Here We Go Again! Documents Reveal NSA's OWN SECRET GOOGLE! When WILL WE STOP THIS?

[KoKo]

Published on
Monday, August 25, 2014

Snowden Documents Reveal NSA's 'Own Secret Google'

http://www.commondreams.org/

Agency has been sharing more than 850 billion telecom records on foreigners and U.S. citizens with law enforcement, documents reveal
by
Nadia Prupis, staff writer

Documents reveal unprecedented level of NSA data record collection (Photo: Steve Rhodes)

The National Security Agency has for years been giving hundreds of billions of telecommunications records about foreigners and U.S. citizens to dozens of government bureaus, the Intercept reported on Monday.

Documents linked to Edward Snowden's leak last year, obtained by the Intercept, show the NSA shared and continues to share more than 850 billion records of emails, cell phone calls and locations, internet chats, and other metadata sent and received by people throughout the world — who have not been accused of any wrongdoing — by using a "Google-like" search engine called ICREACH, which was built specifically for the agency.

According to a 2010 CIA memo on the program, which agency colleagues "enthusiastically welcome[d]," over 1,000 analysts from 23 government agencies had access to the NSA’s cache of information, all of which was collected without a warrant. Records were regularly shared with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the CIA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, among other bureaus, the documents reveal.

"The ICREACH team delivered the first-ever wholesale sharing of communications metadata within the U.S. Intelligence Community," a 2007 top-secret memo said. "This team began over two years ago with a basic concept compelled by the IC’s increasing need for communications metadata and NSA’s ability to collect, process and store vast amounts of communications metadata related to worldwide intelligence targets."

ICREACH appears to be a separate entity from the NSA database previously reported to collect phone records of millions of Verizon customers every day under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the Intercept said. Rather, the search engine "grants access to a vast pool of data that can be mined by analysts from across the intelligence community for 'foreign intelligence'—a vague term that is far broader than counterterrorism."

Jeffrey Anchukaitis, a spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence, defended the government's widespread spying, stating that sharing information has become "a pillar of the post-9/11 intelligence community."

The Intercept reports that ICREACH was built under the direction of former NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander, and was created to "allow unprecedented volumes of communications metadata to be shared and analyzed," and give a "vast, rich source of information" to other agencies to exploit.

ICREACH evolved out of Project CRISSCROSS, a secret CIA-DEA joint initiative created in the early 1990s to identify and target narcotics suspects in Latin America. But by 1999, access to Project CRISSCROSS had expanded to include the NSA, the DIA, and the FBI, who also contributed to the database. Eventually, a supplemental system called PROTON was installed to support new information as analysts began to store more and more invasive data, including codes that could identify individual cell phones, passport and flight records, visa applications, and information from CIA intelligence reports. In July 2006, the NSA estimated that it was storing 149 billion phone records on PROTON, the Intercept says. Over time, even PROTON was not sufficiently advanced technology to store and cull all the data it held and gathered every day, leading to the creation of ICREACH.

But ICREACH may hold even more records than what is currently estimated. The Intercept writes:

While the NSA initially estimated making upwards of 850 billion records available on ICREACH, the documents indicate that target could have been surpassed, and that the number of personnel accessing the system may have increased since the 2010 reference to more than 1,000 analysts. The intelligence community’s top-secret “Black Budget” for 2013, also obtained by Snowden, shows that the NSA recently sought new funding to upgrade ICREACH to “provide IC analysts with access to a wider set of shareable data.”

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[Luminous Animal]

1. No link.

[Omaha Steve]

7. Here is a link

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/25/snowden-documents-reveal-nsas-own-secret-google

[Egnever]

2. Go again?

If you mean spewing the sky is falling I would have to agree.

Did the3 writer of this not understand this is what was being done with the metadata the first time around?

Did they just think the data was being collected and not being looked at when it was warrented or in cases where the law was broken not warrented?

Here we go again indeed. Lets recycle information and pretend it's a shocking new revelation so we can get clicks.

It's SHOCKING!

