Bingo. The best discussion I've found about this on the web tonight is at Josh Marshall's TPM Cafe.

Probably a reverse data mine, actually. They probably took some real AQ detainee's laptop, looked at the protocol (email addresses, common words used, Web Sites visited, etc.) and then searched every computer in America to see if they could find another user with the same protocol. When they did, they probably sought a warrant to investigate further. Of course, this is just a slightly higher-tech version of wiretapping every Arab American in the United States and listening for certain code words.

yes, data mining; also, the ability to examine emails retroactively. This really is Big Brother.
I suspect there is also an improvement in voice transcription technology involved. These powers are scary, but I think with oversight, and especially with division of responsibility, they could be handled.

One also wonders, if like Nixon, Bush used his wiretapping to get an edge in the 2004 presidential campaign since I understand this has been going on since then...

Cripes, Kevin, people have been trying to point this technology factor out to you since this morning.

Oh crap!

Everyone knows now, that’s just great!

Uh uh, your not done, there’s more to tell.

The administration keeps saying the program “targets those with known ties to al qaeda.” They not say that they are monitoring only these targets. How many people associated with these targets are under surveillance? How many layers deep does the surveillance go? These questions must be a subject of inquiry.

Cripes, Kevin, people have been trying to point this technology factor out to you since this morning.

Right tbrosz. Sheesh, if Kevin just reads something other than his typical left wing blogs he would have realized that.

The original description of the program picked up by CNN and local news is a lie. The NSA has not been eavesdropping on people with a suspected tie to suspicious person overseas. The NSA has been sifting through EVERYBODY'S communication, at least international, probably domestic as well. This will come out soon enough. The question is, Will the public care?

"searched every computer in America to see if they could find another user with the same protocol."?

That's simply not possible. I'm willing to believe that there's a fair amount of wiretapping going on at the major ISPs and Internet backbones, but there's just no way they could be doing that without being caught. People monitor network traffic.

The NSA has been sifting through EVERYBODY'S communication, at least international, probably domestic as well.

And think how much more efficient it would be if you let them look for other crimes besides terrorism. After all, Al Qaeda only managed to kill about 3000 people, that's nothing compared to domestic murders. I think this modest proposal would be well-received by most of our law-abiding citizens.

Al:

That wasn't the point. This was on KEVIN'S blog. The first commenter I noticed that linked to someone with this theory was shrink in sf. Of course, Kevin dismissed this mass monitoring rationale then as "laughable."

When Kevin was later puzzling until his puzzler was sore about why the administration couldn't use the standard FISA channels when the FISA was so cooperative, I pointed out the technology issue again. I wasn't the only one, either.

It's the most obvious reason I could think of for this situation, and it's equally obvious that releasing enough information to satisfy the vultures would destroy the operation.

Who knows how many computers the NSA searched? It's still a fishing expedition. And it's illegal.

And another proposal. All this use of words like "terrorism" and "insurgent" in blog comments, is likely to burden the NSA's computers. In the spirit of helping them catch bad guys, I propose that henceforth we should pig-latinize watch words (and don't tell any errorist-tays that you might know; wouldn't want to tip our hand, now, would we?)

And what the heck is the Pig Latin for that i-word, any way? I can never remember that part of the rule.

Well, that would square with this little nugget from the NYT story:

"A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials. While not knowing all the details of the exchange, several government lawyers said there appeared to be concerns that the Justice Department, by trying to shield the existence of the N.S.A. program, was in danger of misleading the court about the origins of the information cited to justify the warrants.

"One official familiar with the episode said the judge insisted to Justice Department lawyers at one point that any material gathered under the special N.S.A. program not be used in seeking wiretap warrants from her court. Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not return calls for comment."

It's just fishing with a big net versus using a line and sinker for one lone fish.

FISC does approve batch processing, but each name still needs to be validated individually. NSA wanted to take in as much as they could and sort through it later, often using names that elicited vague suspicion but not anything solid enough for a warrant; but then it would also be a pain in the ass for the FISC admin to approve a computer generated list so large in the time NSA wanted to process it.

