If I had the money to start a new company I could make a fortune. It would be Pony Express. No phones, E-mails - or gps just horses and saddlebags. Seems the only way not to have our fine trustworthy government proofread our talking to one another.

I have said for some time that the administration's surveillance program is more far-reaching than is commonly reported. Of particular interest are some aspects of internet V2. Is it just coincidence that China, renowned for internet censorship, led the way? http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/27/content_403512.htm

I am working on reporting details on the blog http://timelikethis.blogspot.com/. If you're interested in the behind-the-scenes workings of how this developed, you might check it out.

-Trevor Wynne
Washington DC

Of course, all bets are off if we have another OK City-style domestic terrorist attack.
In the words of Donald Rumsfeld on 9/12/01:
"Sweep it all up. Things relevant and not."
The sweeping will be massive. Save the irrelevant stuff to use against political opponents. They'll never know what hit 'em.
Google will be nationalized and relocated to NSA headquarters.

The idea that they can only see the headers of the emails, but aren't reading the emails, is so laughable as to be redunkulous. So they've chosen to break the law, but now super-break it? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Thank you gallegoscot. Spot on.

if you think for a moment that the information in those data warehouses wont 'accidentally' end up in private servers before the end of this administration - then i have some bottomland in the 9th ward i'd like to sell you....

as we've seen with MP3s and film - the transport cost of information, once assembled in a valuable format, is nigh free - and as a result becomes widely available. Expect it to be used against you... companies will use offshore repositories of the data for job interviews the same way they do for kill lists for auto loans (and dont think they dont do THAT already...)

If you think what the govt is doing with this crap is bad, wait till big business gets involved.

I'm sensing a lot of surprise here and that surprises me. The only surprising part of this story is that it was reported at all!!!

As a country that extolls liberty as a fundamental principle, how exactly are we winning the so-called 'war on terror' by restricting the liberty of every citizen.

We have been for some time, and will remain, "one nation under surveillance".

Bush is a criminal.

It is right there in front of us.

Everybody knows it and everybody can see it.

What is it going to take for the congress to acknowledge it?

How does this explain why they were spying on us in March 2001 - well before 9/11?

So if I'm planning some sort of major terrorist strike, I can safely do it via email as long as the subject reads something like "Enlarge your penis"?

I can't believe that limiting things to subject lines creates much legal cover, and just subject lines don't seem like they would be of much use, so I call bullshit: they are reading everything.

I so clearly remember Hayden, as head of NSA, standing straight faced (maybe it was at the same Q & A where he righteously affirmed that there is no warrant clause and no probable cause requirement in the fourth amendment, just a requirment that the Executive Branch be its own subjective conceptualization of "reasonable") ---

standing there with no twitch or tremor and fibbing away about how the NSA is not engaged in any driftnet or dragnet, it is only engaged in a specific, narrow, targeted program. All while Bush was saying it was only a program that intercepted calls where "al-Qaeda is calling"

Bless Hayden's voluntary dishonour of his uniform. May the men and women who gave it the honor he pissed away be lined up on the other side to thank him for his efforts.

I've been saying this for over two years. Glad to see that the press has finally caught up.

Bush and his pals fought the defunding of TIA tooth and nail back in 2003. On July 18, 2003, the Senate unanimously voted to kill it.

Remember that crazy letter that Jay Rockefeller wrote to Cheney about the surveillance program he'd been briefed on? The one he kept a copy of in a "secure" location? He wrote that after a briefing that was held on July 17, 2003.

Instead of letting it die, they shuffled it around and hid it away from prying eyes.

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I'm curious about how everyone defines 'unreasonable search and seizure' in this day and age.
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Same as with Keith - when you are talking about American Citizens on American soil, then the only reasonable searches of an American's communications by his/her government are those that are done pursuant to an independent showing of probable cause to an independent magistrate.

Of course it's a search to have a computer program sift through the communications - just like it would be a "search" to have someone break into your home with a scanner or camera and replicate all your personal communications without touching them or reading them on sight, and take the copies back and just read those.

Once upon a time, every other country in the world had a royal family too IIRC. In any event, I'd be interested in knowing what your information is as to other nations' laws vis a vis intercepts of communications of their citizens. Doesn't Europe have a privacy court? Wasn't the SWIFT program pretty much illegal under the laws of many of the countries the banks were doing business in/with? Is there really no oversight in those countries the way there has been no oversight here? It would be interesting to see the comparisons, but in the end, Americans on American soil only consented to the government we have, subject to the protections against it set forth in the Fourth Amendment. If that needs to be changed, then we need to amend the Constitution.

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Also, would anyone disagree that the NSA has a right to spy on all foreign to foreign communications?
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Yes, I would if you are talking about warrantless spying. I don't think that any case law has so far indicated the Executive Branch function involves unfettered spying on all foreigner for any purpose and whim. They might go that far some day, but they sure haven't so far. They have instead talked about national security espionage related spying on foreign powers and agents of foreign powers. And that is also what FISA talked about (pre-PAA).