[PSPS]

4. Even now, these revelations still drag up a #10 or #11

Worshiper/Apologist Hit Parade:

1. This is nothing new
2. I have nothing to hide
3. What are you, a freeper?
4. But Obama is better than Christie/Romney/Bush/Hitler
5. Greenwald/Flaherty/Gillum/Apuzzo/Braun is a hack
6. We have red light cameras, so this is no big deal
7. Corporations have my data anyway
8. At least Obama is trying
9. This is just the media trying to take Obama down
10. It's a misunderstanding/you are confused
11. You're a racist
12. Nobody cares about this anyway / "unfounded fears"
13. I don't like Snowden, therefore we must disregard all of this
14. Other countries do it

[Egnever]

6. So your answer then is no you didn't get it the first ten times?

It is shocking new information for you.

Just revealed! You should send em a couple bucks..

[G_j]

8. here is the The Intercept article

not just an exercise in recycling..

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/25/icreach-nsa-cia-secret-google-crisscross-proton/

[woo me with science]

11. Wow, a fail on two levels.

It IS new information, and even if it weren't, mass government surveillance does not stop being an outrage and violation of our rights because it's "old news."

[Egnever]

13. Wooo Woooo!

[woo me with science]

14. How embarrassing for you that post is,

from an adult on a political messaging board.

[Marr]

25. The self-proclaimed "adults", ladies and gentlemen.

[nilesobek]

51. Its a bully tactic. There's no reason to repeatedly make fun

of a screen name. This is round 2 isn't it?

[sabrina 1]

47. So wait, you are telling us that our Government KNEW that the Constitutional Rights of

the people have been violated FOR A LONG TIME, that 'it's old news' to them but they HAVE DONE NOTHING ABOUT IT all this time?

Do you realize that that makes it EVEN WORSE? That it would be far better if they DID NOT KNOW, that it wasn't OLD NEWS to them?

Are you trying to defend them with this 'excuse' or are you accusing them of failing to abide by their oaths of office which require ONE THING of them, 'to defend and protect the US Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic'?

I was giving them the benefit of the doubt assuming that IF they already knew about this, they would have done something by now, like started an investigation into what is one of the worst crimes that anyone can commit against this country, to violate the people's Constitutional Rights.

[Egnever]

49. I am saying that despite your protestations to the contrary

They do not see it as a violation of your constitutional rights. Mostly because it is meta data and not personalized unless you chose to connect the meta data to an individual.

Now you can certainly argue that metadata can easily be connected to an individual but that doesn't mean a thing unless it is actually being done.

Just because something can be done does not mean it is being done.

I am saying that unlike you the vast majority of our congress people believe in the integrity of our security personnel and dont believe they are all on a fishing expedition to find out what type of underwear you are using or whatever wild fantasy you have of them digging for.

Opportunities for abuse are certainly there and because of that I am all for better legislation concerning oversight of these operations. That does not negate the fact that there are legitimate needs for this sort of a program in the digital era we live in now.

[sabrina 1]

53. Then every last one of them should be impeached. What is 'meta data'? And why do people fall for

this Orwellian language, especially here on DU where we used to be a whole lot smarter than those on the Right who believed all this garbage, who picked up that Orwellian language deliberately invented to try to diminish the crimes being committed, 'collateral damage' is another disgusting attempt to cover up murder of innocent people.

'Meta Data' = OUR PERSONAL BUSINESS that the Government has NO RIGHT to 'collect', 'store', look at or go near. What, a bunch of Government Peeping Toms looking through everyone's window lying about WHY they are doing it? I didn't think there was anyone left HERE at least, bought that garbage anymore.

They ARE violating the American People's 4th Amendment rights. That amendment is VERY CLEAR. The Govt has NO RIGHT to spy on the American people, PERIOD.

And you're WRONG. They KNOW IT which is why they tried so hard to HIDE IT, first back in 2005 when they panicked after a whistle blower revealed it. And funny thing, EVERY SINGLE DUer viewed it as a crime back then. Which it was.

This isn't 'abuse', it is a CRIME against American people as every single Civil Rights Org and Constitutional Expert has stated.

I don't care what the criminals say or think, criminals always deny their crimes. Our Constitutional Rights ARE being violated and that is a crime against this country no matter HOW you try to minimize it. Although WHY any Democrat would even try is beyond me.

