Susan Sarandon: The government tapped my phone

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: CBS News

Actress Susan Sarandon says her phone has been tapped by the government, and that she was recently denied security clearance to visit the White House but does not know why.

The actress made the comments during a Q&A session with filmmaker Michael Moore on Sunday at a Tribeca Film Festival event in New York.

"I've gotten my [FBI] file twice," Sarandon said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I know my phone was tapped. If they're not surveilling you, then everyone else has cameras on phones." She added, "I was denied security clearance to go to the White House [next week], and I don't know why."

Moore, who's made films including "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Sicko" and "Capitalism: A Love Story," also chimed in: "I never think about it. It would unwind me. I assume everything I'm saying in an email or saying on the telephone is being looked at."

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57419139-10391698/susan-sarandon-the-government-tapped-my-phone/

[izquierdista]

1. What's the saying?

It's not paranoia if they really are watching you.

[ashling]

5. The fact that you are paranoid

does not mean that they are not out to get you.

[2Design]

26. Yes - The fact that you are paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get you.

[truedelphi]

2. We activists are going to look back on the days when only our phones were

Tapped as "the good ol' days."

Ms Sarandon, have you looked over the recent YouTubes of the flat cars going down the RR tracks, with hundreds of armored police vehicles, drones, and armored tanks?

Calif. citizens used their phones to record the video footage - as the trains went through Watsonville, Santa Cruz, and Morgan Hill.

Where are those death machines going? Whose civil rights will those machines impair?

[Mika]

4. Can you post some links please?

Thanks. I want to see these vids, but want to see the ones you're mentioning. Thanks.

[joshcryer]

13. Here's the video, it was viral for a time:

Another video with an explanation:

http://watsonville.patch.com/articles/viral-video-tanks-on-train-explained#youtube_video-8973599

[xiamiam]

18. first i saw this video, i live close very close to this and here is what i can tell u about moving

south..which is what the direction this train was moving..that train only runs to the north for a couple of reasons..to go to the cement plant north of santa cruz. The only other thing i can think of that is up there is lockheed martin somewhere in the mountains, i think. There are no other stops as far as I know between Watsonville and Davenport, north of Santa Cruz and I have never seen anything like this carried south. If the train made the juncture in watsonville from the south, it could only have been coming from ft ord as it wouldn't go around in a circle to get back to going south again which is what it did as it was also seen in morgan hill.
Ft. ord is a national park now and I think this kind of equipment was moved long ago..years. Dont even know if they had this particular kind of thing? What is the age of this type of vehicle? My guess is lockheed martin although color me shocked if my guess is correct. Robotics? Upgrade?

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/warrior/

Did a little more research..above link answers what its all about I think
I shoulda been a private eye


from the link:
snip
BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin competed for the WCSP contracts. Under a £642m ($1bn) contract awarded in October 2011, Lockheed Martin will lead the WCSP, which is expected to create 600 jobs.

Under the programme the vehicles will be upgraded with Warrior Modular Protection System (WMPS) and Warrior Enhanced Electronic Architecture (WEEA). Within this programme 449 vehicles will be fitted with a new turret and weapon system under the Warrior Fightability Lethality Improvement Programme (WFLIP).

[midnight]

25. Yikes...

[happyslug]

37. Gas hogs, Maintence headaches

Tanks and MICV are both gas hogs and maintenance headaches. When I was in the National Guard in the 1980s my unit had M113s, the rule then was for every two hours running, you had an hour of maintenance. We had to make sure the Air Filter, Diesel Filter etc were clean. We had to grease the tracks on an almost daily basis, and we only used them two weeks a year (the regular maintenance on the M113 were done by permanent party people on the days we were NOT on drill).

Tanks were worse, two hour of maintenance for every hour in use. I suspect the MICV M2 above is about one and one.

For example the M1 tanks gets .5 mpg. i.e. It takes 500 gallons to go 265 miles, or 1.9 gallons per mile. The cost of the M1 was 4.3 million each. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams.

The M113 goes 300 miles for it 95 gallons of diesel or about 3.15 miles per gallon.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m113.htm

The M2 Bradley (which were on the train) cost $3.11 million dollars a piece and have a range of 300 miles using 175 gallons of diesel for a 1.7 miles to the gallon.

http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/inf/M2.html

Please note, none of the above figures are EPA miles, but the "best case" for each. In actual combat expect less then half those numbers.