From the NYT:

> "People are running around saying that the United States is somehow
> spying on American citizens calling their neighbors," Mr. Gonzales
> said. In fact, he said, it was "very, very important to understand"
> that the program is limited to calls and communications between the
> United States and foreign countries.

Thank you, We-don't-need-no-steekeng-Geneva-Conventions Gonzalez.

"...their neighbors." Right. White Miracle Whip America
needn't worry at *all* about this. Just thim greasy furriners.

Hey listen up, asshole -- I have a very, very good friend overseas I
speak to about three times a week. I suspect that many Americans do
as well, not to mention those of us with family in the middle east.

> Bush said, "People will say, if we're trying to make
> the case on Iran, well, the intelligence failed in Iraq,
> therefore how can we trust the intelligence in Iran?"
> Later, he added, "It's no question that the credibility
> of intelligence is necessary for good diplomacy."

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

What a fucking *imbecile* this guy is ...

Bob

Here's an idea:

It's just TIA gone secret. They take lots of data - financial transactions, travel, whatever else they can find - and they try to find patterns that relate to certain characteristics. The taps are a way of testing their efficacy of their assumptions and technique. In a way, they're sort of incidental, more for model checking than operational use.

Another possible facet of this is that the NSA may have contracted some of the sorting work out to a third-party vendor using proprietary software. Depending on the extent of that outsourcing (if any) the company may have been given primary collection responsibility, meaning they select the names and pull the data, which would establish a super-inconvenient scheme to approach the FIS Court with.

Carnivore.

Echelon.

I suggest doing a Google search on these terms. Perhaps enter "FBI" or "NSA" in the search field.

Lovely stuff.

Although it's not quite the same thing, it might be interesting to bring the Able Danger program into this kind of discussion.

Here's something on numbers from the original NYT article:

While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials.

That sounds like something fairly broadband to me. Also, 500 people at a time on a constantly-changing list might make jumping through even expedited FISA hoops a little tough.

Also from that story:

Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A. monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.

So, while not everything they looked at panned out, you can hardly say the program didn't work, either.

The key seems to be from Sen. Rockefeller's letter: he's bothered by the program because (a) it reminds him of the John Poindexter's TIA project [a government group performing computer analysis against all public databases], and (b) he's not allowed to discuss it with "technical" staff so he can understand the details of what's actually being done.

Also, remember that the NYT admits they concealed some important information about the program at the administration's request. And even still, the white house is pissed that the story was published at all. But just getting faster wiretaps doesn't seem worth the risk and uproar-- they could already, legally, wiretap first and run to the FISA court second. Perhaps they were pissed about the story because there's more, much more... and they know that the really big shit is going to hit the fan any day now...

This ain't your momma's phone taps. This sounds like it could be something really, really big.

If it's automatic computer monitoring of a wide range of communications, it would explain why they can't just back off. Because there are no courts, not even FISA, capable of granting government spying access to the entire country at once. And it's obvious that such spying would have intel value. As long, of course, as you don't mind living in a police state.

So if the idea is that ALL email is being recorded & stored in some monster pile, then what the NSA is doing is simply looking through it retroactively. Three notes:

GMail says it will store all email indefinitely.

Back 25 years ago, the New Statesman's Duncan Campbell (UK) broke a story that MI5 or 6 (I never knew the difference) had bugged every phone in the UK & whenever there was some great crime or event to investigate, would go back through masses of tapes looking for key words & phrases. I was skeptical, but they had investigaged, I was only a reader.

These techniques are sledgehammer work, fit only for investigative idiots. Which brings me to:

What's the difference between NSA techniques & Google?

Trackback doesn't appear to be working....

Reference of article at politiblogs.com

...There is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to know the distinction between the two....We used the [FISA] process to monitor. But also....we've got to be able to detect and prevent."

Ah! We must be talking about Bush's new Precrime unit!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121900924.html

Note Bush approval is rebounding. Just wanted to keep you in the loop and out of the bubble.