[Egnever]

55. Obviously we disagree

As do your congresspeople.

[sabrina 1]

60. My congressperson is a Right Winger, so yes, obviously he has no problem with

Bush's criminal policies. Clearly he never read his Oath of Office and needs to GO as do any of them who support these crimes.

Ron Wyden otoh, a Democrat and one of the few 'congresspersons' I still have respect for, has been trying to warn the people about these crimes for a long time. He agrees with me, but sadly we don't have enough congresspersons who are not beholden to Corporations and who take their oaths of office seriously. That is what we have to change.

[rhett o rick]

56. Good Grief Charlie Brown. Let's see if I got your argument correct. It's ok for the Govemnt

to spy on us and collect data. It's ok if they come into our homes and collect data. It's ok if they monitor our phones and movements and what we f'n check out of the library. It's all ok because they aren't doing anything with it. They only do something with it if it's for the f'n good of the good ole USofA. At least that's what they say. That crap is right wing crap if I ever heard of it. That crap means the Constitution doesn't matter because Herr Gen Clapper promises that they aren't really using the data. If you believe this crap you and I are on different sides of this f'n class war.

[Egnever]

57. No you don't have it even close try again

[rhett o rick]

58. Never mind !

[sabrina 1]

22. That is the wrong question. The writer is not the issue. The question is did Congress and the WH

'not understand what was being done with the SPYING,' people need to stop using their weasel words to try to diminish the criminal behavior they are engaged in. Because I recall being told by the WH that none of this was a problem because it wasn't 'being used'.

It IS SHOCKING when agencies of your own government are violating the rights of the people guaranteed in the US Constitution. It is VERY shocking, no, it's worse than that, it is CRIMINAL.

And it's fascinating to see ANYONE here trying to minimize the crimes of Bush appointees like Clapper now. When did Democrats start defending Bush Loyalists like Clapper and Alexander around here?

[Egnever]

28. Of course they understood.

And they recognize the value of the intel they are getting. That is why they arent doing much about it.

I am all for tightening oversight on these agencies but I am not the least bit interested in stopping this program. It is needed in the digital age we live in with the psycho religious nuts running around in this world not to mention the real outside governmental threats like china and its continuous cyber warfare.

Did you not understand they were collecting this data? Did you not understand it was searchable? Shouldn't it be?

I am not defending anyone I am constantly amazed that people didnt understand this from the moment they put the taps on the trunks. From the moment we were made aware of them doing it this was clearly the intent. Why else?

The digital age we lives in brings a lot of freedom with it and also a lot of danger. people can communicate around the world from anywhere at any time. Be it trafficking drugs or humans do you think the internet is not being used for it? How would you suggest we catch these people? That doesn't even touch terrorism or other religious end of timers. If your suggestion is we should forgo our ability to do what they are doing I think you or anyone who suggests it is horribly naive.

More stringent oversight I am totally on board for. Trying to ensure the meta data remains meta data and not personalized unless a warrant is issued, you bet. I understand today's meta data almost makes it childs play for someone determined to identify you to do so, but I also recognize that the vast majority of people working in these fields aren't there to spy on your dating habits they are there to catch bad guys. They aren't evil henchmen they are people who work for the US trying to make it a safer place for you and me.

Open to abuse ..absolutely. Likely abused? probably not more than occasionally and you can find occasional abuse anywhere you look.

I dont have a problem with the US spying on anyone not a US citizen if they can or feel they need to. I think they should be , it is the definition of intelligence and has been going on as long as we have been human beings on this planet. The idea we will all just decide to stop spying on each other is as ludicrous as the idea we will stop killing each other. It is in our nature if history is any indicator whatsoever.

[questionseverything]

36. it is us citizen's being spied on

then the nsa feeds the info to the fbi,local police and illegal parallel construction is used

the justice dept has lied to the sc twice about this so i think your "no big deal" argument flies out the window

[Egnever]

39. It is criminals being spied on

When you can point to something where someone's personal info was revealed that was not a criminal you will have an argument I will start to be more concerned about.

But despite all the sky is failing bs I have yet to see one instance of it being used to persecute an innocent citizen.

Maybe you have seen something I haven't.