Tracks last only about 2000 miles until they have to be replaced, this assuming the Tanks are using the "Rubber" interconnected tracks the US have used since WWII. The Soviet comments on those tracks that they did NOT give enough traction in mud, preferring older steel to steel tracks which had to be replaced every 500 miles. This is from a Russian WWII report on the Sherman that also spoke highly of the 76 mm gun the later Sherman tanks came with, thus it was NOT a propaganda report but a report based on the Sherman tank as used on the Eastern Front during WWII. I can NOT find that report at the present time, but it was interesting to read.

For more on weapon see Federation of American Scientist Web site:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m2.htm

Please also note that unlike people traveling to and from work, Tanks can NOT go to the local gas station to fill up. If they are any gas stations when a tank shows up, it is either destroyed or otherwise made unusable. Thus when tanks are used, each tank has to be followed by a tanker full of fuel to re-fill it when needed. These tend to be tractor Trailers who fuel economy carrying the fuel that they do, it about the same as the M113 at best.

If you treat Tanks like the Rain, something you have to endure while it is raining, or in the case of tanks moving around the area, when the rain or tanks move elsewhere you can assume your military mission. This is what the Viet Cong did in the 1960s and 1970s, it is what the Taliban is doing today to the US forces in Afghanistan. Tanks are great weapons to take a place, but it is a lousily weapon to hold onto the same place. When tanks move elsewhere, attack their supply lines and sooner or later you will win.

My point is the M2 on the train mean nothing, if you understand their limitations. In Iraq, the Iraqis understood their limitations and the US ended up withdrawing and leaving the Shiitte (Closely allied with Iran) and the Sunni (Closely allied with Al Queda) in charge. The only area the US had a ally to survive the withdraw, was the Kurds, and the Kurds were Under US Protection BEFORE the US invaded Iraq to topple Saddam. In short what did the US win by attacking Iraq? Saddam no longer being in charge is NOT that big a deal, given who did win things, Al Queda among the Sunnis and Iran among the Shiites.

Tanks can take areas, they can NOT hold them. If you remember that fact, the M2 on the train would cause you no concern as to liberty.

[shanti]

39. this happened last year too

coming thru sacramento, but it was pretty much disregarded. everyone said it was just equipment being relocated from the middle east.

oh, and they were going south.

[TheWraith]

6. Oh please.

Your comment reminds me of the kerfluffle in 2004 or so over amateur video of a recently built government prison camp for dissenters, complete with railroad access for offloading people by the thousands--except that it turned out to be an Amtrak train repair depot in Indiana that's been there for decades.

Throttle back on the conspiracy theories.

[global1]

14. Could These Be Items Being Returned From Iraq To Be Put Back Into National Guard Armories?......nt

[xiamiam]

22. on a strange route if they are..see above post

[LanternWaste]

31. I would imagine "strange" routes are the norm when transporting

I would imagine "strange" routes are the norm when transporting military equipment-- rather than placing them in an open-manifest, open-schedule route...

[xiamiam]

32. nah..not this particular route..my guess is that it came from lockheed martin

as that train only travels from watsonville..to davenport..northward, along the coast..once a day..no stops in between..the only thing up there is the cement plant and lockheed martin, although i never before thought that lockheed martin was using that train to move equipment. As I said, check out the above thread. Moving southward along the coast thru Watsonville would make no sense otherwise.

[truedelphi]

35. Thanks for your very brief but very

"Common Sense" response.

[apnu]

3. Moore is right. Always presume you are being monitored today. Because you are.

Every smart phone is a camera that can and does record whatever the user wants. Look at half the crap on youtube.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. NSA Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance

watch video read transcripts at Democracy Now, from 4-20

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william

bad bad

[Octafish]

20. + 10 Teraflops worth of NSA social networking.

Outstanding interview of a brave whistleblower, that.

[pnwest]

8. "In a world where everyone is out to get you...

paranoia is just good planning." - Johhny Fever, WKRP in Cincinnati.

[EFerrari]

15. That's perfect.

[Ian David]

9. My guess is that the FBI aren't huge Rocky Horror fans? n/t

[groundloop]

11. DAMNIT JANET !!!!!

[Robb]

10. Which White House?

Sarandon has an excellent history of direct action that spans a few administrations.

[maddezmom]

12. on the security clearance looks like this one

"I've gotten my [FBI] file twice," Sarandon said. "I know my phone was tapped. If they're not surveilling you, then everyone else has cameras on phones." She added, "I was denied security clearance to go to the White House [next week], and I don't know why."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/michael-moore-fox-news-mitt-romney-phone-hacking-tribeca-film-festival-sarandon.html

[newspeak]

27. Ms Saradon was very vocal against little boot's administration

especially before the bogus war with iraq. She compared little boot's MO with hitler's for starting a war based on lies and fear.

