Sibel Edmonds: Illegal & Indiscriminate Spying Hurts Our National Security

[cascadiance]

Sibel Edmonds just put up an Op Ed today with her take on the new revelations of NSA spying and how those in charge are ignoring our bill of rights and the constitution.

An important point she makes is that not only is this just plain WRONG what they are doing, that the act of doing it is just that much more putting our security at risk by increasing the backlog of information for the FBI, etc. to go through, with the mound of information now not nearly as filtered as it should be if our agencies were properly just using "probable cause" as their criteria for deciding what information to track. Doing this widely scoped spying just hurts that much more any legitimate tracking of suspicious activities, as it increases the noise they need to go through to get to it now!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_sibel_ed_060125_illegal__26_indiscrimi.htm

January 25, 2006

Sibel Edmonds: Illegal & Indiscriminate Spying Hurts Our National Security, Here is Why
NSA & Illegal Spying

by Sibel Edmonds

http://www.opednews.com

According to numerous reports and audits released by entities such as Inspector General Offices of agencies that deal with national security and various presidential commissions, today, more than four years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, almost all our national security related agencies are in disarray, riddled with incompetence, corruption, and in some cases criminal activities. While most of the real problems facing our national security today stem from gross mismanagement, inefficiency, incompetence and a lack of sensible policies and vigorous oversight, the Bush Administration insists upon blaming these deficiencies on a regrettable and dangerous lack of power in the executive branch. But the kind of power the Administration pursues is the kind of power that would vault the presidency to monarchical status and nullify the Bill of Rights.

• According to the DOJ-IG Report on the FBI’s Foreign Language Program that was released in October 2004, “more than 89,000 hours of audio and 30,000 hours of audio in other Counterterrorism languages have not been reviewed. Additionally, over 370,000 hours of audio in languages associated with counterintelligence activities have not been reviewed.”

• According to a report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding WMD (Robb-Silberman Report), released in March 2005, in just the past 20 years the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NRO, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have all been penetrated by espionage. Secrets stolen include nuclear weapons data, U.S. cryptographic codes and procedures, identification of U.S. intelligence sources and methods (human and technical), and war plans. Indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate the damage that foreign intelligence penetrations have caused.

• According to the final report by the 9/11 Discourse Project released in December 2005, the commissioners gave the federal government mediocre and failing grades for its response to its 41 recommendations, and characterized some failures as "shocking." The commission cited huge remaining loopholes in aviation security, a politicized system of doling out billions of homeland security dollars, and a failure to give firefighters and other responders the radio spectrum they need to communicate during crises.

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[Vidar]

1. Many good points.