WOW! CONGRESS SHUT DOWN SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM IN 2003 (Jason Leopold)

[kpete]

Congress Shut Down Surveillance Program in 2003
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

................

This "suspicionless surveillance" program was developed by the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness department, led by Admiral John Poindexter, the former national security adviser who secretly sold weapons to Middle Eastern terrorists in 1980s during the Iran-Contra affair and was convicted of a felony for lying to Congress and destroying evidence. The convictions were later overturned on appeal.

The program was somewhat different from the warrantless wiretaps President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct in 2002, giving them permission to eavesdrop on phone calls and monitor emails of known al-Qaeda suspects and terrorist sympathizers inside the United States. "Suspicionless surveillance" - unveiled in a Pentagon press release, also in 2002 - was broader in scope: It gave law enforcement the authority to mine commercial and other private data on American citizens, listening in on phone calls, monitoring emails, inspecting credit-card and bank transactions of thousands of individuals on the off-chance that one might be a terrorist - and all without any judicial oversight.

While the programs were different in scope, the goals were essentially the same: to quickly unmask terrorists operating inside the United States. But protests by civil liberty and privacy groups, as well as apprehension by Republican and Democratic lawmakers over what amounted to domestic spying, led Congress to shut down the surveillance program in 2003.

It now appears that shortly after the federal government told the White House it was trampling on individual privacy rights with its "suspicionless surveillance," several current and former NSA officials said, President Bush signed an executive order authorizing the National Security Agency to secretly eavesdrop on American citizens' email and international phone calls, thereby continuing, in effect, a domestic spying program that Congress had objected to.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012606I.shtml

[JuniperLea]

1. THIS MADMAN MUST BE STOPPED!

Just when I think things couldn't get more scary. Someone please tell us how to fight back!


I look horrible in brown and I refuse to call you guys "Komrads"!

[papau]

2. WOW - nice job digging up the program shutdown in 2003 and the

Bush reopening of the same program.

The NSA eavesdropping on all data moving through a trunk line goes back to the 80's at least - but the problem was the data mining. I believe the 80'd solution was random monitoring looking for key words with human review of the speech 30 seconds before and 30 seconds after the key word or words, followed by wiretap request on those conversations deemed interesting.

After the data mining led to a "need" for a real wire tap, I do not believe NSA went through FISA for the wiretaps in the beginning of the wiretap. Once something interesting was picked up they backfilled and got a FISA warrant.

Today's massive computers means the random sampling can be a continuous survey - welcome to 1984.

[kentuck]

3. Nice job kpete, making that connection...

So, it's even more obvious. When they shut down the TIA, Bush said "screw 'em", we'll keep it going anyway.

[berni_mccoy]

4. Perfectly Legal eh? NOT!

That TOTALLY DESTROYs the argument that Bush was following the law. HE WAS EXPLICITLY TOLD IT WAS ILLEGAL IN 2003. OOPS.

I'd say this is the cork in the impeachment bottle, wouldn't you?

KPETE, you are ALWAYS ON TOP OF THIS! GOOD WORK!

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Lies and won't stop lying!

Unfreakingbelievable! Well not really.

[kpete]

8. Don't thank me

Thank Jason - two good stories today

If someone has the time to read the whole thing, let me know what you think. I was shaking while I was reading it. After hearing Bush talk about doing everything LEGALLY this morning at his press conference, I am just too eager to mine data proving he is a Lying Crook.

[stepnw1f]

5. Hey Bush Whores? Explain this Away!!

This time when we catch you lying, we kick your ass.

[katsy]

6. Poindexter?

The same poindexter that wanted to start trading death options on the market? Where you buy futures based on which world leader would die next (or something like that)? The one who wasted millions of taxpayer $ developing this death roulette?


On edit: maybe he figured that illegal wiretaps would give him some insider edge on trading death options.

:shrug:

[kpete]

10. Poindexter

Cringe, proof they are crooks!

[katsy]

12. The terms crooks doesn't even come close. n/t

[elehhhhna]

18. Acts of Terrorism Exchange n/t

[katty]

9. SS? Suspicious Surveillance-rather an oxymoron, when they

say...
we've stopped doing that at the 'so n' so' agency, it means they moved the operation to another agency/department

[kentuck]

11. Deserving of a K & R !

This all ties into the TIA program of Poindexter... the old Iran-Contra crook.

[Skidmore]

13. Is there not one Republican in a position of power who will stand

up and be counted. Do the right thing for the nation? What is wrong with these people?

[kpete]

14. We sure could use one

right about now...

[jimshoes]

15. That's kind of a catchy phrase

kinda like the "At long last, have you no sense of decency sir?" quote leveled at Joe McCarthy.

[donkeyotay]

16. Thanks for keeping us informed. It all seems so long ago

TIA and the Jet Blue issue. One thing we've learned is to parse the administration's English real good, so when they say, "known al-Qaeda suspects and terrorist sympathizers," we can assume that includes the DU (and the Democrats, according to Lord Cheney), so those little wiggle words mean, "We spy on anyone we feel like spying on."

[AuntiBush]

17. It's Disgusting

And how he looks into the camera and makes no apologies, saying what he's done to us is "ok," makes me ashamed to be an American.

Never ever thought I'd say and feel that way, but I do.

[elehhhhna]

19. COngress ays NO, Bush renames the goddamned thing & goes ahead?

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

[Just Me]

20. Sonsabitchin dictators!!!!

EW!!! :grr: This makes me so damn angry!!! :mad:

[fooj]

21. Vile rat bastards!

They don't care about what the American people want. They could give a rat's ass.