[frazzled]

16. Hugo isn't appropriate for children?

All I could think of when I saw it was how my kids would have loved it when they were 8, 9, 10 or 11: both the mechanical theme and the mystery would have been right up their alleys. My sister recently took her eight-year old granddaughter (who is Japanese no less), and she was totally engrossed and enchanted. It's a perfect children's film: a children's film that engages adults just as much. (Sorry, Michael Moore, but you don't know kids.)

As for the phone tapping and such, this article is so poorly written it's hard to know what was being said.

[MannyGoldstein]

17. Isn't she some kind of lefty agitator?

Those types bring these problems on themselves.

Yes, life's pretty cheap to that type.

[unc70]

29. Didn't I see a castle back there?

It's just a jump to the left,
Then a step to the right.

[gratuitous]

19. Yupper smucker

The government loves spying on citizens, and it's only the ones worth watching who ever object to it. After all, if you've done nothing wrong, that's just because someone hasn't applied a little ingenuity to your case. Although I'd do it for different reasons than Tim Thomas of the Bruins did, I'd be very suspicious of any invitation to go to the White House, no matter who was sitting in the Oval Office, and would probably decline the honor. Likewise, if my picture ever made it into the local newspaper's society page, I'd consider my life a failure.

[mojowork_n]

21. Highlighted on Democracy Now

James Bamford's book, "The Shadow Factory"

http://www.amazon.com/The-Shadow-Factory-Ultra-Secret-Eavesdropping/dp/0385521324

the Amazon bio:

JAMES BAMFORD is the author of Body of Secrets, The Puzzle Palace, and A Pretext for War, and has written on national security for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. His 2005 Rolling Stone article “The Man Who Sold the War” won a National Magazine Award for reporting. Formerly the Washington investigative producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and a distinguished visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Bamford lives in Washington, D.C.

[Duppers]

23. btdt

My hubs had a high security clearance and it was all too obvious that our mail was tampered with and our phone calls monitored for yrs. But we took MM's approach: the hell with them.

Edited for spelling.

[saras]

24. Bamford's books are BRILLIANT. What to do? Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, p 97

"What's this?"
"It's a letter from my father."
"Well, what is it?"
There's lined paper, and there's these lines going out with dots - four dots under, one dot above, two dots under, one dot above, dot under dot...
"What's that?"
I said, "It's a code."
They said, "Yeah, it's a code, but what does it say?"
I said "I don't know what it says."
They said, "Well, what's the key to the code? How do you decipher it?"
I said, "Well, I don't know."
Then they said, "What's this?"
I said, "It's a letter from my wife - it says TJXYWZ TW1X3"
"What's that?"
I said, "Another code."
"What's the key to it?"
"I don't know."
"You're receiving codes, and you don't know the key?"
I said, "Precisely. I have a game. I challenge them to send me a code that I can't decipher, see? So they're making up codes at the other end, and they're sending them in, and they're not going to tell me what the key is."

After a while, Feynman gets tired of the censors and ups the ante a bit.

The thing we had ready for the next one was that the next letter would start, "I hope you remembered to open this letter carefully because I have included the Pepto-Bismol powder for your stomach as we arranged." It would be a letter full of powder. In the office we expected they would open it quickly, the powder would go all over the floor, and then would get all upset because you are not supposed to upset anything. They'd have to gather up all this Pepto-Bismol...But we didn't have to use that one.

[GliderGuider]

28. This would be an interesting mindfuck:

Two activists who are under surveillance periodically send letters to each other that consist of random character strings that look like code but have no underlying message. They're nothing but random characters.

Give the asswipes something to do with their spare time and computation cycles.

[saras]

38. With some email programs, you can get a sig line externally...

...a friend of mine has a huge list in a textfile.

Simply encrypt them all. A random encrypted message with every email.

Oh, your email IS encrypted, isn't it? And you use "HTTPS everywhere"?

I'm starting to make album covers for some thirty albums or so, and will be sure to include steganographic data in the pictures.

And on an entirely different subject: Get some software to make those little square binary codes that cell phones read, and some sticky labels for your printer. Leave coded messages anywhere. Fancier tricks: Put a message together that takes more than one sticker to understand it, and use different routes to distribute the stickers. Route the wrong people somewhere else instead of creating a disturbance by denying them access.

[queerart]

30. (Wired Magazine) Telephone Company Is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit

(article) http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/att-doj-foia/

[randome]

33. She says she 'knows' her phone was tapped.

But offers no information to bolster that claim and then conflates it with 'everyone' using camera phones on her.

She may be doing some good as an activist but she's also a little paranoid.

[Wind Dancer]

34. ..or

.. she knows a little bit of history.

[unionworks]

36. Spookspeak lesson

Definition of Paranoia : an excess of optimism