Disclosure of the NSA's illegal database of Americans' telephone records has brought outraged demands for an investigation -- and for legal action against the government. 2006. REUTERS/Jason Reed With the revelations Thursday in USA Today that the National Security Agency has compiled a vast database of every telephone call made in the United States, President George W. Bush, who took pains yesterday not to deny the program's existence, is now fighting for his political life. The outraged reaction to the program by members of the U.S. Senate, including from some Republican members, even suggests that impeachment proceedings could be brought against the president should Democrats gain a majority in November. The NSA program is a clumsy, brittle subterfuge. The agency, which is allowed to spy on international phone calls, isn't spying on purely domestic calls; rather, it is only compiling a list of these calls in order to "data mine," or analyze them. The president, in a hasty and brief press encounter yesterday, insisted that all of the NSA's actions are legal and took pains not to deny the USA Today report. But justifying NSA spying on purely domestic phone calls on the grounds that the agency is merely compiling the calls is spurious. The NSA is expressly forbidden from spying on American activities within the boundaries of the United States. This prohibition against spying includes any investigation of American citizens. If compiling the purely domestic telephone calls of Americans is kosher, why can't the NSA go to Netflix and ask for every American's DVD rental records? Or why can't it ask Amazon.com for records on book shopping? Or go to Google and ask for a "compilation" of searches by Americans, or Bank of America for the bank records of every American? Of course, the NSA can't make such requests. Compiling such data, on a blanket basis, is against the law. The NSA has no authority to either compile such data bases or mine them. Law enforcement has long worked effectively without unbridled investigatory powers, and there is no reason to believe that even the NSA needs expanded powers of investigation. U.S. law clearly allows for the investigation of Americans by the FBI, state and local police and various other agencies. But these investigations must follow clear rules of procedure and eventually require a court order. Fruitless investigations must be closed, and targets of fruitful investigations sooner or later must have the chance to examine the evidence against them. None of these safeguards apply in the NSA program, which USA Today reporter Leslie Cauley described in great detail. "It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," one source told the newspaper. The source added that the NSA's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in the NSA's legislative charter that sanctions such a program. Congress, which each year approves the NSA's budget and each year authorizes its activities, has never approved any such program of domestic spying. And indeed, the NSA program amounts to spying. President Bush's defenders surely will argue that the agency isn't spying on Americans but merely compiling data. However, the data being compiled is typically available to law enforcement only when authorized by a court. There is no court in the United States that ever has approved of such a large-scale surveillance program. Which brings us back to President Bush. Just a day after a new CBS/Times poll found his approval ratings at all-time lows -- and as low as ever registered for any president -- Bush faces the gravest crisis of his presidency. In a long list of impeachable offenses, from lying about Iraqi WMD to prisoner torture to issuing executive orders declaring his plans to disregard provisions of new laws, Bush's creation of a purely domestic spying program is the most flagrant. Of course, the Republicans may hold on to the Senate, and Bush then will escape impeachment. But the president will not escape the wrath of the American people and the force of American law. To start with, Americans need not wait until November to halt the most massive invasion of individual privacy in the nation's history. Opponents of the program -- and many are sure to emerge in the coming weeks -- can seek two immediate remedies. The first is the federal courts. Since virtually every American citizen is a victim of the NSA's program, the potential exists for a vast legal challenge to be mounted against the government. Surely, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil-rights organizations already are studying how to proceed. A lawsuit is needed, challenging the NSA's data program and seeking an injunction to halt it. No Supreme Court will risk the anger of Americans by sanctioning such an Orwellian program. And the reason is simple. If the NSA can compile phone-call data, it can compile data on every American's credit-card transactions, DVD rentals, Amazon orders and Google searches. Not even the specter of a terrorist war against the U.S. homeland will prompt the people of this country to abandon wholesale all notions of privacy, the presumption of innocence and due process. What if the NSA says its agents are using this data to only pursue "real terrorists"? What if the NSA says it would never, ever abuse the power of its position? How would we know? The only way is for the NSA to appeal to the special FISA courts, created by Congress, and seek an exemption in order to investigate a specific person. Legal attacks on the NSA program will probably take time to resolve. In the meantime, a second form of resistance could come through legal attacks directly on the three telephone companies that are carrying out the NSA's illegal program. AT&T, Verizon and Bell South can immediately become targets of investigations with the state attorney generals of any number of states. States have jurisdiction over business practices within their borders. It is easy to imagine Elliot Spitzer, for example, scourge of corporate wrongdoing, convening a meeting to explore a wide-ranging investigation of whether executives at AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are breaking the law in handing over phone data to the NSA on a wholesale basis. Consumers may also want to get into the act by boycotting these telephone companies or besieging them with complaints. No one could blame a telephone company for giving away private data when presented with a bona fide court order. But these companies are reportedly giving over virtually all phone records on every American to the NSA as a matter of course. President Bush is betting that Americans are willing to hand his government vast, unchecked powers over the most intimate data in their lives. He has made a huge gamble. In the coming weeks and months, Americans will learn whether he, once more, has bet and lost.
Big Brother is Bigger than you think -- Spy Agency Watching Americans From Space By KATHERINE SHRADER A little-known spy agency that analyzes imagery taken from the skies has been spending significantly more time watching U.S. soil. In an era when other intelligence agencies try to hide those operations, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, is proud of that domestic mission. He said the work the agency did after hurricanes Rita and Katrina was the best he'd seen an intelligence agency do in his 42 years in the spy business. "This was kind of a direct payback to the taxpayers for the investment made in this agency over the years, even though in its original design it was intended for foreign intelligence purposes," Clapper said in a Thursday interview with The Associated Press. Geospatial intelligence is the science of combining imagery, such as satellite pictures, to physically depict features or activities happening anywhere on the planet. A part of the Defense Department, the NGA usually operates unnoticed to provide information on nuclear sites, terror camps, troop movements or natural disasters. After last year's hurricanes, the agency had an unusually public face. It set up mobile command centers that sprung out of the backs of Humvees and provided imagery for rescuers and hurricane victims who wanted to know the condition of their homes. Victims would provide their street address and the NGA would provide a satellite photo of their property. In one way or another, some 900 agency officials were involved. Spy agencies historically avoided domestic operations out of concern for Pentagon regulations and Reagan-era executive order, known as 12333, that restricted intelligence collection on American citizens and companies. Its budget, like all intelligence agencies, is classified. On Clapper's watch of the last five years, his agency has found ways to expand its mission to help prepare security at Super Bowls and political conventions or deal with natural disasters, such as hurricanes and forest fires. With help, the agency can also zoom in. Its officials cooperate with private groups, such as hotel security, to get access to footage of a lobby or ballroom. That video can then be linked with mapping and graphical data to help secure events or take action, if a hostage situation or other catastrophe happens. Privacy advocates wonder how much the agency picks up — and stores. Many are increasingly skeptical of intelligence agencies with recent revelations about the Bush administration's surveillance on phone calls and e-mails. Among the government's most closely guarded secrets, the quality of pictures NGA receives from classified satellites is believed to far exceed the one-meter resolution available commercially. That means they can take a satellite "snapshot" from high above the atmosphere that is crisply detailed down to one meter level, which is 3.3 feet. Clapper says his agency only does big pictures, so concerns about using the NGA's foreign intelligence apparatus at home doesn't apply. "We are not trying to examine an individual dwelling, for example, because what our mission is normally going to be is looking at large areas," he said. "It doesn't really affect or threaten anyone's privacy or civil liberties when you are looking at a large collective area." When asked what additional powers he'd ask Congress for, he said, "I wouldn't." His agency also handles its historic mission: regional threats, such as Iran and North Korea; terrorist hideouts; and tracking drug trade. "Everything and everybody has to be some place," he said. He considers his brand of intelligence a chess match. "There are sophisticated nation states that have a good understanding of our surveillance capabilities," including Iran, he said. "What we have to do is counter that" by taking advantage of anomalies or sending spy planes and satellites over more frequently. Adversaries who hide their most important facilities underground is a trend the agency has to work at, he said. NGA was once a stepchild of the intelligence community. But Clapper said it has come into its own and become an equal partner with the other spy agencies, such as the CIA. Experience-wise, the agency is among the youngest of the spy agencies. About 40 percent of the agency's analyst have been hired in the last five years. "They are very inexperienced, and that's just fine. They don't have any baggage," said Clapper, who retires next month as the longest serving agency director. "The people that we are getting now are bright, computer literate. ... That is not something I lie awake and worry about." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060513...fag_emWwvIE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
Because blackmail is not legal, though what one is being blackmailed for is legal. May I come in your house at my leisure and rummage through your belongings at my whim?