[questionseverything]

40. according to you,no more innocent until proven guilty?

ICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google


@ggreenwald: ICREACH has records on "millions of records on American citizen" & is shared "with domestic agencies like the FBI" https://t.co/1p09R1AylM/s/NKYu

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/25/icreach-nsa-cia-secret-google-crisscross-proton/

The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

By Ryan Gallagher

25 Aug 2014, 1:09 PM EDT

The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly two dozen U.S. government agencies with a “Google-like” search engine built to share more than 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept.

The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies. Planning documents for ICREACH, as the search engine is called, cite the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration as key participants.

ICREACH contains information on the private communications of foreigners and, it appears, millions of records on American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

[randome]

41. "...it appears..."

Not much to go on, is it?

It's likely the same conundrum that repeatedly surfaces in these debates. If a foreign individual is being monitored, how can you not collect the information of people that individual calls in the States? Of course you will then have data belonging to an American citizen.

If you can show they are deliberately 'going after' American citizens, then you'd have an appropriate outrage to fan.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[questionseverything]

44. just the collection is illegal

access to millions of records about Americans. The “minimized” information can still be retained under NSA rules for up to five years and “unmasked” at any point during that period if it is ever deemed necessary for an investigation.

The Brennan Center’s Goitein said it appeared that with ICREACH, the government “drove a truck” through loopholes that allowed it to circumvent restrictions on retaining data about Americans. This raises a variety of legal and constitutional issues, according to Goitein, particularly if the data can be easily searched on a large scale by agencies like the FBI and DEA for their domestic investigations.

“The idea with minimization is that the government is basically supposed to pretend this information doesn’t exist, unless it falls under certain narrow categories,” Goitein said. “But functionally speaking, what we’re seeing here is that minimization means, ‘we’ll hold on to the data as long as we want to, and if we see anything that interests us then we can use it.’”

A key question, according to several experts consulted by The Intercept, is whether the FBI, DEA or other domestic agencies have used their access to ICREACH to secretly trigger investigations of Americans through a controversial process known as “parallel construction.”

Parallel construction involves law enforcement agents using information gleaned from covert surveillance, but later covering up their use of that data by creating a new evidence trail that excludes it. This hides the true origin of the investigation from defense lawyers and, on occasion, prosecutors and judges—which means the legality of the evidence that triggered the investigation cannot be challenged in court.

In practice, this could mean that a DEA agent identifies an individual he believes is involved in drug trafficking in the United States on the basis of information stored on ICREACH. The agent begins an investigation but pretends, in his records of the investigation, that the original tip did not come from the secret trove. Last year, Reuters first reported details of parallel construction based on NSA data, linking the practice to a unit known as the Special Operations Division, which Reuters said distributes tips from NSA intercepts and a DEA database known as DICE.

/////////////////

but if you read the original memo,it is deliberate too

[randome]

45. How do you collect only one side of a monitored foreign individual?

It's like listening to only one side of a wiretapped phone call. You can't 'unhear' who the person is speaking to.

The NSA gets the data of a foreign individual under surveillance. If some of that data belongs to an American citizen, it should be thrown out? That doesn't make sense, especially when it would take a lot of time and effort, perhaps, to pick through all the data and discard only certain pieces.

If a suspect is calling someone in America, it might be a good idea, to say the least, to keep that information on tap in case it becomes pertinent later.

None of this means the NSA is spying on American citizens. All it means, to me, is that in the digital age, information becomes too intertwined to easily separate. And having a searchable index of all that data...well, again, this is the digital age. Why would they not have an easy method to search through it all?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[questionseverything]

48. you should have to preface anything you write with

"i do not believe in the bill of rights"

your spiel used to be..minimization procedures seem to be appropriate ,now you do not think they are necessary at all

[Baitball Blogger]

3. And like Lexus Nexus, they'll charge a price for its usage.

Tell the truth. You know it's true.

[woo me with science]

5. Mass surveillance, torturers are "patriots," going back into Iraq,

and Hillary Clinton the inevitable...

When WILL WE STOP THIS?

Indeed.

[Omaha Steve]

9. Common dreams funding down thanks to hackers

We won’t sugarcoat this. We are in serious trouble. And we need your help today.

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We are working really hard to fight back and dig ourselves out of this hole. But we must make a big push this week. Can you help?

It is absolutely critical that we meet our Summer fundraising goal of $50,000 by this Friday, August 29th.

You’ve been there for us in the past. Can we count on your help today?

Don't let them silence us.

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[woo me with science]

16. I wonder who the hackers are.

I would not be at all surprised to discover they are connected to our government.

[sabrina 1]

23. That was my first thought. Look what they've done to some of the best news media

'the new media' which they hadn't calculated into their plans to take over the media.

Who stands to gain from trying to shut down websites that don't stick to the 'official' story?

[Enthusiast]

33. Me too.

They obviously to not believe in a representative democracy.

[rhett o rick]

10. The Centrists among us won't be posting in this thread. If they did

they tell us to relax, drink the koolaid, and vote for HRC.

[woo me with science]

17. Actually, they are imitating trains above.

About the level of discourse we have come to expect.

[Enthusiast]

34. +1

"imitating trains"

[sabrina 1]

54. They're here, doing exactly that.

To no avail, thankfully.

[Thinkingabout]

12. When the obsession stops then it will be over.

[cantbeserious]

15. Thank You Snowden

eom

[GETPLANING]

18. Total Information Awareness

never went away. The spooks just went underground with it. Now it's gotten so big it can't be hidden any more.

[blkmusclmachine]

19. Google (Maps) has its own satellites, or taps into the Feds

[JEB]

20. This is not the America I was taught about as a kid.

Granted that was way back in the 1950's, but it still breaks my heart. Is there no political party to stand in opposition to this corruption of our supposedly dear principles?

[woo me with science]

21. You speak for me.

[zeemike]

24. Now that is the truth.

I never imagined things would ever get like this, and I was a big Si Fi fan.

[redqueen]

38. I saw it coming in my teens

because I was a big Sci Fi fan.

[zeemike]

43. I certainly thought it could happen.

I just never thought it would happen in my lifetime.

[indepat]

26. The America we have today are the vehemently extreme branch of the right-wing party and

the moderately extreme branch of the right-wing party. TPTB will see to it that no moderate/progressive/liberal is the nominee for the moderately extreme branch of the right-wing party (the so-called Democratic Party).

[Enthusiast]

35. +1!

[grasswire]

27. so publish the black budget!

Let everything hang out.

It's our data, and our money.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Yep. Remember, if you didn't want a SWAT team to toss a flash grenade into your baby's crib

You shouldn't have talked about wanting to smoke a joint, on the phone.

[woo me with science]

30. For the caption on the last photo,

you could add, "for the profit of shareholders of the private prison corporation."

This should be an OP if it hasn't yet.

Thank you for posting it.

If we ever needed proof that our government is criminal (I mean, beyond the looting and protecting criminal bankers and intimidating journalists and persecuting whistleblowers and all the rest....) the fact that this SHIT....spying on Americans and then CONSTRUCTING FALSE EVIDENCE TRAILS TO ARREST THEM....is still going on and our elected "representatives" are not saying a word about it....

We are ruled by criminals.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. It is interesting how that whole parallel construction thing dropped off the narrative radar.

I mean, shit, if there are hundreds of thousands of drug users who were put in jail based upon these unethical, unconstitutional, and frankly illegal retroactively constructed parallel evidence trails, isn't that news?

One would think, huh.

[woo me with science]

32. Poof.

One would think.

[Blue_Tires]

37. I'm guessing the 'real' Google had a hand in helping craft it?

[stevenleser]

42. Google makes it easy. It's used right here on DU.

https://www.google.com/cse/

Many firm intranets use it too. If you have web pages and an internal intranet, you can use Google's or various other search tools out there to search them.

[MineralMan]

46. In the early 1960s, I was an avid listener to shortwave radio

broadcasts. I was a high school kid. Part of that hobby involved sending letters to different radio broadcasters reporting on how well their signal was reaching my little town in California. When you sent those letters, the broadcasters would send you what was called a QSL card to thank you for your report. It was cool. I got lots and lots of those QSL cards to put on my bulletin board from all over the world. Radio Moscow and other eastern bloc nations also took the opportunity to send out tons of magazines, literature and other propaganda to people who contacted them.