BTW - soon terrorists will change e-mail handles after every post according to some prearranged code to beat the eavesdropper. Thanks to your patriotic leaking NYT! Hope they trow the leaker in Leavenworth for 20 years.

tbrosz: it's equally obvious that releasing enough information to satisfy the vultures would destroy the operation

Is "vultures" the new term for people who think that the president shouldn't be allowed to violate the law? Or who believe in quaint Constitutional notions like oversight and separation of powers?

and it's equally obvious that releasing enough information to satisfy the vultures would destroy the operation

But, but, but -- I ALREADY assume that people are reading my email, if only by accident (I can fumble-finger an address with the best of them). All well-run ISPs provide SSL access to their mailers; and while I would not want to bet against the NSA breaking any one SSL connection, millions a day is a tall order even for them. The mail is still stored in cleartext at the various servers, but that sort of search is much closer to a traditional warrant (and the putative owner of the data is readily identified). I expect that errorist-tays would at least be using SSL. That leaves maybe a network analysis, but that's about it.

Do we have the word of anyone credible (i.e., someone other than the usual Republican crooks and liars) that this was actually good for anything that would have been legal, if only they had gotten the FISA warrants?

tbrosz,
Even if helped nab the trucker in Ohio, was there no other way to find him? How helpful was the program? In any fishing expedition you're likely to catch something. But the Fourth Amendment explicitly prohibits fishing expeditions of this sort. I'll agree with Senator Sununu on this. If you're willing to give up basic liberties in order to have temprorary security, then you deserve neither liberty nor security.

Which number is greater? The number of times bush has "reauthorized" this program, or the number of vacations he has taken?

The conservosphere seems to be making light of the http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/usc_sec_50_00001802----000-.html law. Since March 05, looks like W would have been off the hook. Since the program took place before that law hit the books, I'd say he's still on the hook. But what's scary to me is that they've gone back and changed the law to allow this sort of thing untrammeled by judicial oversight. Scary.

www.progunprogressive.com

The original description of the program picked up by CNN and local news is a lie. The NSA has not been eavesdropping on people with a suspected tie to suspicious person overseas. The NSA has been sifting through EVERYBODY'S communication, at least international, probably domestic as well. This will come out soon enough. The question is, Will the public care?

Posted by: nycq on December 19, 2005 at 11:42 PM | PERMALINK

Coupled with Bush's kidnapping citizens and suspected brown men, shipping them off to secret prisons to be tortured and killed, the public might start to awake from their centennial slumber.

tbrosz [quoting NYT]: Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches

Bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches? I guess we're scraping the bottom of the barrel on terrorists these days. Hopefully all the good ones have already killed themselves.

If it's automatic computer monitoring of a wide range of communications, it would explain why they can't just back off. Because there are no courts, not even FISA, capable of granting government spying access to the entire country at once. And it's obvious that such spying would have intel value. As long, of course, as you don't mind living in a police state.

This is exactly correct. If it were possible for the government to use technology to sort through every digital communication, it's easy to see how this could uncover a terrorist plot before people were killed. On the other hand, do we really want to cede this sort of power to the government?

Another possible facet of this is that the NSA may have contracted some of the sorting work out to a third-party vendor using proprietary software.
Posted by: bubba on December 20, 2005 at 12:01 AM | PERMALINK

Another interesting point, Bubba.

This is what one provider advertises publicly.

http://www.verisign.com/products-services/communications-services/connectivity-and-interoperability-services/calea-compliance/page_CS_CIS_NETDISCOVERY.html

http://www.verisign.com/products-services/communications-services/connectivity-and-interoperability-services/calea-compliance/page_dev029254.html

http://www.verisign.com/products-services/communications-services/connectivity-and-interoperability-services/calea-compliance/page_dev029258.html

A question. What kinds of barriers are there for sharing of intelligence between the NSA and DOD, specifically in regards to US civillian data?

...bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches....

Ya' gotta' be kidding. That's a laffer, but well in keeping with OBL's low tech war that has Americans too terrified to live life either bravely or free. My sources in the terrorist networks tell me they've switched to unbreakable smoke signal codes employed in hookah bars.

