Spy chief: Anti-terrorist programs more extensive than acknowledged

[rodeodance]

Source: cnn



Spy chief: Anti-terrorist programs more extensive than acknowledged


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration's anti-terrorist surveillance efforts are more extensive than top officials have acknowledged, going beyond the controversial no-warrant eavesdropping program, the U.S. intelligence chief said Tuesday.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is being asked to provide records about a data-mining program.

President Bush acknowledged a program allowing the government to wiretap phone calls without obtaining a warrant in 2005. The program, run by the National Security Agency, is at the center of disputed congressional testimony by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales is defending himself against allegations that he lied to Congress about a 2004 dispute between the White House and Justice Department over the legality of the eavesdropping program.

In a letter defending the embattled attorney general, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell states that eavesdropping is just one of the programs President Bush authorized after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/31/congress.gonzales/index.html?section=cnn_topstories&eref=yahoo

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Tony snow said today in his presser that the WH would not be replaying-that Gonzo would do so. Yet, the WH replyed and Gonzo is missing (not replyed yet).

[razors edge]

1. Can you hear me now?

I thought so.

[notadmblnd]

2. did you see this thread earlier? CLUES? - Bushco Already Caught?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1479959

[sabra]

3. NSA Spying Part of Broader Effort

Source: WP

The Bush administration's chief intelligence official said yesterday that President Bush authorized a series of secret surveillance activities under a single executive order in late 2001. The disclosure makes clear that a controversial National Security Agency program was part of a much broader operation than the president previously described.

The disclosure by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, appears to be the first time that the administration has publicly acknowledged that Bush's order included undisclosed activities beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005.

In a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), McConnell wrote that the executive order following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks included "a number of . . . intelligence activities" and that a name routinely used by the administration -- the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- applied only to "one particular aspect of these activities, and nothing more."

"This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly, because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged," McConnell said.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/31/AR2007073102137.html

[underpants]

4. They were spying on the Dems, the DNC, and Dem campaigns

Yes they were probably spying on everyday citizens too but they were mostly trying to find out what the "other side" was doing.

[MilesColtrane]

5. Total Information Awareness Lives

All of your phone calls, all of your internet activity, all of your medical records, all of your purchases, every magazine you subscribe to, club you belong to..it's in a database and it's being analyzed as to your potential threat.

Face it, unless you're a Republican party member, you're a terrorist.

[Massachusetts]

6. Paranoia will destroy ya!

[The Stranger]

7. But the Democrats are "scrambling" to give Bush more illegal eavesdropping powers.

[Bragi]

8. Maybe the truth about Facebook will come out

Can't find it right now, but someone did a video a while back that made a convincing that Facebook has murky CIA-DoD ties, and may be a data mining snoop tool that came right out of the Total Information Awareness project, which lives on. Personally, I don't find the idea of Facebook as a data mining tool that big a stretch.

(Google "facebook and CIA" and you'll get lots of info.)


- B