At one point, my parents had to sign a form at the post office saying that it was OK to deliver that stuff. They did that, because I was interested in such mail.

Why is that important? Well, the government was interested in who was getting stuff from eastern bloc countries. A few years later, when I was in the USAF, part of the security clearance form I filled out had a place where it asked if I had ever received mail from a Soviet bloc country. Yes, I answered, and used the space provided to explain that I had been a shortwave listener and had received piles of mail from those countries.

They would have known that I was lying if I said no. They already knew I got that stuff, because they tracked that stuff. It didn't matter when it came to getting that security clearance, though. The USAF had already sent me to a total immersion Russian language school for a year. If anything my history of listening to radio stations from around the world was a plus, not a minus.

My point? The federal government has been interested in US citizens who communicate with people in other countries. My subscription to Soviet Life was duly recorded, as was my reception of all of that literature sent to me. They knew about it. It didn't matter, because what I was doing was legal, innocuous, and typical of many high school kids at the time. In fact, it was a positive thing, given what the USAF was about to have me doing.

Our government collect vast amounts of information about each and every one of us. It has done so for a very, very long time. Now, we communicate differently than we once did, and they're still collecting all of that information. They'll continue to do so. Just remember: if you apply for a security clearance, don't lie about those communications. They're more concerned about you lying than about the fact that you communicated. Seriously.

[KoKo]

50. I hear your experience...but, these are different times....

NSA Spying has increased beyond you admitting to getting Soviet Pulication because you listened to Shortwave Radio in the 1960's.

But, thanks for taking time to post your experience...and why you feel it's not a big deal because you are equating it to that time in your life.

What if you had been denied a job (outside of the Military) because the job you applied for depended on a Cold War Sen. McCarthy/J. Edgar Hoover Fan...who thought you were a PINKO/COMMUNIST because you were even Listening to Moscow on Shortwave and and not Returned the mail/magazines you'd gotten from a Communist Country. What if they marked you to be monitored with your family for applying to a job where you were in "possession" of Communist Material... And, then they sent "FBI" out to your home to search through your "Stuff" to link you to other organizations in the US who might be related to the information you received to try to connect you to Communist Terrorist Cells. All because you innocently liked to listen to Short Wave Stations and communicated with them to appreciate the feed?

See...that's where this goes these days. What went on in the 60's and with you being honest applying for Military Job is quite different These Days with those of us who might be marked for watch "RT America" or reading "Left Wing Publications like "Firedoglake" or "CounterPunch" or the others that DU Monitors of "Disinfo" attack some of us for reading.

It's a different game these days. Getting any job when the NSA and Affiliates can bore down into detail EVERYTHING YOU DO/POST ONLINE and PROFILE .....

That's the point... This isn't the 60's ...and I am familiar with that time..and Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. That's child's play compared to the amount of Data that is available to our Spy Agencies Today. And the people monitoring are much more vicious and uncaring in ability to nuance and sort out info ...than those in the 60's.

Just saying.. And, I did appreciate your post for your experience. I'm not snarking at you...but, giving my honest opinion of having some experience with you of that time in US History...but, differing with comparing your experience to today with our dragnet scoop up of all of our personal info and Profiling us. Your experience of applying for a Military Job is very different from any of us these days applying for Civilian Jobs and having our potential employer have free access to everything we've ever posted online and our profile. The 60's were a very different time because we weren't available to the Internet Dragnet by our Government. The info they could get on us was primitive compared to today.

[Octafish]

52. NSA Domestic Spying is Unconstitutional and Fascist

Frank Church (D-Idaho) explained why, speaking of the awesome power to eavesdrop on every American the NSA possessed in 1976:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

"I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. Evidently targeted for removal by the conservative spy class, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later in the "Reagan Landslide." A brave man, the NSA was turned on him, a coincidence, certainly.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/277

[hughee99]

59. What's the big deal?

Only the NSA can access this information with a proper warrant... no wait, it's ONLY used for national defense... hold on, it's ONLY meta data... I'm getting closer, I think, it's all legal... I got it now, it's old new!

[woo me with science]

61. kick