The National "Spy" Agency is at it again.....
And yes I do know that the S really stands for Security....but it should stand for "stupid".
Spying sure is cool!
More so when it is done in secret.
(But then isn't that what spying is all about??)
A firestorm is a brewing and what a storm it is beginning to look like....
A good overview of the latest controversy that King George's court finds itself in can be had by reading this guy's post on the matter at hand:
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1147411926.shtml
It seems the NSA has been getting it's hands into what is commonly referred to in the database business as "data mining", which is the collection of tons of information and that information is looked at to find patterns of sorts. Alot of companies do this to try and figure out demographics and buying patterns of their customers.
The latest "whammy" to come out of Washington pretty much says it all as far as I am concerned.
This administration and it's subsequent departments such as the NSA and the CIA are about as underhanded and deceiving to the American public as any government can be.
A Massive (probably the largest ever according to some sources) database of our personal information in the hands of the NSA and Bush says.....``The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities,'' Bush said. ``We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans".
Congress is vowing to investigate and demand answers from Gen. Hayden (the man who Bush has nominated to succeed Goss as the head of the CIA) in response to the government's secret collection of probably ALL of this nation's citizens phone records since 911 happened in 2001.
This was made public after anonymous sources revealed the operation to reporters of USA Today and following is the article that started this latest round of "we are within the law" by the current administration.....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
General Hayden was in charge of the NSA as it's chief during this time and is being brought to task as well as some of the biggest executives of the major telecoms that played a role in this ongoing and ever widening spy debacle that has been going on behind the backs of all of us without so much as a peep from our government.
A few quotes from the article as Bloomberg writes it as well as the link to that full story:
``We are on our way to a major constitutional confrontation on the Fourth Amendment guarantees on unreasonable searches and seizure,'' said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who sits on the intelligence subcommittee that was briefed on the program. ``This is also going to present a growing impediment to the confirmation to General Hayden.''
Bush, responding to the outcry, made a hastily arranged appearance at the White House where he defended the administration's spying efforts as necessary to fight terrorists. He didn't confirm or deny the program, which was reported yesterday by USA Today.
Click on link for full story as reported by Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aVcCH0K361lY&refer=us
The story also says that the "guts" of personal conversations are not being recorded but only the number dialed, how long the call lasts, where it originated and where it came from.
I am sorry but I do not believe this for a second. If they were trying to keep this whole thing secret, do you really think that they are going to admit to "listening" in on private conversations???
Wake up everyone....
Just a few months ago I remember Bush personally saying that none of the wire tapping and spying that the NSA was doing (that was revealed a few months back) had anything to do with private domestic phone calls and that only foreign connections were being monitored. I see a very diminished level of trust being further and further diminished by all of this.
So that was an OUTRIGHT LIE to all the people of the United States from it's president....
How much more should we be allowed to take??
This is deplorable to say the least.
But considering the age we are living in, it is not all that suprising to me.
Heck I wouldn't doubt it if the NSA has figured out a way to have the TVs in our homes act as sort of a "one way camera" where they can see all that is going on in each individual's home.
I sure am glad that I don't often watch TV in my bedroom!!!
If this guy ends up being confirmed as the head of the CIA, then there really are some powerful people behind him....and I am afraid this will happen so may I be one of the first to....."Welcome General Hayden to the CIA"
And last but not least......Sen's Trent Lott of Miss. and Pat Roberts of Kansas should be recalled by the constituency of their respective states for their comments on this debacle. It is amazing how so many people knew about this but when it comes out in the press, it seems like quite a few "high level" government officials are taken by surprise???
These two senator's comments on this affair:
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the program "is lawful and absolutely necessary" and said members of his committee have been properly briefed about it.
"Calls for further oversight are unnecessary," Roberts said.
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a member of the intelligence committee who's been briefed about the secret NSA program, said Specter should back off.
"Do we want security . . . or do we want to get in a twit about our civil libertarian rights?" he said.
A good Friday to all.
I think that the following quote sums up the legal position of the NSA.
ReplyDeleteQwest was the only major phone company to decline to turn over records to the NSA. Its lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. The agency declined; USA TODAY reported Thursday that two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said it was because the NSA thought the court would not agree to the plan.
NSA knew that the courts would have told them no way--and they did it anyway. Talk about a total disregard for your privacy and the law. It does not surprise me, though. Holding true to this administration's belief that states, "We can do what ever we want until we're forced to stop," they went ahead with their data-mining scheme.
Think about this: if three out of the four major communications networks are colluding with the government, there's a very real chance that you'll be able to see almost every phone call made in the U.S. The only calls that won't be visible to this program will be those made strictly between Qwest customers. In other words, if a Qwest customer calls an AT&T customer, you've captured the call because you're monitoring the AT&T side of the call.