New York Times: Telecoms Play Bigger Role In NSA Surveillance Than Previously Known
By Logan Murphy Saturday Dec 15, 2007 9:03pm
Via The New York Times:
For months, the Bush administration has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program. But the battle is really about something much bigger. At stake is the federal government’s extensive but uneasy partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime.
The N.S.A.’s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before, according to government and industry officials, yet that alliance is strained by legal worries and the fear of public exposure.
To detect narcotics trafficking, for example, the government has been collecting the phone records of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States who call people in Latin America, according to several government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. Worried about possible privacy violations or public relations problems, company executives declined to help the operation, which has not been previously disclosed. Read on...
This article has exposed even more Bush administration lies and confirmed what many of us have suspected for some time. It's not all about international terrorism. It appears the programs are being used for domestic crime fighting and there are more companies involved with the programs than previously revealed -- and the programs include capturing data that is strictly domestic. In other words, the very core of our judicial system appears to have been thrown out the window and we still have no idea how bad things really are.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is poised to roll over for President Bush and give telecommunications companies amnesty in the latest FISA legislation, but luckily, Senator Chris Dodd is ready to filibuster. In light of this newly revealed program, and the likelihood that they may run even deeper, amnesty should be completely out of the question. Write to Harry Reid or your Senator and tell them that telecom amnesty is not an option and that further oversight and investigation into these programs is needed before any FISA laws are passed.
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Who can sit idle on this one?
All G-Dub has to do is start calling himself "Big Brother" and Orwell will rise from the grave and say "I told you so!"
Big surprise ---
Lieberman to endorse McCain
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071216/ap_po/mccain_lieberman_4
Wait for more illegal surveillance brought to you by Harry Reid and the Pussy-crats.
Should the Reid/Feinstein/Rockefeller majority of the democratic party prevail in the TelComm amnesty fight, I pray that God visits destruction upon their party, through Her/His instrument: the American people.
And that the San Francisco Giants have a decent season next year, too.
NONE of it is about terrorism. The scumbags used terra (which occurred under their watch) to circumvent Constitutional protections in order to prosecute the little people for petty crimes. Gotta hand it to bush, he is consistent when it comes to punishing the little people for him being born rich.
If telecoms can be sued for breaking US law, does that mean that defense contractors and other suppliers can be open for lawsuits if Congress declares the war in Iraq illegal? Their profits should pay for this war, not the taxpayer.
rawstory.com
AT&T engineer says Bush Administration sought to implement domestic spying within two weeks of taking office
John Byrne
Published: Sunday December 16, 2007
Nearly 1,300 words into Sunday's New York Times article revealing new details of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, the lawyer for an AT&T engineer alleges that "within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ATT_engineer_says_Bush_Administration_soug...
So it wasn't 9/11 that changed everything. It was his lying, cheating presidency that needed a "Pearl Harbor like" event as a means to justify it's ends.
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey echoed that theme in an op-ed article of his own in The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, saying private companies would be reluctant to provide their “full-hearted help” if they were not given legal protections.
Gee, I wonder why?
Stasi outsourcing on the march
gee i'd love to write to my senators but seems they are midge mcconnell and jim 'smart as a fence post' bunning; r&r.
that would be a big ol waste of tube space.
Harry Reid, get ready for your worst Christmas ever you complicit little milquetoast .
C'mon guys .. the "War On Drugs" is the prototypical through-the-looking-glass organized-crime-in-government boondoggle ..
ALL that $$$ is invested in keeping the "right people" in charge of the international illicit drug trade. Period.
You really think the 19th century opium traffickers abandoned the trade just cuz a few countries made it illegal? Hell no. Making it illegal just insured high profits, and made the enforcement powers of the govt available to stomp out the competition.
Remarkable how the invasion of Afghanistan has not only brought about a return to the production of opium - which had been virtually eliminated by the Taliban - but has brought about record crops two years in a row.
Unintended consequences? Yeah right ..
The most obvious question is how long has the NYT known about this?
The answer is probably several years. Why are they playing politics with such information?
LongTooth @ 5:
They are NOT the majority of the party, you are lying.
The majority caucus is the Progressive caucus, which is in power in the House. They have categorically refused to offer any amnesty without a full airing of the facts
In the Senate, we have about 25 loyal Democratic Senators, and about 25 who are varying levels of disloyal, for various reasons.
• Leader Reid is from Nevada. He is put in power by NEVADANS. He is not put into power by the Democratic party, and he isn't put into power in the Senate by the House staff.
• Senator (Fein)Stain is from CA, and we progressives have not been able to dent her support in the state.
• Senator Lieberman is, along with (Fein)Stain, basically an AIPAC prop, the worst in the party. His alignment with the DLC is why he was on the ticket in 2000, and most Democrats didn't know much about him.
So blaming the party for these three intractable problems -- NONE OF WHICH MOST DEMOCRATS ELECTED -- is totally unfair, and typical of the unrepresentable disaffiliated leftists around here who rarely divulge just exactly which heroes THEY send to DC.
Well, it's Rockefeller instead of Lieberman. That's a much longer story. If you thought Rockefeller was loyal, you might as well think Sensenbrenner is.
It's an old story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o
(Laugh In was radical compared with today's TV.)
