So Poppy Bush was spying on Americans long before 9/11

[malaise]

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/04/08/405230/US-spied-on-billions-of-calls-for-decades
<snip>
The US government began keeping secret records of Americans' international telephone calls nearly a decade before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a precursor for a similar National Security Agency (NSA) spy program, a new report has revealed.

The US Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recorded virtually all overseas telephone calls made from the United States for more than two decades, according to an investigative report by USA Today.

The DEA, a federal law enforcement agency under the Justice Department, massed logs of nearly all telephone calls from the USA to as many as 116 countries linked to drug trafficking, the report said, citing current and former officials involved with the operation.

More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials described the details of the Justice Department operation, most of them speaking on condition of anonymity. The extent of that surveillance has alarmed privacy advocates, who question its legality.

The DEA data collection began in 1992 during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, nine years before his son, President George W. Bush, authorized the NSA in 2001 to gather its own program of recording Americans' phone calls.

-----------------------
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

[merrily]

1. But bubba stopped it after he took office?

Yet another instance in which the red team, blue team narrative just doesn't match the facts.

[billhicks76]

3. Clinton Worked For Bush Sr

And the cover-ups he participated in earned him being named an honorary Bush family member. Quite revolting indeed.

[Gman]

6. There was no blue red narrative on this topic

[billhicks76]

2. Treason Runs In That Family

[malaise]

5. +1,000 n/t

[Dont call me Shirley]

4. Spying and much much more...

“If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts.”

-George H.W. Bush

- See more at: http://wikiprotest.com/blog/if-the-american-people-knew-what-we-have-done-they-would-string-us-up-from-the-lamp-posts-george-hw-bush/#sthash.Y2ZcKKdV.dpuf

[tblue]

7. He did Iran-Contra & was CIA Director

So I'm not surprised. He's smarter than his sons, but he is just as dishonest.

[malaise]

8. Don't for get the bombing of the Cubana flight

almost 49 years ago.

[hootinholler]

15. Or bay of pigs

He provided a platform, Zapata Oil, which was a CIA front.

[leveymg]

16. GHW Bush & Prince Turki's Safari Club deal created BCCI, AQ Khan, al Qaeda, Pak nukes.

They have a lot to answer for, but probably never will. See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/06/17/537313/-AQ-Khan-Iran-Does-Bush-Really-Want-to-Open-Up-this-Can-of-Worms# and http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/280

[Major Hogwash]

34. Devious, conniving, evil, sinister.

But, smart is not one of the words I would use to describe George H W Bush.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Poppy Bush is also the only ex-prez that gets up to date intelligence reports....

I wonder how much of that is to monitor folks like us.

Hi George!

[malaise]

10. I've often wondered if he's still in charge n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. He probably thinks he is.

[leveymg]

17. He brought together an int'l coalition of RW spooks that is long-lasting. Google: Bush Safari Club

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/280

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. Not to mention the Saudis.....

No doubt he keeps them informed.

[leveymg]

24. GHW Bush's main partner in the Safari Club was Prince Turki, head of Saudi GID Intelligence.

The main point of the Safari Club was to offshore to Saudi Arabia those CIA operations that wouldn't be officially funded by the USG.

[blm]

30. He and his cronies have always been in charge since the 70s.

Not Carter, not Reagan had the full control wielded by Poppy Bush.

[BrotherIvan]

12. He's pretty high on my DIE ALREADY! list

Do the world a favor, Poppy, and put your moldy bones and rotten heart in the ground.

[SidDithers]

13. PressTV? C'mon malaise...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022023210

They deserve no traffic directed their way from a progressive messageboard.

Sid

[malaise]

18. FFS - Google is your friend - it's everywhere

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/07/dea-bulk-telephone-surveillance-operation/70808616/

[SidDithers]

20. FFS - then why are you linking to PressTV?

If the story appears in reputable sources, why are you asking DUers to go to a site that thinks the Jews were behind Sandy Hook school shooting?

Sid

[malaise]

21. Who put you in charge? n/t

[leveymg]

25. Seconded.

[SidDithers]

29. Fine...

You don't care about sending DUers to the anti-Semites at PressTV.

Got it.

Sid

[Major Hogwash]

33. This article was on the front page of the Idaho Statesman yesterday.

I hope you know that is a reputable source.

[djean111]

14. Well, isn't that okay, because what Snowden revealed is just not all that important?

Or does outrage, or at least a sense that something is wrong, depend on who happens to be president at the time.
I think that who happens to be president is irrelevant to the CIA and NSA, and was honestly mystified at the charge that Snowden only did what he did in order to make Obama look bad. I think Obama is irrelevant to what the NSA and CIA do.
I think Poppy is one scary dude who was never really "out of office".

[itcfish]

23. Snowden was a Republican Operative

IMO who was trying to damage Obama. Case closed.

[djean111]

26. Case closed for you. Not me.

[leveymg]

27. Circumstantially, more likely an operative of the current Admin. All the docs released are pre-09.

If the purpose of Snowden was to make Obama look bad or to damage US intelligence operations, the docs leaked would have provided details of current operations.

Also, the principal leaker is still walking among the living.

Facts point more to a NOC leak.

[itcfish]

22. What made Me Angry

This morning was the USA Today Headline. NSA Listening on calls before 9/11 and they had photos of Bush, Clinton, W and Obama. Obama was POST 9/11. Why did they post his photo?

[malaise]

28. Well

Because all of them continued it.

[SidDithers]

31. Iran's Press TV: Broadcasting Anti-Semitism To English-Speaking World

http://www.adl.org/anti-semitism/united-states/c/press-tv-iran.html

Read the full report here: Iran's Press TV: Broadcasting Anti-Semitism To English Speaking World (PDF).

Press TV, Iran's government-run English-language satellite news network, has emerged as the Iranian government's primary propaganda tool to promote a wide range of pernicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in English to a worldwide audience.

Operated by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), a significant amount of Press TV programing provides a platform for American anti-Semites, conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers, who help amplify the Iranian regime's hateful messages.

The station not only misleadingly presents these hatemongers as serious and credible "experts" or "analysts" on international economic and political issues, but also enables their bigoted perspectives to reach a significant new audience.

Launched in 2007 and based in Tehran, the station is broadcast in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and parts of Africa and Latin America via a number of satellite television providers.

In addition to promoting classic anti-Semitic myths of global Jewish domination, Press TV presents a pervasively negative perspective on Western society, emphasizing what it views as the West's imperialism, faltering economies, lack of justice, political corruption and racial and class divisions.

Sid

[freshwest]

32. The spying has been going on since WW2. My worry:

A Tea Party president with the manical qualities and fanatical minions who will mine every bit of corporate data to go after political dissidents. There is no regulation on what corportions gather and share. None.

Many people are into the capitalism religion that says it's 'okay, they only want to sell you something, that's as far it goes.' What if one wants to speak against a corporation? What if one wants to speak against a politican the corporation own?

What if a Teabagger or pro-life nutter (and these things have already happened, so the what if is merely rhetorical) wants to arrest women who have had abortions? A lawmaker wanted to make that retroactive and try those women for murder. The Tea Partiers want that. Get a political party that wants to invade your medical records and think they won't use it?

Tea Partiers have followed and used brown shirt tactics to terrorize people who said things they didn't like at their homes. They have run them out of town. They have publicized private information that has gotten people killed.

I'm a hell of a lot less worried about the NSA than I am about these guys. People will stay home in 2016 and let them get in power and they WILL make use of all that data.

Some of the government is a necessary thing - we can argue what is and isn't. But we're not facing the raging elephant that wants to control our bodies and our lives and has drilled its followers into being ready to do anything to us.

JHMO>

[MineralMan]

35. It actually goes back farther than that.

International calls and communications, including mail, have been monitored since the 60s. Not every piece of mail or telephone call, but whatever ones seemed necessary to monitor, along with a lot of ones that almost certainly weren't necessary. We've forgotten such things, for the most part, and many people did not know about it at the time.

Monitoring international communications has been a charge of the NSA since it was created. The DEA monitoring may have come later, but the monitoring was going on.

[KG]

36. i was outraged about it till a dem was in the WH.