NYTimes: Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying

[Sparkly]

It seems this is being met with Sunday morning yawns so far, so I'm posting it here as well as elsewhere... This is important!!

Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying

By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: July 29, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 28 — A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.

The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

(snip)

Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29nsa.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185711286-Gmm2loc9YN2qQZJPXXq+Nw

[donkeyotay]

1. Data mining, the new high-ground for right wing politics

Ever notice how many of these guys are into data mining. For example, Richard Perle had a data mining company called Autonomy. I don't know what's become of them, but I do know they got government contracts after 9/11, kind of a rags to riches story. But more to the point, there's a company called WOTI (White Oak Technology-ies Inc?) that was doing data mining for CIFA. They were able to get the federal elections data base on who's registered what and who gives to whom. They also developed a mining program that was supposed to ferret out hidden patterns of contributions -supposedly as an anticrime thing, but I suppose it might have other applications.

Funny how the party that was supposed to restore honor and dignity is parsing definitions and using wiggle words - oh no, not that program! You thought I was talking about the program you were talking about? Silly, I had my fingers crossed and said the one the preznit confirmed....

The NSA whistleblower, Russell Tice(?) I think made it plain he thought they were spying on everybody. That's probably what anything short of Fredo Gonzales'Just Us had trouble signing off on.

[gulliver]

2. Words mean what the Bushies want them to mean.

The article is sourced to "current and former officials briefed on the program." I'll bet they are Bushies. Feingold believes Gonzales deliberately misled Congress, and I believe Feingold. The Bushies are doing their best stretch to turn one program into two, both legally and politically. Even if Gonzales escapes perjury, the political damage of a deliberate deception would be high. To cover the incision Tony Snow has already tipped that they will try to play Gonzales' deception as motivated by national security, not Gonzales protecting himself or Bush.

The current White House story is likely going to be good enough for Specter to be able to cover the remaining stench with fake outrage, threats of (but no actual) special prosecutors, etc.

I thought they were going to try to change one program into two by separating by time phase (before and after the threatened resignations, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin). Now it looks like they are trying to separate the program into two using department or subprogram. Anything Comey objected to suddenly becomes a separate program.