My guess is that the wiretaps are being chosen automatically. Obviously they can't monitor every overseas conversation, but they could use a computer program to pick which get monitored. The code isn't good enough for a FISA judge, and this would sound like TIA. The difference between detecting and monitoring? Detecting is while you are still looking, once a person finds something of interest you get monitored. Until then, the computers look at timestamps, call patterns, caller locations, etc.

David

I'll agree with Senator Sununu on this. If you're willing to give up basic liberties in order to have temprorary security, then you deserve neither liberty nor security.

Did Senator Sununu credit Ben Franklin as the original source of that quote?

"And what the heck is the Pig Latin for that i-word, any way? I can never remember that part of the rule."
Posted by: dr2chase on December 19, 2005 at 11:53 PM

Itay ependsday onay ethay ialectday. Erewhay Iay omecay omfray, itay ouldway ebay "insurgentay".

rmck1: I have a very, very good friend overseas I speak to about three times a week.

So you admit that you're a terrorist.

BTW - soon terrorists will change e-mail handles after every post according to some prearranged code to beat the eavesdropper.
Posted by: McAristotle on December 20, 2005 at 12:06 AM | PERMALINK

Yeah, because NOBODY ever thought of using an AOL CD with free hours to register dozens of bogus accounts to log on with anonymity.

Get a new brain McAnus. Your old one is past it's warranty, and it shows.

Elrod:

I'll agree with Senator Sununu on this. If you're willing to give up basic liberties in order to have temporary security, then you deserve neither liberty nor security.

That, of course, assumes that Sununu, or the American people for that matter, are willing to live with the consequences of a less effective intelligence system. Refusing to trade one's freedom for more safety is a valid concept in a free country. But if something bad happens in the next few years, good luck selling that to the average citizen. "Why didn't they connect the dots?" is what you'll hear.

In over four years we have not had another attack on U.S. soil, something that still surprises the hell out of me. Something seems to be working.

"McAnus." Do you people think these up in the middle of the night, write them on a pad by your bed, and giggle about it all the next morning?

Someone beat me the punch and the person even shares my initials. So strange.

As JG put it, I strongly suggest doing some reading on Echelon. The EU put a lot of information on Echelon into public record based on their concerns about US spying on Europe businesses.

Echelon is supposed to only be used on foreign countries. Turning on U.S. communication would be a major change. It is also the most likely thing that NSA would be able to turn on the project so quickly after 9/11.

Carnivore is also an interesting facet of Echelon. Carnivore is a tool. Echelon is the program.

When you read about Echelon, it sounds crackpot, but a lot of the information is available in public record and acknowledge by other countries. I believe Australlia's prime minister (or former PM) is on the record about Echelon.

Osama_Been_Forgotten: Yeah, because NOBODY ever thought of using an AOL CD with free hours to register dozens of bogus accounts to log on with anonymity.

Of course not. Before this terrorists just assumed that their communications couldn't be tracked, and typically wrote emails like:

From: "Osama bin Laden"
To: "Mohammed Atta"
Subject: Planned terrorist attack in America
Date: Sept. 10, 2001

Dear Mohammed,

Please find attached a list of your co-jihadists, their current locations, phone numbers, contact information, and the flights they plan to take in order to hijack the planes and fly them into large buildings.

P.S. Do *not* show this email to US law enforcement officials.

The first paragraph in the Elrod reply above should be in italics.

In over four years we have not had another attack on U.S. soil, something that still surprises the hell out of me. Something seems to be working.

Posted by: tbrosz on December 20, 2005 at 12:24 AM | PERMALINK

Clinton managed to not have another attack by Al Qaeda on U.S. soil for eight years. WTC in 1993, and then not until 2001.

tbrosz,

At the present time, it doesn't matter whether the American people are "willing to live with the consequences of a less effective intelligence system." The fourth amendment to the US Constitution clearly protects these same citizens from unreasonable searches. If the US citizenry would like to give up that protection, they can do so through a Constitutional amendment.

On another note, isn't it ironic that if this fucking administration had heeded warnings of an imminent terrorist attack in the summer of '01 (gathered through old-fashioned, legal methods, I might add) there would never have been a 9/11 and by extension, this current crisis. Incredible

tbrosz wrote: "That, of course, assumes that Sununu, or the American people for that matter, are willing to live with the consequences of a less effective intelligence system."

