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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBUSHCO: “All rules were thrown out the window & they would use any excuse to spy on Americans"
They Know Much More Than You Think
AUGUST 15, 2013
James Bamford
....................
For a quarter of a century, the rules were followed and the NSA stayed out of trouble, but following the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration decided to illegally bypass the court and began its program of warrantless wiretapping. Basically all rules were thrown out the window and they would use any excuse to justify a waiver to spy on Americans, I was told by Adrienne J. Kinne, who in 2001 was a twenty-four-year-old voice intercept operator who conducted some of the eavesdropping. She or her superiors did not have to get a warrant for each interception. It was incredibly uncomfortable to be listening to private personal conversations of Americans, she said. And its almost like going through and stumbling and finding somebodys diary and reading it.
All during this time, however, the Bush administration was telling the American public the opposite: that a warrant was obtained whenever an American was targeted. Anytime you hear the United States government talking about a wiretap, it requiresa wiretap requires a court order, President George W. Bush told a crowd in 2004. Nothing has changed, by the way. When were talking about chasing down terrorists, were talking about getting a court order before we do so. After exposure of the operation by The New York Times in 2005, however, rather than strengthen the controls governing the NSAs spying, Congress instead voted to weaken them, largely by codifying into the amendment to FISA what had previously been illegal.
At the same time, rather than calling for prosecution of the telecom officials for their role in illegally cooperating in the eavesdropping program, or at least a clear public accounting, Congress simply granted them immunity not only from prosecution but also from civil suits. Thus, for nearly a century, telecom companies have been allowed to violate the privacy of millions of Americans with impunity.
With the arrival of the Obama administration, the NSAs powers continued to expand at the same time that administration officials and the NSA continued to deceive the American public on the extent of the spying. In addition to the denial I have mentioned by James Clapper, General Keith Alexander, the NSA director, also blatantly denied that his agency was keeping records on millions of Americans. In March 2012, Wired magazine published a cover story I wrote on the new one-million-square-foot NSA data center being built in Bluffdale, Utah. In the article, I interviewed William Binney, a former high-ranking NSA official who was largely responsible for automating the agencys worldwide eavesdropping network. He quit the agency in 2001 in protest after he saw the system designed mainly for intelligence about foreign threats turned inward on the American public. In the interview, he told how the agency was tapping into the countrys communications and Internet networks. He revealed that it also was secretly obtaining warrantless access to billions of phone records of Americans, including those of both AT&T and Verizon. Theyre storing everything they gather, he said.
the rest:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/nsa-they-know-much-more-you-think/
MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)It was because it intended to do the same thing.
MuseRider
(34,095 posts)at this point a case can be made that he ever intended not to.
Chaco Dundee
(334 posts)Handpicked by the opposition
grasswire
(50,130 posts)This means that the McCain-Palin ticket was set up as a distraction and doomed to fail. Some of us suspected that all along.
The elite intelligence community is in charge, more powerful than the President of the United States.
pscot
(21,024 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)when little Georgie was president, decided to let the Democrats embarrass themselves. So they orchestrated dipshit McCain and Palin as contenders for the Presidency. They must have had a good laugh over Palin. Let Obama win and obstruct his every move. Then the country would be ready again for a Republican president. That's my CT.
Chaco Dundee
(334 posts)I can not believe Mc.cain could have willingly putt that poor excuse of a human being on his ticket,unless he wanted something unrelated.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)TPTB can "make" anyone in politics do anything. Remember who holds the dossiers.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)McCain and Romney were never meant to be serious candidates. Choosing a woman VP exploited the vein of sexism that the Obama/Clinton primary had revealed. It was a perfectly calculated act, and Palin in turn spun a lot of 15 mins out of it.
I stayed out of the Primaries because I knew we were getting a DLCer either way. I did have a good laugh at the Palin pick though for that reason.
Palin was good for a laugh.the drivel out of her mouth though could make you want to cry sometimes.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
Rex
(65,616 posts)most people didn't even realize they hit the trifecta!
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
HardTimes99
(2,049 posts)was announced and Gore folded his hand and conceded rather than force a constitutional crisis).
9/11 and its aftermath was merely the first overt sign of the coup that had taken place on 12/12/2000.
The next sign came on March 20, 2003 (when the civilized world should have invaded and occupied\liberated us).
Everything since has been a tale "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)KG
(28,751 posts)i read that right here on DU so i knows it's true.
quinnox
(20,600 posts)is mind blowing. Hell, he has expanded and widened these programs!
kpete
(71,964 posts)once it has been gnawed on...
mho,
&
peace, kp
calimary
(81,125 posts)"Hard to return candy to the store once it has been gnawed on."
isn't it?
the constitution is like a piece of old gum stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe
peace, kp
Pholus
(4,062 posts)http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/14/obamas-wiretapping-flip-flop-yes/
Then came that abrupt flip-flop on the vote for FISA and that immunity.
One wonders what caused such an abrupt change in opinion.
indepat
(20,899 posts)Pholus
(4,062 posts)Until of course, we embraced it and made its progeny our own.
Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)would have taken action then, or once he was out of office charges would have been brought.
Oh, wait. They did take action! They made the illegal legal! as for the other...well, that would call for integrity.
Original NY Times article from 2005
Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
From 2008, in keeping with the timeline of events.
H.R. 6304, THE FISA AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2008
Vote on H.R. 6304 (110th): FISA Amendments Act of 2008
Breakdown For and Against House
Senate
additional links
House Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers
Fight over FISA Amendments Act Moves to the Senate, as the House Passes the Broad, Warrantless Spying Bill
indepat
(20,899 posts)Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)No. I did not type that with a straight face.
indepat
(20,899 posts)stamp out any vestige of widespread dissent of his chicaneries and illegalities is most telling.
mrdmk
(2,943 posts)and two thirds of the states. That has not happened in my lifetime. So if congress and the president fail, the courts are supposed to step in!
The only thing being stepped in this point is a shit storm and the public is at the bottom of it with no umbrella. We can thank the three branches of the government for this event...
Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)Generic Other
(28,979 posts)the technology that made it possible for the government to collect so much more information so effortlessly. That is also a factor. Not just our government abused it. Corporations have. It happened slowly at first than spiraled exponentially. We really lost our privacy due to the development of computer cookie technology. It's almost as if the government took it for granted that no one would care, that we'd already surrendered most of our privacy already. And everyone was so into the 9/11 PTSD. Security. Alert. Heightened awareness. Gradual steps led us to the position we find ourselves in today.
Of course, we want to put the genie back in the bottle. But that is too late. All our info is compromised already. They have it. The banks have it. The commies have it. Everyone has it. We are well documented everywhere. We can only hope they have to store that information on antiquated systems that will continually need upgrading and will eventually die. I had an external hard drive refuse to read on me lately. The files may be there, but they cannot be extracted. Our cyber world does depend on manufactured parts to function. Pull the plug. Wait until the drivers fail. The data may still be there, but no one will bother to try and retrieve it. The information isn't carved on stone tablets. The machines will rust. The buildings will leak.
No reason to think Detroit is an anomaly.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)"...so how can we blame it on Obama?"
How long before the Obama haters start pinning 9/11 on him too?
Caretha
(2,737 posts)You didn't really type that..........DID YOU???
No offense, but that was stupid.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)Bush has been out of office for 5 1/2 years. If the shit Bush did has been allowed to continue, and in fact has been increased, who do you think we SHOULD blame it on?
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)First, Bush should be charged, then we should all take a real hard look at what has been allowed to continue. I'm really not sure what the best thing is to do with people who keep a crime going. I don't like the idea of applying the same rage at them, but I don't like letting them off the hook either. Best way is to try to prevent abuses in the future by making sure those who started it go to prison for at least as long as the pot smokers.
According to you guys, the President doesn't own ANYTHING he did unless it gets good press.
*Pssst* He's done a lot since he got the nomination. Just sayin'.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)about Obama's use of surveillance, it is something we need to take care of now. The executive branch has been blooming out of control for far too many years, and must be reined in.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)Seems Obama fell quite comfortably into the role of authoritarian.
sigmasix
(794 posts)Because they were sure the fix was in and that the GOP would capture the whitehouse. Congressional republicans continue to dodge their responsibilities as members of congress to evaluate and check the power of the executive branch. This is because of extreme partisan pressure from the Teabagger contingent that expresses hope that Americans are too stupid to know the overwhelming evidence points to right wing agents that created this monster, not progressives. Teabaggers want this fact forgotten. And ODS helps to fuel the ridiculous accusations of treason and tyranny on the part of President Obama. Lot's of GOP operatives have been working in the media on recovering the teabagger name by referring to them as the "new breed of small government conservatives", but they remain Teabaggers with a deep hatred for American liberties and values, no matter how much love Glenn Greenwald wants to show for them.
Why do Teabaggers and Greenwald hate America?
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Because too many of our party are totally ok with Unitary Executive.
Nobody made him do any of this. In fact, he promised to roll it back. He didn't need Republican approval to do that.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)The selectors are inserted by remote control into the Narus equipment by NSA analysts sitting at their desks at the agencys headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland or at dozens of locations around the world. What Snowden seemed to be saying in his interview is that as long as certain analysts have an e-mail address, for example, they can simply enter that information into the system and retrieve the content of the e-mails sent from and to that address. There are, by his account, no judicial checks and balances to assure that the targeting of an American has been approved by a FISA court order and not just by NSA employees. These claims by Snowden, and other revelations from the documents he released, should be investigated by either a select committee of Congress, such as the Church Committee, or an independent body, like the 9/11 Commission.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)Response to kpete (Original post)
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felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)because this claim of our personal information is a breach of trust and a breach of personal space. Surveillance is being done to INTIMIDATE the public--that is ALL. Authoritarian states historically have used spies in every neighborhood as a method of social control and THIS IS NO DIFFERENT.
There are people who would completely cooperate with spying on their neighbors, they are ok with the surveillance state, and I find this EQUALLY disturbing as the state changing the laws!!!!!