveillance “a necessity.”

“If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there’s a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country’s largest intelligence agency.” (Steve Kroft, CBS’ 60 Minutes)

Those words were aired on February 27, 2000 to describe the National Security Agency and an electronic surveillance program called Echelon whose mission, according to Kroft,

“is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon’s computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.”

Echelon was, or is (its existence has been under-reported in the American media), an electronic eavesdropping program conducted by the United States and a few select allies such as the United Kingdom.

Tellingly, the existence of the program was confirmed not by the New York Times or the Washington Post or by any other American media outlet – these were the Clinton years, after all, and the American media generally treats Democrat administrations far more gently than Republican administrations – but by an Australian government official in a statement made to an Australian television news show.

The Times actually defended the existence of Echelon when it reported on the program following the Australians’ revelations.

“Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists….”

And the Times article quoted an N.S.A. official in assuring readers

“...that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards.”

Of course, that was on May 27, 1999 and Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, was president.

Even so, the article did admit that

“...many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information.”

Despite the Times’ reluctance to emphasize those concerns, one of the sources used in that same article, Patrick Poole, a lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin, Tenn., had already concluded in a study cited by the Times story that the program had been abused in both ways.

“ECHELON is also being used for purposes well outside its original mission. The regular discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of ‘unpopular’ political affiliation or for no probable cause at all… What was once designed to target a select list of communist countries and terrorist states is now indiscriminately directed against virtually every citizen in the world,” Poole concluded.

The Times article also referenced a European Union report on Echelon. The report was conducted after E.U. members became concerned that their citizens’ rights may have been violated. One of the revelations of that study was that the N.S.A. used partner countries’ intelligence agencies to routinely circumvent legal restrictions against domestic spying.

“For example, [author Nicky] Hager has described how New Zealand officials were instructed to remove the names of identifiable UKUSA citizens or companies from their reports, inserting instead words such as ‘a Canadian citizen’ or ‘a US company’. British Comint [Communications intelligence] staff have described following similar procedures in respect of US citizens following the introduction of legislation to limit NSA’s domestic intelligence activities in 1978.”

Further, the E.U. report concluded that intelligence agencies did not feel particularly constrained by legal restrictions requiring search warrants.

“Comint agencies conduct broad international communications ‘trawling’ activities, and operate under general warrants. Such operations do not require or even suppose that the parties they intercept are criminals.”

The current controversy follows a Times report that, since 9/11, U.S. intelligence agencies are eavesdropping at any time on up to 500 people in the U.S. suspected of conducting international communications with terrorists. Under Echelon, the Clinton administration was spying on just about everyone.

“The US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world,”

Poole summarized in his study on the program.

According to an April, 2000 article in PC World magazine, experts who studied Echelon concluded that

“Project Echelon’s equipment can process 1 million message inputs every 30 minutes.”

In the February, 2000 60 Minutes story, former spy Mike Frost made clear that Echelon monitored practically every conversation – no matter how seemingly innocent – during the Clinton years.

“A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a-a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, ‘Oh, Danny really bombed last night,’ just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w-was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.”

“This is not urban legend you’re talking about. This actually happened?” Kroft asked.

“Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.”

Even as the Times defended Echelon as “a necessity” in 1999, evidence already existed that electronic surveillance had previously been misused by the Clinton Administration for political purposes. Intelligence officials told Insight Magazine in 1997 that a 1993 conference of Asian and Pacific world leaders hosted by Clinton in Seattle had been spied on by U.S. intelligence agencies. Further, the magazine reported that information obtained by the spying had been passed on to big Democrat corporate donors to use against their competitors. The Insight story added that the mis-use of the surveillance for political reasons caused the intelligence sources to reveal the operation.

“The only reason it has come to light is because of concerns raised by high-level sources within federal law-enforcement and intelligence circles that the operation was compromised by politicians—includingmid- and senior-level White House aides—either on behalf of or in support of President Clinton and major donor-friends who helped him and the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, raise money.”

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

-an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

-intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

-and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping. Now, reports that the Bush Administration approved electronic eavesdropping, strictly limited to international communications, of a relative handful of suspected terrorists have created a media frenzy in the Times and elsewhere.

The Times has historically been referred to as “the Grey Lady.” That grey is beginning to look just plain grimy, and many of us can no longer consider her a lady.

William Tate is a writer and researcher and former broadcast journalist. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Link
 
What's the matter Drocket? Cat got your tongue?

