Domestic spying, election theft, and illegal war.

[bleever]

So, after years of very lenient FISA oversight of domestic wiretapping, the cabal decided they needed to circumvent FISA. They did this knowing that they always had an option to get retroactive warrants if they had to act quickly. And they knew they were running a risk of a public battle when this was eventually revealed. But it was worth the risk.

To safeguard America? Maybe, but something tells me that the War on Terror has proved a relatively dry well for the neocons. By now, they should be able to defend the Patriot Act and their domestic spying with a long list of successes. They should be able to list the deadly plots thwarted, the evil-doers incarcerated, and the number of American lives saved. Does anyone doubt that if they had such successes, they would be trumpeting them incessantly to beat back the people who challenge them? These people are all about PR and politics. They would not be able to resist shoving their "victories" in our faces.

If they had them. Instead, the best they've really had so far is Jose Padilla, alleged "dirty bomb" guy, who they can't even charge with anything remotely related to a real plot. Also: John Walker Lindh, poster boy for "Study Abroad Gone Bad".

Thus I wonder what the real activities were that drove the incessant desire for pushing the legal and Constitutional boundaries of executive power to spy within America, on Americans. I wish I had a bunch of answers that I had unearthed at this point, but hopefully people have thoughts to contribute. These are my questions:


1. Did any surveillance involve people whose "relation" to the 9/11 attackers was that they opposed a possible war on Iraq?

Such targets might include anti-war groups (Communists, anarchists, Catholics, Quakers, ordinary citizens, Democrats), decision-makers opposed to war (members of Congress), or foreign diplomats at the U.N. and elsewhere, especially those of countries whose co-operation or opposition to military action might impact U.S. plans.

2. Did any surveillance involve communications elements in the electoral system used in the 2002 and 2004 elections?

We know that many elements of the election system, including machine software, machine distribution, result collection and tabulation, as well as many other aspects, potentially fall within the grasp of this kind of data-mining. Certainly all of this could be claimed to be a matter of national security. One story of many was how the holes in voting security potentially violated regulations made by the Department of Homeland Security itself. Even disregarding phone calls between major actors on both sides, there are still all the phone-line and wireless transmissions of voting totals.

3. Did any surveillance involve lawyers defending so-called terror suspects, like Padilla, Yasir Hamdi, or Guantanamo detainees?

We know the administration has fought (with a religious fervor) against affording any rights, even those of the Geneva Conventions, to detainees. They've brought charges against lawyers representing detainees. And they may well have thought it was their business to know everything about anyone who sought to afford legal rights to anyone they had deemed an "unlawful combatant".

4. Did any surveillance involve members of the media?

In particular, one might be curious about members of the media whose work on the conduct of the war, or the policies of torture, or the discrepancies riddling our recent elections were considered "adversarial" to the administration.


Is it outrageous to think that their domestic spying was involved in Rove's election night setup to monitor precinct-level results? What would he have done with them? In what way could that have been "actionable" info for him, unless warrantless monitoring of "telecommunications" gave him some mode of action unknown to us?

Is it too suspicious to wonder how far they would go? Or is it the job of an informed citizen?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. 3 votes for greatest... and no replies...

deserves a kick!

[bleever]

2. "Richardson fears his calls monitored by NSA for Bolton"

TactialPeek's thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5692549&mesg_id=5692549


NSA was surreptitiously eavesdropping on the Secretary of State??? Is this a mushroom cloud size smoking gun on the abuse of power going on here?

[fooj]

3. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm...

Thus I wonder what the real activities were that drove the incessant desire for pushing the legal and Constitutional boundaries of executive power to spy within America, on Americans.

Peace.

[YourBrother]

12. he wanted to know ...

if i thought he was an asshole ... could have just called me though, no need for all that pussyfooting around

[Brundle_Fly]

4. What about the Kerry Campaign

Did they use this as a chance to get ahead on the democratic campaign for president....

wanna find out?

can't, national security.

[bleever]

5. Kerry himself, asked by Ed Schultz, wouldn't rule it out, and took

the opportunity to tie it into the hacking of test machine in Leon County, FL. This was his first public comment as far as I know about voting machine hacking. The fact that he tied it into domestic spying was very interesting to me.

[EVDebs]

6. Dems and Greens will all be issued RFID chips soon...

Equivalent to the yellow Star of Davids etc. the Germans used in their heyday.

New book out Spychips sheds more light on this technology. BTW, TIA is now in full operation in the Bahamas with Ben H. Bell III's company, FYI. The info from database companies like ChoicePoint is being collated there offshore and privatized (and legally 'sanitized' for the Govt's protection).

