WHAT IS THE NSA UP TO?.... TPM -Washington Monthly

[dutchdemocrat]

WHAT IS THE NSA UP TO?....

From

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007812.php

So what's the nature of the secret NSA bugging program? Why did the Bush administration feel like they couldn't continue to seek warrants via the usual FISA procedures? Take a look at the following quotes and you can see a single thread that starts to emerge:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, telling reporters why Bush didn't simply ask Congress to pass a law making the program clearly legal: We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be — that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program.

President Bush, answering questions at Monday's press conference: We use FISA still....But FISA is for long-term monitoring....There is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to know the distinction between the two....We used the process to monitor. But also....we've got to be able to detect and prevent.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, in a letter to Dick Cheney after being briefed on the program in 2003: As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveiliance.

New York Times editor Bill Keller, explaining why the Times finally published its story last week after holding it back for over a year: In the course of subsequent reporting we satisfied ourselves that we could write about this program — withholding a number of technical details — in a way that would not expose any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record.

None of these quotes makes sense if the NSA program involved nothing more than an expansion of ordinary taps of specific individuals. After all, the FISA court would have approved taps of domestic-to-international calls as quickly and easily as they do with normal domestic wiretaps. What's more, Congress wouldn't have had any objection to supporting a routine program expansion; George Bush wouldn't have explained it with gobbledegook about the difference between monitoring and detecting; Jay Rockefeller wouldn't have been reminded of TIA; and the Times wouldn't have had any issues over divulging sensitive technology.

It seems clear that there's something involved here that goes far beyond ordinary wiretaps, regardless of the technology used. Perhaps some kind of massive data mining, which makes it impossible to get individual warrants? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Lots of people have suggested that the NSA program has something to do with Echelon, a massive project that vacuums up communications of all kinds from all over the globe. The problem is that Echelon has been around for a long time and no one has ever complained about it before — so whatever this new program is, it's something more than vanilla Echelon. What's more, it's something disturbing enough that a few weeks after 9/11 the administration apparently felt that even Republicans in Congress wouldn't approve of it. What kind of program is so intrusive that even Republicans, even with 9/11 still freshly in mind, wouldn't have supported it?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007812.php

[swag]

1. Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness" office, gone underground

has been suggested elsewhere.

[swag]

3. To wit:

or

or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_information_awareness

Excerpt:

The IAO has the stated mission to gather as much information as possible about everyone, in a centralized location, for easy perusal by the United States government, including (though not limited to) Internet activity, credit card purchase histories, airline ticket purchases, car rentals, medical records, educational transcripts, driver's licenses, utility bills, tax returns, and any other available data. In essence, the IAO’s goal is to develop the capacity to recreate a life history of thoughts and movements for any individual on the planet on demand, which some deem necessary to counter the threat of terrorism. Critics claim the very existence of the IAO completely disregards the concept of individual privacy and liberties. They see the organization as far too invasive and prone to abuse.

The first mention of the IAO in the media came from New York Times reporter John Markoff on February 13, 2002, with few details available as to the agency's role or activities. In the following months, as more and more information emerged about the IAO's full scope, protests among civil libertarians grew over what they see as the IAO's disturbingly Orwellian mission, especially within the larger framework of other invasive homeland security measures and policies implemented by the Bush administration. The integrity of Poindexter as head of the IAO also came under scrutiny, given his conviction on five felony charges for lying to Congress and deliberately altering and destroying documents pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair, although those convictions were later overturned.

On January 16, 2003, US Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation to halt the activity of the IAO and the Total Information Awareness initiative pending a Congressional review of privacy issues involved. A similar measure introduced by Senator Ron Wyden would bar the IAO from operating within the United States unless specifically authorized to do so by Congress, and would shut the IAO down entirely 60 days after passage, unless either the Pentagon prepared a report assessing the impact of IAO activities on individual privacy and civil liberties, or the President certified the program's research as vital to national security interests.

Congress passed legislation in February of 2003 halting activities of the IAO pending a Congressional report of the office's activities. Action in the US Congress to attempt to halt a specific internal Department of Defense project occurs extremely rarely, underscoring the grave threat to civil liberties and privacy that many lawmakers perceive in the Information Awareness Office.

DARPA changed the name of the "Total Information Awareness" program to "Terrorist Information Awareness" on May 20, 2003, emphasizing in its report to Congress that the program is not designed to compile dossiers on US citizens, but rather to gather information on terrorist networks. Despite this name change and reassurance, the description of the program's activities remained essentially the same in the report, and critics continue to see the system as prone to massive Orwellian abuses.

[Pachamama]

13. Hmm...where has ole Poindexter been keeping himself busy the last 3 years?

:eyes:

[billybob537]

2. In my humble opinion

What they are doing is Phishing. They are monitoring an emense amount of Phone and e-mail with no evidence of any connection to Al-Quieda, with the hopes of picking up something of value. No court in the country would authorize this abuse of law ever PERIOD.

[mattclearing]

7. I always assumed they were doing this anyway. n/t

[Peter Frank]

4. Well done... Recommended

Cheney triad to whitewash this program last night on Nightline (saying that only contacts between American residents & known foreign terrorists were "monitored") -- but he never explained why this could not have been done through normal channels and the FISA court.

There's far more here than meets the eye.

[enough]

5. Kick

[EVDebs]

6. TIA was offshored to the Bahamas, and 'privatized'

Total Information Awareness offshored to the Bahamas via Ben Bell III's company
http://www.zmetro.com/archives/000901.php

""It began as one of the Bush administration's most ambitious homeland security efforts, a passenger screening program designed to use commercial records, terrorist watch lists and computer software to assess millions of travelers and target those who might pose a threat. The system has cost almost $100 million. But it has not been turned on because it sparked protests from lawmakers and civil liberties advocates, who said it intruded too deeply into the lives of ordinary Americans. The Bush administration put off testing until after the election.

Now the choreographer of that program, a former intelligence official named Ben H. Bell III, is taking his ideas to a private company offshore, where he and his colleagues plan to use some of the same concepts, technology and contractors to assess people for risk, outside the reach of U.S. regulators, according to documents and interviews.

Bell's new employer, the Bahamas-based Global Information Group Ltd., intends to amass large databases of international records and analyze them in the coming years for corporations, government agencies and other information services. One of the first customers is information giant LexisNexis Group, one of the main contractors on the government system that was known until recently as the second generation of the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening Program, or CAPPS II. The program is now known as Secure Flight.""

So, along with the ChoicePoint's of the world, the information is vacuumed up and sieved through this offshore company where our NSA boys can either remotely access or go visit on company working-vacations. Your tax dollars at work. They can even lose your information, after all it isn't really YOUR information anyways the corporations all OWN YOU now. Get with the program, we're all slaves to the new paradigm.

If you want to crack down on liberals just make sure they can't fly, can't use their credit cards--which are maxxed out due to the negative savings rate, outsource their jobs to India and China, and just to add insult to injury, hire only conservatives to populate the "new" NSA, FBI, CIA, etc. etc.
(see Kingdom Come, p. 52 Aug 4, 1997 Time Magazine, Mormon hiring recruitment program at CIA, FBI).

Makes you wonder when the liberal hiring program will ever begin...

[dutchdemocrat]

8. Nice link

Very nice...

[EVDebs]

9. If it walks like TIA, talks like TIA, and quacks like TIA....

Then how did Congress 'approve' of this ? Makes you wonder, huh ?

[ThomWV]

10. Think About What He's Already Told Us.

Bush tells us:

"There is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to know the distinction between the two....We used the process to monitor. But also....we've got to be able to detect and prevent."

So first - we monitor.

What does that mean? Well, it means something other than "detecting so we can prevent". What could it mean other than that? The thing that comes to mind, if it is not us detecting what the line is doing then it might be that the line tells us what it is doing. A monitoring device (software?) is attached to any communication devices means of communication (be it an electromagnetic wave in the air, a light beam in a cable, whatever) and sits there doing whatever it does. But with the occurence of any specific event, say the mention of the word "airplane" it cranks into gear and calls home with your conversation attached as now one of the many which might have been suspect.

Doesn't matter that you might have been talking about a ticket to go see Grandmaw before she passes away.

That's my take on what he said anyway.

[seabeyond]

11. it is that huge ass plane flying low adn slow with sound stuff on it

that flies over my town at noon and afternoon almost every day, that i say fuck you bush too,...... and you are an idiot bush when my kids are around and i am talking to a huge ass low flying airplane

bah hahahah

[donkeyotay]

12. Data mining. So many possiblities

Here's an interesting datamining activity:]

February 19, 2004
ACLU seeks answers from Ohio Attorney General about MATRIX data-mining

Cleveland – The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio wants answers from the Ohio Attorney General about Ohio’s participation in the controversial “MATRIX” database surveillance system. The Multi-state Anti-terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX) was created shortly after Congress killed the Pentagon’s “Total Information Awareness” data mining program over privacy concerns.

http://www.acluohio.org/press_releases/2004_press_releases/2004.02.19.htm
- - -

And here's another. The whole article is pretty scary:

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600857.html