PBS - Frontline - Spying On the Home Front - 9 PM est

[Breeze54]

Watch the full program online!!

Spying On the Home Front

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/

May 15th, 2008

Introduction:

"So many people in America think this does not affect them. They've been convinced that these programs are only targeted at suspected terrorists. … I think that's wrong. … Our programs are not perfect, and it is inevitable that totally innocent Americans are going to be affected by these programs," former CIA Assistant General Counsel Suzanne Spaulding tells FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith in Spying on the Home Front.

9/11 has indelibly altered America in ways that people are now starting to earnestly question: not only perpetual orange alerts, barricades and body frisks at the airport, but greater government scrutiny of people's records and electronic surveillance of their communications. The watershed, officials tell FRONTLINE, was the government's shift after 9/11 to a strategy of pre-emption at home -- not just prosecuting terrorists for breaking the law, but trying to find and stop them before they strike.

President Bush described his anti-terrorist measures as narrow and targeted, but a FRONTLINE investigation has found that the National Security Agency (NSA) has engaged in wiretapping and sifting Internet communications of millions of Americans; the FBI conducted a data sweep on 250,000 Las Vegas vacationers, and along with more than 50 other agencies, they are mining commercial-sector data banks to an unprecedented degree.

Even government officials with experience since 9/11 are nagged by anxiety about the jeopardy that a war without end against unseen terrorists poses to our way of life, our personal freedoms. "I always said, when I was in my position running counterterrorism operations for the FBI, 'How much security do you want, and how many rights do you want to give up?'" Larry Mefford, former assistant FBI director, tells Smith. "I can give you more security, but I've got to take away some rights. … Personally, I want to live in a country where you have a common-sense, fair balance, because I'm worried about people that are untrained, unsupervised, doing things with good intentions but, at the end of the day, harm our liberties."

Although the president told the nation that his NSA eavesdropping program was limited to known Al Qaeda agents or supporters abroad making calls into the U.S., comments of other administration officials and intelligence veterans indicate that the NSA cast its net far more widely. AT&T technician Mark Klein inadvertently discovered that the whole flow of Internet traffic in several AT&T operations centers was being regularly diverted to the NSA, a charge indirectly substantiated by John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer who wrote the official legal memos legitimizing the president's warrantless wiretapping program. Yoo told FRONTLINE: "The government needs to have access to international communications so that it can try to find communications that are coming into the country where Al Qaeda's trying to send messages to cell members in the country. In order to do that, it does have to have access to communication networks."

Spying on the Home Front also looks at a massive FBI data sweep in December 2003. On a tip that Al Qaeda "might have an interest in Las Vegas" around New Year's 2004, the FBI demanded records from all hotels, airlines, rental car agencies, casinos and other businesses on every person who visited Las Vegas in the run-up to the holiday. Stephen Sprouse and Kristin Douglas of Kansas City, Mo., object to being caught in the FBI dragnet in Las Vegas just because they happened to get married there at the wrong moment. Says Douglas, "I'm sure that the government does a lot of things that I don't know about, and I've always been OK with that -- until I found out that I was included."

more.........

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/etc/producer.html">From the producer of 'Spying On the Home Front'- "What Happens in Vegas...." By Rick Young

[babylonsister]

1. 9pmCT in Houston. Taping it! thanks! nt

[Spazito]

2. Very timely given Comey's testimony today!

Thanks for the heads-up!

[Breeze54]

3. Comey's testimony?? I missed it!! argh!

Where and when?? :shrug:

[Breeze54]

4. Got it!! "Comey details wiretapping meeting"

May 15, 2007, 3:12 pm

‘04 Wiretapping Talks at Hospital

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/comey-details-wiretapping-meeting/

By Mike Nizza

Comey Details Attempt to Approve Program

An extraordinary meeting in March 2004 in the hospital room of Attorney General John D. Ashcroft
has been reported before. Today, Mr. Ashcroft’s deputy, James B. Comey, recounted the meeting for
the first time.

Two of President Bush’s most senior aides — Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Counsel Alberto R.
Gonzales — sought the meeting to seek reauthorization of an important program, Mr. Comey said.
Although Mr. Comey would not acknowledge it today, it was clear he was referring to the National
Security Agency’s eavesdropping program.

The gripping testimony was delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has been one of the
least friendly places for Mr. Gonzales as he faces accusations that he mishandled the firings of
8 United States attorneys.

more........

[Spazito]

5. Here's the transcript of his testimony, it is a MUST-read, imo!

http://thinkprogress.org/comey-testimony

I hope there will also be video of it, if so it is a must-watch for sure!

[Breeze54]

6. Thank You!!

:yourock:

[Breeze54]

7. Walla!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxHjWYA50Ds

;)

[Spazito]

8. Awesome! Thanks for the link, will definitely save that one

for future reference, I have NO doubt it will come in handy in the near future!