[EVDebs]

7. CNN and PsyOps....back to the well once again ?

anyone read this article during the 2000 election ?

CNN and PsyOps
www.counterpunch.org/cnnpsyops.html

[bleever]

8. Rice OKed NSA spying on UN members before Iraq war launch.

With thanks to Bush_Eats_Beef:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/After_domestic_spying_reports_U.S._spying_1227.html

They broke the law and violated the Constitution to subvert legitimate diplomacy to prevent war.

They were NOT protecting American lives.

They were protecting their plans to invade Iraq.

The families of almost 2200 service members were not protected. They were robbed of loved ones, for a lie, wrapped in more lies, that were illegally force-fed to an unwilling world.

They must be held accountable.

[Patsy Stone]

9. Anthrax.

Did they use this special secret security spying to find out who sent Anthrax to Daschle and Leahy?

Or did they already know who did it?

K&R

[bleever]

10. The could put Ted Kennedy on the no-fly list, but they couldn't catch

the anthrax mailer.

[Patsy Stone]

11. There are priorities you know

Not everyone is as much of a danger to the First Class bar as Teddy.

[Patsy Stone]

13. BTW

You asked a question in another thread about Echelon? Here's a transcript from 60 Minutes that may answer some questions.

http://cryptome.org/echelon-60min.htm I can't say if it's completely authentic. I got it off a web site. :)

It seems there are some other links about Echelon on there, and it even includes a Wayne Madsen (remember him?) interview too.

KROFT: (Voiceover) Inside each globe are huge dishes which intercept and download satellite communications from around the world. The information is then sent on to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, where acres of supercomputers scan millions of transmissions word by word, looking for key phrases and, some say, specific voices that may be of major significance.

Mr. FROST: Everything is looked at. The entire take is looked at. And the computer sorts out what it is told to sort out, be it, say, by key words such as 'bomb' or 'terrorist' or 'blow up,' to telephone numbers or--or a person's name. And people are getting caught, and--and that's great."

KROFT: (Voiceover) The National Security Agency won't talk about those successes or even confirm that a program called Echelon exists. But it's believed the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal was captured with the assistance of Echelon, and that it helped identify two Libyans the US believes blew up Pan-Am Flight 103.

Is it possible for people like you and I, innocent civilians, to be targeted by Echelon?

Mr. FROST: Not only possible, not only probable, but factual. While I was at CSE, a classic example: A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a--a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w--was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.

And there you have it.

[bleever]

14. Yikes. Is it possible that out of this mess they actually catch GUILTY

people?

I doubt it; they would have told us.

[Sydnie]

15. Not to mention that there is probably not a citizen that

hasn't said at least one (most likely more) of the "keywords" in a normal conversation with friends or family since 2001. Are we all terrorists because we might discuss terrorists actions, say, as reported in the news? Have most of us examined not only the reported actions but also speculated on what future actions there might be?

And, have many, many of us, regular citizens all, not discussed how the administration is handling the whole issue?

If they are merely going on keywords, we all are screwed! Imagine a New Yorker NOT talking about the recent subway issues (and the planned excercises concerning the same) due to that possible terrorist threat (that turned out to be months old, not really even relevant when it was brought to light)? Does that mean that anyone that called someone that day in NY to inform them that they would be late because there was a terrorist threat and further went on to discuss the issue ... does that mean that all those NY'ers are on the watch list?

I'm not buying what they are selling. Data mining is illegal no matter how you try to pretty it up with calls for national security defenses and such. We would do well to remember that one step on the ladder for the despot is to instill nationalism when it is not needed. That is blivet**'s only defense and it leaves him sorely exposed. It allows all of us to connect the dots about a great many things they have been shoving down our throats.

Guards eavesdrop on prisoners. Last time I checked, we all weren't in the mugshot book ... not just yet anyway.

btw ... nice to see you Bleev! :hi: Hope you had a great Santa Day! Wishing you health, wealth, and peace of mind (can't guarantee peace on earth sadly) in 2006. :loveya:

[bleever]

16. This whole "keyword" paradigm is ludicrous, as you point out.

Any discussion of the news or politics is thus caught up in the net of "terrorist related" speech??

I have to wonder if this isn't a smokescreen for something else, because the volume of data would be so massive as to be unusable.

This admin said they couldn't "connect the dots" before 9/11, so their solution is to collect more dots??

Insane.


And btw...hi Syd! Best wishes for the holidays and the New Year. It will be a better year; we're going to do everything we can to make sure of that.

:hi: