Now They're Spying from Overhead

Photo from source, Washington Post

A while back, on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the big guy himself went through a copy of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights, crossing out the ones made irrelevant by the Bush Administration. There was only one left when he was finished.

Now, of course, if George W. Bush institutes a policy that violates the Bill of Rights, and simply declares that it is now the law of the land, that doesn't automatically make it Constitutional. The big question is, will anybody ever challenge this stuff? Is there any reason, any justification for spying on Americans without a warrant? Just askin'. . .

[Excerpt]

Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S.

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps. . .

Read more at: Washington Post

Pentagon Using FBI to Spy on Americans?

Image from source, Raw Story

It's hard to muster outrage anymore. It's just one thing after another. I wonder if all my bluster, and the much louder bluster of other liberal bloggers is just us whistling in the dark. I mean, what can't our government do? What parts of the Constitution are even still valid?

And a bigger question. If Bush or his governmental departments deem something to be "legal," or "Constitutional," but the Supreme Court and or Justice Department have never ruled on it, can we get these guys one day?

[Excerpt]

Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans

ACLU obtains documents after suit over National Security Letters

The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Eliot Spitzer Caught by USA PATRIOT Act?

Photo from source, Newsweek

Exsqueeze me? Are you kiddin' me, man? The Orwellian-named USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001--I wish I was kidding) was created after 9/11, and enacted by a Congress that didn't read it. It allegedly was enacted to "protect" us from terrorists by relaxing some of our "freedoms." The freedoms we're supposedly fighting for, but I'm getting off on a tangent (I do that a lot).

But now it comes out that Eliot Spitzer's little sex scandal was uncovered because of these new surveillance methods? Is Eliot Spitzer a terrorist, or was it the hooker?

[Excerpt]

Unintended Consequences
Spitzer got snagged by the fine print of the Patriot Act.

When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, law-enforcement agencies hailed it as a powerful tool to help track down the confederates of Osama bin Laden. No one expected it would end up helping to snag the likes of Eliot Spitzer. The odd connection between the antiterror law and Spitzer's trysts with call girls illustrates how laws enacted for one purpose often end up being used very differently once they're on the books. . .

Read more at: Newsweek

Bush Rolls Back Watergate Era Spying Safeguards

Photo from source, Raw Story

I have a question. Why is a The Decider--who only has 10 months left in office--still trying to make the office of President into that of a King? I understand why he did it over the last seven years. He obviously saw History of the World, Part I, and knows it's good to be the king. But now? What good does it do him if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton have dictatorial powers?

And I have another question. Why do Republicans in Congress; indeed right wingers on radio, FOX "News," and their audience members, defend absolutely every overreach of power Bush pulls? Conservatives used to at least claim to be for rule of law, strict Constitutional allegiance, the right to privacy, fiscal responsibility, checks and balances, all that good stars and stripes stuff. What the hell do they stand for now?

[Excerpt]

Bush dials back Watergate-era reforms on spying safeguards

Executive order weakens intelligence oversight board

A little-noticed executive order President Bush signed last month dials back checks on the Intelligence Community that have been in place since revelations that spy agencies abused their power in the 1960s and 70s. [snip]

Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. . .

Read more at: Raw Story (and a hat-tip to Stupid Monkey Planet)

Nancy Pelosi Calls Bush A Liar (Almost)

And good for her, though it would be great if she took it all the way to the L-word!

Speaker Pelosi on President Bush's Statements on FISA



Speaker Pelosi responded this morning after President Bush spoke at the White House regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. (Comments from YouTube)

Big Brother is Watching, Listening, Taking & Copying

The story below is but one example of our government's overzealous behavior as it pertains to "security." We have really given up just about every civil right we have as it pertains to privacy. There is nothing the government/George W. Bush will not claim is necessary, and apparently nothing that any other governmental agency will do to prevent it.

A question that gets somewhat glossed over in all of this is, what exactly are they looking for? Sure, they say they're trying to prevent terrorist attacks. They say that al-Qaeda is hiding behind every rock. And conservatives, by and large, nod their heads vigorously, and support whatever the government says.

Did you notice that seismic shift? The anti-government party; the same folks who's extremist wing holes up in Wyoming or Idaho with arsenals and survivalist gear are enthusiastically supporting this behavior.

Does anybody think that once the government has been given this much rope, that they won't try to use their newfound abilities for other things? Do we think they aren't using data mining for the war on drugs? The war against Democrats? Really?

[Excerpt]

Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased. . .

Read more at: Washington Post

Story tip from Stupid Monkey Planet

Bush to Tap Private Computer Networks?

Photo from source, Think Progress

All I can say is, huh? What? Really? You've got to be kidding me.

[Excerpt]

Bush Administration Plans To Install Black Box Sensors On Private-Sector Computer Networks

The Bush administration wants to place more black boxes on private-sector computer networks. We’ve already learned a lot about the NSA wiretap program and its Narus STA 6400 splitter — that’s the black box that AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein reported the NSA placed at a major node for voice and Internet communications (inside this secret room). . .

Read more at: Think Progress

Bush Planned Wire Taps 2 Weeks After Taking Office?

Photo from source, Raw Story

9/11 supposedly changed everything. Most conservatives (particularly those 25%-ers who still love The Decider) agree that it made necessary some fundamental rethinking into what America stands for.

According to them, we should be willing to give up some privacy, submit to searches, acquiesce to torture and rendition. . .all sorts of things that used to be considered "un-American." But what, fair reader, are we to think about making some of those changes before there ever was a 9/11?

I don't want to over-think this, but I can only come to two conclusions about Bush if he wanted to institute these changes so early in his administration. Either he anticipated that something like 9/11 would happen (making him amazingly prescient or complicit in those events), or he was just a power-mad dictator from the beginning. You be the judge!

[Excerpt]

AT&T engineer says Bush Administration sought to implement domestic spying within two weeks of taking office

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.”

Read more at: Raw Story

Committee Delays Telecom Immunity

Greenlee Gazette's editor is on vacation from Nov. 8 - Nov. 12. Posting will be lighter than usual, and commentary will be too. I'll still try to post some newsworthy items, but they'll likely be mostly excerpts and links. Stupid Monkey Planet will be filling in the gaps. Thanks!

Photo from source, Raw Story

[Excerpt]

Committee delays consideration of telecom immunity

The Senate Judiciary Committee is delaying consideration of a controversial proposal to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated a warrantless wiretapping program. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Terrorist Watch List Troubles

Photo from source, VOANews.com

What good is a "Terror Watch List," if it grows to such proportions that it is impossible to "watch" all those on it? Like everything else to come out of this administration, it's a mess. A big useless mess.

[Excerpt]

Problems with US Terrorist Watch List Prompt Concerns

The terrorist watch list, compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies, is used by the U.S. government to bar individuals who pose a threat to national security from entering the country through land border crossings, airports and seaports.

But in a new report, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, has found problems with the list. [snip]

The chairman of the Senate committee, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, expressed concern about the growth of the terrorist watch list, which the GAO report says has grown from 158,000 in June 2004 to 860,000 today. . .

Read the story at: VOANews.com

Verizon Supplied Data Without Court Order

Photo from source, RawStory.com

Yes, more on spying. You might find it boring, and easy to scroll past. Please don't. It is long past time for people to start feeling a little outrage. Not faux "flag pin" outrage. No silly "Petraeus/Betray Us" outrage. I'm talking, un-Constitutional, un-American, fundamentally wrong activity that should OUTRAGE any American.

[Excerpt]

Verizon provided data to Feds 720 times without court order or determining its legality

As Congress debates whether to shield phone and Internet companies from lawsuits alleging they mishandled customers' private records, Verizon, the nations second-largest telecommunications firm, said it has provided telephone and Internet records to federal investigators hundreds of times since 2005.

Verizon has provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis without a court order -- and without determining the requests' legality -- 720 times between January 2005 and September of this year. The company's revelation came in a 13-page letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee released Monday. . .

Please read the rest at: RawStory.com

They're Listening to You Too

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog has a very alarming post up right now regarding the electronic surveillance the Bush Administration has been conducting. Basically, if the government can monitor communications between the US and a "terrorist state," they then claim the right to do the same with the US-based persons calls to others. And their calls to others. And so on, wash, rinse, repeat.

I happen to have a family member who is from Iran. So, if he calls his family, and the government taps him, they then claim the right to tap him when he calls me. And if you've talked to me, they can tap you. Doesn't seem very American, does it? But don't worry, they tell us. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. You can trust the Bush Administration. . . Oh, and I have emailed John Aravosis too.

[Excerpt]

If you've ever emailed me, the government has the right to your email records

TPMmuckraker asks the following question today: "Quick, has anyone you know emailed anyone who's called Pakistan lately?"

The question reflects the Bush administration's new standard for permitting the federal government to illegally spy on your phone records. If you have been in contact with Party X, and Party X has been in contact with Party Y, and Party Y has contacted anyone in Pakistan, then any conversations, email or phone or otherwise, that you've had with Party X can be turned over to the government by our friendly phone companies in violation of federal law. . .

Read on at: AmericaBlog.com

Government Deploying Robot Spy Bugs?

Photo from source, WashingtonPost.com

Put on your tinfoil hat, folks. This one is creepy. . .but a little bit cool, too.

[Excerpt]

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs.

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Read the rest at: WashingtonPost.com

More Spying. . .Surprise!

Image from source, RawStory.com

Hey, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide, right? Right? Honestly, how does anybody trust this administration any more?

[Excerpt]

Pentagon acted with little oversight in spying on Americans, documents show

The Department of Defense has conspired with the FBI to "circumvent the law" in accessing hundreds of Americans' telephone, e-mail and financial records, say two civil liberties groups that released reams of new documents obtained in a contested public records request.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has challenged the Bush Administration's post-Sept. 11 spying authority, says the Pentagon has issued 455 National Security Letters in concert with the FBI to obtain Americans' private information it is not entitled to receive. . .

Read more at: RawStory.com

Surveillance Started BEFORE 9/11

I'm not sure why this story hasn't burst through into the mainstream, beyond Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Apparently, the Bush Administration was asking the telecommunications companies to spy domestically before 9/11.

This story, if borne out, means that the administration has been lying. Over and over and over again.

[Excerpt]

Congress suckered on surveillance. Telco immunity, next?

This is something that's now being whispered in nearly every conversation on the subject, but might as well be repeated here: the filings in the appeal of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio's insider trading case reveal that the Bush "administration" was pressuring telecommunications companies to cooperate in a massive domestic spying operation well before 9/11. [snip]

So here's the key. The domestic spying has always been justified by saying it was a necessary response to 9/11. But clearly there's damned good reason to believe these programs were conceived and initiated well before the September 11th attacks.

That would mean -- gasp! -- that your "government" is full of it. . .

Read the rest at: DailyKos.com

Terror Watch List: Excessive and Ineffective?

Image from source, RawStory.com

Well this is no surprise. When you get unfettered access to voluminous information, reviewing it all proves to be too large a task. Reason, logic and truth may prove to be problematic when running a campaign, but maybe it ought to be used in policy?

[Excerpt]

Terrorist watch list ineffective, prone to misuse, say privacy advocates

Questions have arisen over the United States government's use of its terrorist screening database, reports the Washington Post today.

While the database "flagged" people as suspected terrorists about 20,000 times in 2006, few were arrested or barred from entering the country as a result of being on the list.

Gathering data from an increasing number of resources, including airline data, government agencies use the database in situations such as a traffic stop or a border crossing. While the government has proven secretive on the individuals in the database and the data it has amassed, there are plans to share the data with "private sector groups."

Read the rest at: RawStory.com

Corporations Helped Bush Spy on Us

OK, I know--for some reason--that Americans in general are somehow unfazed by illegal wiretaps. They yawn at the possibility that they're being watched, tracked, listened to. I don't know how that happened, or how Conservatives--people allegedly dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution--are seemingly all for it.

The spectre of terrorism is used as an excuse, but I don't buy it. Are we more threatened by terrorism than we were by Nazis? Is the war on terror scarier and more dangerous to our safety than the Cold War? Need I remind people that we were hours from nuclear annihilation at one point? So why now is it necessary to dismantle the bill of rights? I don't get it.

Here's a story that lays out in more detail than I've seen before, just what they've been up to, and who is helping them. See if it bothers you. Oh, and if you believe the figure (later in the story) that only 100 Americans are being monitored, you are much less cynical than I am.

[Excerpt]

Spy Chief Reveals Classified Details

WASHINGTON — National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.

McConnell's comments _ made in an interview with the El Paso (Texas) Times last week and posted as a transcript on the newspaper's Web site Wednesday _ raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Among the disclosures:

• McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector assisted with President Bush's warrantless surveillance program. AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. "Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," McConnell said, arguing that they deserve immunity for their help. . .

See what else was disclosed at: HuffingtonPost.com

Update: More Info on FISA Changes

Photo from source, NewYorkTimes.com

The more I read about this, the more uneasy I get. And my "crossed fingers" that Democrats in Congress know what they're doing are past cramped, and turning gangrenous. When they come back in session, they'd better address this, because by then, I think they're going to have a firestorm on their hands.

NOTE: This is a revised version of the New York Times story I excerpted earlier, with updated information.

[Excerpt - emphasis mine]

Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under New Law

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said. [snip]

The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought. [snip]

Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States. . .

Read the whole story at: NewYorkTimes.com

FISA Changes, In Depth

Contributor/friend Lesto's comments on this issue prodded me to do a little more reading, to better understand the issue. This isn't about the FISA court's granting of warrants to legally wiretap. It's about rewriting the rules so that the warrants are no longer necessary. It's also about greatly expanded powers to spy--potentially on Americans. This isn't a Republican vs. Democrats issue folks, even if it is presented that way. This is a Constitutional crisis.

I am not comforted by "strict rules" that are allegedly in place. Government (whether headed by Democrats or Republicans) has shown a propensity to step right up to the line of what's legal. In fact, strict interpretation of legal vs. illegal seems to be the only concern as it regards Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. Why, there's no underlying crime! That's how far the bar has been lowered. Read on.

[Excerpt]

Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.

Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance. . .

The most troubling section, to me: Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. No, sir. Your duty is to "solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Big difference.

Read more at: NewYorkTimes.com

More Big Brother: TSA Monitoring Body Language

No, this isn't a follow-up to my post on the TV version of Big Brother, but the Orwellian variety. Earlier, I ran a piece on technology being developed at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security that could read body language and facial expressions. Well, I guess they couldn't wait, because TSA agents are now being trained to do just that.

[Excerpt]

TSA agents watch suspicious body language

New airport agents have been trained to check for bad intentions in travelers' facial expressions.

BY KAITLIN DIRRIG

WASHINGTON -- Next time you go to the airport, there may be more eyes on you than you notice.

Specially trained security personnel are watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions. The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant.

They're called behavior detection officers, and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month. He described them as ``a wonderful tool to be able to identify and do risk management prior to somebody coming into the airport or approaching the crowded checkpoint.''

Read more at: MiamiHerald.com