Or are you only indignant and outraged if Bush did it. I fully expect you do rail vehemently against the Clinton Administration's "illegal" spying, evesdropping and monitoring of American citizens.

Unless of course, you really don't care unless Bush did it.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']

Or are you only indignant and outraged if Bush did it. I fully expect you do rail vehemently against the Clinton Administration's "illegal" spying, evesdropping and monitoring of American citizens.
[/QUOTE]

only you are equally outraged that Bush did nothing about Osama, didn't give a half-wit to bringing him in, disregarding warnings, wasn't concerned with international terrorism. Mr. Pot.

Here is a history lesson of your own, dipshit.

http://www.themodernreligion.com/terror/defence-spend.html
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']What's the matter Drocket? Cat got your tongue?
[/QUOTE]

Sorry: I don't spend every minute in front of the PC waiting for people to post easily rebutted crap.

Since you appear to be missing the point (as usual)... The problem here is the difference is between LEGAL surveillance and illegal. I'm not too fond of a program like Echelon, and would prefer it didn't exist regardless of who is president, but the legality of such a program is, at worst, a grey area.

When it comes to what Bush is doing, though, there IS no grey area. Its illegal, period. Bush himself hasn't even bothered to defend the legality of it - he's simply declared himself to be above the law as the president.

The difference between the legality of an Echelon-like program as what the Bush administration has been doing is this:
he agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration
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THIS IS ILLEGAL. Lets try a break down:

*Screening every phone call in the world by computer to see if someone uses the word 'bomb - probably legal, at most a grey area
*Recording those calls and putting them in a permanent database - illegal

Now, if you want to provide evidence that Clinton did number 2, I'll be happy to condemn him right there along with Bush. Please, however, stop trying to create false equivalencies between 'Clinton did something, Bush did something else, so why aren't you criticizing Clinton?'
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Was he offered on a silver platter twice to Bush?

Nope.

Thanks for playing Revisionist U.S. History![/QUOTE]

the irony of this post.. "Sliver platter"? no.

You'll believe anything the GOP tells you.

WASHINGTON The government of Sudan, using a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in custody in Saudi Arabia, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.

The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at hotel in Arlington, Virginia, on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later.

Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept Mr. bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture…
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and http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm


Not even close. You're dismissed.
 
PAD? PAD? Where are you PAD? Surely if you're going to criticize others for not responding instantly, you're at least going to have the common courtesy to sit in front of your PC all day and night waiting for a reply.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some TV to go watch. Don't worry - I'm not abandoning the thread, just not spending 24/7 waiting for your reply.
 
You summed it up perfectly.

It's a grey area.

Exept when Bush does it.

Thanks for showing your unadulterated bias and exposing yourself as an intellectual fraud.
 
[quote name='Drocket'] but the legality of such a program is at worst, a grey area.

When it comes to what Bush is doing, though, there IS no grey area. [/QUOTE]

Ole' indeed.

Thank you for playing "When Liberals Look Like 'Tards".
 
[quote name='usickenme']the irony of this post.. "Sliver platter"? no.

You'll believe anything the GOP tells you.



and http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm


Not even close. You're dismissed.[/QUOTE]

Mansoor Ijaz. That's the key name in the Clinton/Sudan/bin Laden assertion many people falsely make.

First, Ijaz points the finger (and perhaps not for the first time) here: http://www.infowars.com/saved pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm

Shortly thereafter, he finds employment with a company he still works for. Perhaps you've heard of them: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,46241,00.html

Another page, not much new info, but a great deal of op-eds he's written. http://www.benadorassociates.com/ijaz.php

And, of course, if you google his name, some of the top ten results include NewsMax and National Review Online. He certainly has chosen his side (and I will reluctantly admit I'm having trouble finding information on the vested financial interests that made him an unreliable source according to the Clinton administration).
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Ole' indeed.

Thank you for playing "When Liberals Look Like 'Tards".[/QUOTE]


When in fact, you're the person in question. Honestly, how do you function? do you have one of your family members carry around your colostomy bag and hold your head up as you drool out your rhetorical garbage? It is obvious you can't think of any new material, but to actually utilize the same insults day after day... You can't excuse your dumbass behaviour with cheap insults all the time, try it in real life for instance, please, try it! You'll deserve whatever you get, prick.
 
Has anyone else noticed a shift in Bush's defense? At first it was claiming that one end of the call was in a foreign country and now it's this is all legal because I'm the president. I wonder if there is a reason behind backing off of that first defense. Are we going to hear more about purely domestic surveillance?
 
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