No offense to Mr. Bosh...but I hear that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" line every time this whacked out administration decided they have to stretch their 9/11 imperative still further and sniff even more deeply in everyones underwear drawere. I really get a Nixonesque feeling from all this keeping of "lists" and marking down "enemies" names.
If you can show that you suspect me of something, then why not? I wouldn’t mind because I don’t have anything to hide. Plus, I think this can solve other problems as well. I don’t mind giving away some privacy for being safe; it’s a fair bargain to me. I think it’s scarier that they (U.S & Canadian Gov’s) can arrest you without having to charge you of anything (under the anti-terrorism act), that to me is scary, not someone listening to my telephone calls.
From what I understand, the program simply records the numbers called and not the conversations. The numbers are then used to create a network of communications and see any trends in calls to and from known terrorist numbers. ... You guys who don't support the program are also in the minority of Americans. Don't believe me? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200375_pf.html Poll: Most Americans Support NSA's Efforts By Richard Morin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 12, 2006; 7:00 AM A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it. A slightly larger majority--66 percent--said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found. Underlying those views is the belief that the need to investigate terrorism outweighs privacy concerns. According to the poll, 65 percent of those interviewed said it was more important to investigate potential terrorist threats "even if it intrudes on privacy." Three in 10--31 percent--said it was more important for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats. Half--51 percent--approved of the way President Bush was handling privacy matters. The survey results reflect initial public reaction to the NSA program. Those views that could change or deepen as more details about the effort become known over the next few days. USA Today disclosed in its Thursday editions the existence of the massive domestic intelligence-gathering program. The effort began soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Since then, the agency began collecting call records on tens of millions of personal and business telephone calls made in the United States. Agency personnel reportedly analyze those records to identify suspicious calling patterns but do not listen in on or record individual telephone conversations. Word of the program sparked immediate criticism on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and Republicans criticized the effort as a threat to privacy and called for congressional inquiries to learn more about the operation. In the survey, big majorities of Republicans and political independents said they found the program to be acceptable while Democrats were split. President Bush made an unscheduled appearance yesterday before White House reporters to defend his administration's efforts to investigate terrorism and criticize public disclosure of secret intelligence operations. But he did not directly acknowledge the existence of the NSA records-gathering program or answer reporters' questions about it. By a 56 percent to 42 percent margin, Americans said it was appropriate for the news media to have disclosed the existence of this secret government program. A total of 502 randomly selected adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error is five percentage points for the overall results. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represents another potential source of error. © 2006 The Washington Post Company
So NSA will know who is calling who for everyone in America. Why not just make everyone carry a chip in their body so the government can track where everyone is all the time? then we can know exactly who is committing the crimes all the time? Where do you want to stop?
Why did you feel the need to include the initial qualifier? If he didn't suspect you of anything, you would have a problem with him going through your stuff? If so, that's exactly his point - these records are being taken with neither any suspicion nor oversight.
Kind of like the people against the Iraq war. Or voting against Bush. As it turns out, eventually, large majorities started to agree with them. Not sure what your point is.
would it be appropriate to say that this country is moving in the direction of a police state or a fascist one?
Yeah, I've heard this too. In fact, didn't a cell phone company get in trouble for not using this when I child was in a car that was stolen and a cell phone was within that car?
New poll... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12771821/site/newsweek/ And by the way, it also shows another new low for Bush...
I guess I didn't make my argument clear. My point is that if they do use tracking of phones to get evidence against someone to further investigate that individual then why not? Going through someone’s house (personal belongings) should come AFTER you have made it clear that you suspect this person of something. I guess I don’t value the privacy of telephone conversations as high as some others do in here. I don’t see how others are comparing it to the government going through your stuff in your house? Listening and touching are two different things. AND, as I’ve said earlier, the fact that the government can arrest you under the anti-terrorism act, with no evidence or charges at all! is a lot bigger of a threat to society than someone listening to your conversation. That’s because terrorism has no real definition, they can use it on anyone/anytime, that to me is scary… because it opens the door to exploitation of power.