We managed to survive the cold war with a "less effective intelligence system," tbrosz. Are you asserting that the danger is greater now than it was then? And hell, yes, I'm willing to live with the consequences.

"Refusing to trade one's freedom for more safety is a valid concept in a free country."

Gee, how nice of you to acknowledge that.

"But if something bad happens in the next few years, good luck selling that to the average citizen. 'Why didn't they connect the dots?' is what you'll hear."

And most likely appropriately so, since we didn't need this kind of monitoring or the Patriot Act or any of these new powers to have stopped 9/11.

"In over four years we have not had another attack on U.S. soil, something that still surprises the hell out of me. Something seems to be working."

Oh, please...not that same old bullshit again. I'm not even going to bother.

In over four years we have not had another attack on U.S. soil, something that still surprises the hell out of me. Something seems to be working.

Tell that to someone in London. Where, by the by, they don't have a Constitution that "fetters" their Parliament and executive branch, and intelligence services have considerbly more leeway to operate.

Laugh it up about the Brooklyn Bridge.

More on Faris here.

The plot was called off because of tight security at the bridge, not because it would be infeasible to weaken the 15" multiple-wire cables with an acytelene torch.

alex:

> rmck1: I have a very, very good friend
> overseas I speak to about three times a week.

> So you admit that you're a terrorist.

Well, if you put it *that* way ...

Bob

I found more on the bridge here. Fortunately, there's more redundancy to the structure than I thought.

Just for starters:

Echelon -- here and here.

Echelon and Carnivore -- here.

Carnivore -- here.

Links include other links and lots more if you Google around.

That, of course, assumes that Sununu, or the American people for that matter, are willing to live with the consequences of a less effective intelligence system.

The words of a coward.

tbrosz,
First, I should point out, as Global Citizen did, that Sununu was quoting Ben Franklin. Anyway, I think the larger principle is what makes America America. Do we make policy in a moment of panic, or upon sober and deliberate analysis? Shortly after 9/11 Americans were terrified of everything. I distincly remember playing a softball game a week after 9/11 and everybody looking suspiciously at an airplane heading toward O'Hare Airport. Of course there was nothing abnormal about the flight path, but none of us ever noticed it before. Americans, myself included, were paranoid in the weeks after 9/11. But did that paranoia warrant the surrender of basic liberties? Apparently Russ Feingold was the only Senator who thought otherwise in those weeks. Not only was he the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. He was the only Senator to actually read the entire Patriot Act before the vote. Looking back, Feingold was the voice of sanity, not John Ashcroft and others who rammed through a Patriot Act that included a host of dubious provisions that never even received any debate on the Hill.

Yes, it's remarkable that we haven't been attacked since 9/11. It's remarkable that we were only attacked once between the WTC bomb of 2/93 and 9/11/01, and that was at Oklahoma City. Frankly, I think it's luck. Terrorists plotted awful things throughout Clinton's Presidency - the Lincoln and Holland Tunnel bombings, the Millennium airport bombings, etc. Old-fashioned detective work and luck helped stop those plots. Perhaps the same has happened under Bush as well. But I've seen no evidence that we need to surrender ourselves to mass warrantless surveillance, imprisonment without habeas corpus, or any other draconian measure proposed by the Bush Administration in order to have more security. The time to judge whether or not we should restrict these liberties is not in the panic immediately following an attack, but in the months and years that follow when lawmakers can soberly examine what sort of balance we need to strike between liberty and security. The NSA spying program, if it's the sort of massive data mining project we think, is far too intrusive for those who actually care about civil liberties. Whether that includes the majority of Americans, I have no idea.

The plot was called off because of tight security at the bridge, not because it would be infeasible to weaken the 15" multiple-wire cables with an acytelene torch.

Or you'd be completely wrong once again.

Faris admitted to traveling to New York City in late 2002 to examine the bridge, and said he concluded that the plot to destroy the bridge by severing cables was unlikely to succeed because of the bridge's security and structure.