Thank you so much for always providing contact links in your stories. Such a small consideration on your behalf enables the time constrained folk like me to act immediately and without forgetting. I sent off Dodd support emails to my two Senators. I'm trying to access Reid's but it's not working. Perhaps he's getting bombarded with hate mail.
Is anyone really surprised here? What do you expect from the people who lied us into an illegal occupation? Do you really expect them to start telling the truth now? Just another money grab to funnel cash to companies "fighting (?)" the "War on
Drugsthe Constitution".And now it's known that junior was planning the wiretapping within
two weeks of taking office.
Well before they allowed 9-11.
This has definitely gone wayy too far.
Reid and Pelosi are in bed with them.
They must go, it's time for some real leadership, as opposed to
what's in there now.
Sometimes, you just don't know what to feel anymore. Either you're disappointed at the number of lies being uncovered or you're indifferent to everything since you're no drug dealer in the first place. Still, I think that the proper move would be to take action and become more involved in the issue. Wiretapping is definitely a violation of a person's privacy.
Jay, writer MemberSpeed.com @ 22:
It's a violation of our privacy. It's a violation of the law. It's a violation of the trust between the government and the citizens. Drug dealers? That goes back to the argument that "I've got nothing to worry about since I'm not doing anything wrong". Well, when you're caught in the government's net by mistake, because of human error or sloppy investigative work, don't come complaining that you were wrongly accused.
There have been enough cases of wrongful arrests and convictions over the last 6 years to cause concern over this kind of invasive spying.
How can this be a surprise? James Bamford has been writing about the NSA and its' corporately enabled shenanigans for the last 20+ years. The 'coffee's been brewing for that long, and only now can some people smell it? Jeez...
Remember, in 2002 at the UN,it was found that all the UN's phones were tapped.
Codo Tanker Rise admitted this and was to listen to the UN members discussing/ opposing the Iraq invasion. We stupid Americans did dick squat! Why cry now ?
I'm just curious-Is EVERYONE contacting their Senators to support Dodd's Filibuster and contacting Reids office?
"But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. "
And for his troubles, the CEO was sentenced to 6 years on unrelated charges a little while later. Coincidence? Of course. Everything involving BushCo is just one big coincidence after another.
I suggest a quid pro quo.
If the telecoms want off the hook, they must sign on to net neutrality for 100 years.
Joseph Palmer @ 27:
How about the CEOs get convicted, the companies fined AND we make them sign off on net neutrality?
wait...
you left out the most important graph from that ny times story (emphasis mine):
so before 9/11 the nsa was already trying to begin the wiretapping. this isn't about security. it isn't now and it never was.
If you want to know how deep and twisted this wiretapping and datamining watch every one of these you tube video reports that Fox was forced to take off their website back in 2001. The numbers of watches at you tube are not correct (part of the game). These numbers have been the same for over three years.
I keep wondering if part of the effort to give retroactive immunity to telecoms is also to try to protect Amdocs and Comverse Infosys.
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWpWc_suPWo
Part 2 (Amdocs) Israeli based communications company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAEjSQghj8
Part 3 (Amdocs and Comverse Infosys Israeli based private wiretapping equipment company)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
system compromised
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwckJoP7-wg
Is this issue part of what they are trying desperately trying to keep the American public from knowing. That these companies wiretapping, datamining systems had a back door into their systems that were compromised by another country or countries?
http://www.newsfollowup.com/flight77_32.htm
THIS SITE LINKED JUST ABOVE IS AN AMAZING SITE FOR IN-DEPTH INFO ON FOREIGN SURVEILLANCE
Paul in LA @ 15:
I agree, the dems who were voted in for 2006 are not the same as those who have been in place during Reagan, Clinton and the Bush gang. The neocon biz$ era got to almost everyone entrenched in power. To know Vegas is to know Harry Reid, his family has been as corrupt as any of the republicans we bitch about.
There are enough progressive elements in the democratic party to force a standard for membership. The Courage Campaign is attempting to do this to Feinstein. When the party has a platform that it can enforce on it's members, then it will have something that it and the voters can stand on.
We need to root out these bad elements and keep them from becoming Rebublican lite.
We can recall these traitors, and move to the party's greater members and supporters.
Gregg @ 30:
That's meaningless. A party cannot 'force' a platform -- no platform has ever bound anything other than CANDIDATES.
The Senator you're talking about won reelection by a considerable majority. The 'party' can do nothing to such a person, although the leadership of the Senate can remove privileges, such as committee membership.
As long as these persons are being reelected by large margins, the issue is really one of voter ignorance, and a lack of serious competing candidates. Who ran against Feinstain? NO ONE. A party platform would not change that fact.
United States Senator; Democratic Party 2006 Primary
Dianne Feinstein .......... 2,176,829 votes 87%
Colleen Fernald .............. 199,170 votes 8%
Martin Luther Church ....... 127,291 votes
Keith H. @ 20:
No, Speaker Pelosi has opposed them all the way down the line.
lonesomerobot @ 29:
Hayden was in charge of the NSA from 1999-2005. Then he went from DDNI (Deputy Director of National Intelligence) to CIA Director.
Instead of being promoted he should have been investigated.
harry your are a fucking bum.
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