I do not believe that there should be unfettered ability to spy on all foreign to foreign communications, although I understand and basically agree with the capture aspects of radio wave transmisssions as being up for grabs.

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Would anyone object to the NSA intercepting an email sent from Kabul to Baghdad?
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Sure, if its an American NGO worker in Baghdad receiving an email from their American colleagues in Kabul, or their son or daughter, or ...

How about, does anyone object to interception of emails from a small parts manufacturer in Canada sent to BAE offices in the UK, with the information then handed out to the small US business pal of the interceptor in the NSA offices so they can undercut pricing? Or intercepting the legal communications of a US lawyer visiting in Canada to his whistleblower client hiding in Mexico, with the use being to disappear the whistleblower and lawyer into torture detention, all with no one to know? Or how about Obama campaign workers in Canada communicating with other Obama campaign workers in Canada and the results handed off to McCain, Clinton or both, on whim and without oversight or recourse?

Let be quickly raise my hand to say - NO. Not all foreign to foreign communications should be handed over like candy to criminals in the Executive Branch or their cronies elsewhere.

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Should we be making it MORE difficult for the NSA and CIA to spy on potential terrorists by making them tap outside of the US rather than using the US hubs (there are 2...one in VA and one in CA).
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False choice and wth do you mean by "potential terrorist" Someone with an impure thought? Someone who might, one day, some day, join PETA? A Quaker who goes to an anti-war rally?

We should and do make it very easy to spy, with oversight, on agents of foreign powers (which include terrorists) Instead of opening floodgates on surveillance, we should be spending much more time deciding what the parameters and priorities and boundaries are vis a vis "terrorists" and we should be actually translating communications from known terrorists we intercept (unlike the fallow lying Bin Laden intercepts) and we should get our act together on terrorist lists, visas and locations of terrorists and known associates, etc. We shouldn't be trying to find the needle by making the haystack ever bigger and we shouldn't be encouraging operatives to steal hay from US citizens without probable cause that the needle is there.

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but I'm not sure it should be with the right safeguards.
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Well, that is the problem isn't it? No public discussion of what is or isn't right, boatloads of lies, parsing and outright criminal behaviour from most everyone in DOJ and NSA and CIA and WH and OVP and Congress, and telecoms - pretty much everyone involved with the program to where, instituionally, you don't have any appropriate instituional safeguard left; only liars and criminals promoting cya and self interest.

It's why we had safeguards in the Constitution. Once you couple the ability to spy on all Americans, without any recourse by them, and couple it with the not only stated but exercised power to disappear Americans into torture detention with no stated crime, solely on the basis of the limits of whim and monstrousity of the criminals who run the programs, you really have the makings of something that will never be a democracy and never engender freedom. The First Amendment is dead, and so soon become its advocates.

Independent magistrates, criminal sanctions for abuse, requirements to go to Congress to get laws changed after open debate if technology requires, independent monitoring and reports to the full Intelligence committees - - those are the safeguards we had. What we've really discovered isn't an issue of what is or is not needed vis a vis "law" for crucial national security suveillance, but instead is an issue of can the Dept of Justice of this nation be so thoroughly corrupted and compromised from within so as to allow for unchecked criminality in the Executive Branch.

As long as only people like Nancy Pelosi head up the "loyal opposition" the answer is yes. And really, eventually, the answer then becomes yes period, because the nation has no other or better leaders to create the next generation of leadership.

fwiw

This caught my eye, and raised some questions about the 9-11 planning and evidence:

Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach. From

The implications are stunning: Supposedly these programs started before 9-11 and raises the question: Who would know enough about the NSA surveillance to plan 9-11, not get detected, and ensure the FBI could not link any of this evidence to the planners.

Recall, the FBI said there is "no evidence" linking Osama bin Ladin to 9-11. This would ask that we believe despite the NSA monitoring, and the FBI-NSA cooperation, there's no recorded, available electronic data.

Who in the telecom industry, working with the NSA, or with had enough information about the NSA surveillance, to plan the 9-11 attacks, place the explosives, ensure the planning was complete, not get detected, and ensure the FBI was uanble to find any electronic data linking any of the planning to real people?

It would be interest to see the NSA files about all the intercepts before 9-11, and review the data of those who did plan the attacks. If we're goign to discuss granting anyone immunity for the FISA violations, lets get on the table all the NSA data they've captured about 9-11:

- Are we fighting the right enemey;
- Is the enemy domestic;
- What role did the intelligence community play in the 9-11 attacks;
- Why isn't the FBI able to find any information linking bin Ladin to the attacks;
- What happened to the NSA intercepts before 9-11;
- Did the NSA capture any information about the pre 9-11 planning, to include confirmation; signals sent stating that the explosives had been placed, were ready, and the teams were awaiting further instructions;
- What's the connection between the 9-11 attacks and those in the telecom-related industries who know how the NSA domestic surveillance works;
- Was false information sent and deliberately tracked by NSA to distract attention from the real people involved with 9-11;
- Was any of the NSA intercept data destroyed;
- What can the UK, under the "special relationship with the US intelligence," shed light on the 9-11 planning
- Has the US intelligence community agreed to keep secret information about David Kelly's death in exchange for UK's silence on 9-11/WMD/rendition/POW abuse-related intercepts?

“... there’s no one left but thee and me and I’m not sure of thee” (from john birch society satiric song)...

Richard Nixon genuinely believed that the Viet-Nam-war protesting "hippies" were ACTUALLY colluding with the Russians. All the surveillance he set in motion. Child's play next to these guys, though.

The gated community mentality of Bush and cronies ... gives them such a low threshhold of reasonable doubt about anyone who doesn't drink their kool-aid... and the government service agencies.. being good soldiers... follow their orders AND when a few remarkably brave whistleblowers come forward and give over evidence... or try to...Where are WE? The citizenry? The press? Where is our Congress? Where are our candidates? WHERE ARE OUR PRIORITIES?

Oh yeah, many of us are out their on the front lines laughing at the satiric outrage of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Thank God for them, and for Olbermann. But it is awareness. Where is the action? If you are not an active part of the solution, you are contributing to the deadweight of the problem, to paraphrase the old adage.

As Louise Hay says, "The point of power is always in the present moment." If we don't say a resounding NO NOW.... we just have one more loss to hand over to an even more demoralized "us" to combat them later for... or a future generation whom we have betrayed along with our pathetic ethically A.D.D.-distracted selves.

For a lame duck president who has been lame morally since he moved into the White House almost 8 years ago... he has been horrifyingly successful in all dimensions of destruction. And despite statistics on his low popularity, it doesn't seem to have EVER slowed him down. It feels like the old Invasion of the Body Snatchers... have we all become pod people.. watching it happen? Allowing it to happen.

As Dorothy Parker said, "What fresh hell is this?" Just when you think the amorality and callousness and greed and death and destruction can't go any deeper, it finds a further depth!

I really hit the House hard making calls and sending emails the week they showed a spine about the FISA bill and not endorsing and postponing the showdown on telecom immunity, frustrating the President on not getting what he wanted when he wanted it (the audacity of AUDACITY) ... Now, according to Greenwald at Salon... the House Reps had an issue with being rushed ... NOT A MAJORITY TAKING A STAND ON NO IMMUNITY FOR TELECOMS ... JUST, WE WILL NOT HANDLE THIS IN TOO FEW DAYS THAT ARE UNCOMFORTABLE FOR US.

Well, wasn't that special of them? I enjoyed that confusing and fleeting hope ... that maybe our representatives were learning to represent us... committed to us.. like maybe Frank Capra heroics can happen off screen, too. Acknowledging our basic right to privacy... who knew that would be an impossible, swashbuckling fantasy instead of the basic freedom our forefathers sacrificed to acquire and defend.

The majority of our Congress are giving away the store to the Lobbyists and Bush one more time. Was there even a doubt? These representatives, the majority, and that "psuedo-tough" stance they took was miles from concern over the profound dismantling of our civil rights. It was not about the common good... but about their personal and collective comfort levels ... about their work schedule and their upcoming break.

Oy vey.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks?utm_source=EMTF_Onion

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/78899/

Its funny that Bush and Co. are engaged in massive surveillance operations and Spitzer, a Democratic governor gets caught for prostitution. Amazing to coincidence.

Your blogs here, your comments, your traffic, your searches....out of all the sites on the internet, you don't think this one is monitored? What pages you viewed, your ip address, all of it. What you emailed or forwarded to friends, their info, their ip address who their friends are, and so on and so on and so on...

First responding to LaLawette, I'm all for necessary surveillance in the name of national security, but Bush's so-called war War on Terror has nothing to do with national security. Can you seriously tell me we're fighting a war on terror with Saudi Arabia as an ally? Pervez Musharraf was also supposed to be an ally, and we gave Pakistan billions of dollars supposedly for fighting Al Qaeda. Yet Bush himself recently stated that Al Qaeda had reconstituted itself in Pakistan and was as strong as ever. So what kind of progress is that?
They told us the Iraq War was about fighting terror, but it was clear even in 2003 that Iraq was not a terror threat. Bush's people used the terror scare as a way to justify a war that had nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with promoting the PNAC agenda that was shaped long before 9/11.
So when you ask whether this kind of surveillance is justified in the interest of national security, you need to demonstrate a genuine effort on the part of the Bush administration to protect this country. Talking about fighting terror and actually fighting it are two different things, as Bush has demonstrated.
And finally, the push for this kind of sweeping surveillance has been going on for years. Remember how the Clinton administration came up with FIDNET? Corporate interests have been pushing for something like this for years, and will continue pushing no matter who wins in November.