Unlikely that high-tech intelligence is making us safer. Osama found out back before 9/11 that we were listening in on cell phone conversations - isn't that how Clinton knew where to send the cruise missiles that one time? They're learned that lesson, which is why they use human couriers for their messages these days.

The main reason we haven't been attacked over here is that W and his Bush League minions are doing exactly what Osama bin Ladin wanted: conducting a war of aggression against a secular Muslim country. We're doing Osama's recruiting for him, and destroying our reputation for freedom at the same time. He won't attack us over here again unless we start doing something intelligent - and there's no danger of that with the big W in charge...

Meanwhile, we're getting set up to have a religious theocracy imposed upon us by the Bush League.

Tbrosz:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams

And what a great plot this is, my friend. For only $99 (American), I will sell you a plot to take don the Brooklyn Bridge!

This plot not only comes with unsurveillable email communications (pig latin not included), it also comes with ACETYLENE TORCHES! How much would you pay? $299? $199? No! for only [blink tag]*$99*[/blink tag] you have your VERY OWN PLOT TO BRING DOWN THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE!

Operators are standing by!

Another possible facet of this is that the NSA may have contracted some of the sorting work out to a third-party vendor using proprietary software.
Posted by: bubba on December 20, 2005 at 12:01 AM | PERMALINK

Choicepoint comes to mind.

Also, a while back there was some bit about NSA peep/s working for Google.

I am so non-plussed my head hurts...How is this happening in a country as well-armed as we are?

"Praise Allah! We start cutting the cables at 0700 ... now"
*Sssssss*
"So, how long is this going to take?" ssssssss
"No time! Look, I'm almost through the first strand." ssssss....
*SNAP* Thread, under tons of tension, snaps and cuts Terrorist #1 in half
Ssssss...
Terrorist #3 to #2: Points to still-lit torch. "You gonna pick that up?"
"How many strands are left?"
"Six thousand."
"I got a better idea. Lets go on liberal message boards and troll as conservative twits."
"Praise Allah! Done."

I am so non-plussed my head hurts...How is this happening in a country as well-armed as we are?

Because the ones with the guns voted for this asshole?

drjimcooper, David, others: Thanks for the good work. This is big. We have to get it out there so the media and Congress will ask questions.

The confusion cleared up right after I hit "post"

Global Citizen:

Because 20 fanatical mongos armed with box cutters and incomplete flying lessons crashed through our deepest vulnerablity as a free nation: Our openness.

All the smart bombs and night-vision goggles in the world can't plug that gap -- which is the price of freedom.

And we, so used to feeling invulnerable, an exception among nations steeped in histories of bloody conflict, became as Adam after the Fall -- ashamed at our nakedness.

And so, here we stand, leaving the Garden of our civil liberties, some of us looking over our shoulders in deepest regret.

Bob

Beautifully, elloquently put, Bob.

I am just quixotic enough to believe that it is not too late - not yet - we still have a chance to round up these rascals, hold them to account, and take back our country, damnit!!!

In the meantime the flag that my husband received upon his retirement is hanging in our patio doors, at distress.

Bob:

Well said and apt.

Dan Kervick recently posted a similar thought about "openness." Hopefully he won't mind me reposting it here:

Perhaps you believe that Father George, your Glorious Leader, has some sort of extrasensory perception that enables him to identify terrorists with infallible accuracy. I don't.

Americans are not cowards - at least not most of them. In order to protect themselves from tyranny and oppression, they are willing to accept checks and limitations on government power. And they know that these limitations can in some situations leave them less safe than they would be if they had a government that was free to spy on or lock up everyone who looked funny or said something suspicious.

If you live out in the open air, rather than cowering indoors, you accept a greater chance that someone may shoot at you. If you choose to live in the open space of liberty, you accept some of the risks that attend liberty. You accept that saying "no" to fear and totalitarian government means placing your safety in a certain amout of jeopardy, along with the rest of your fellow-citizens.

It's funny how so many of the President's supporters, who like to extol the sacrifices that the War on Terrorism imposes on us, are unwilling to make the most basic sacrifice that all Americans have been asked to make in ever generation - the sacrifice of their absolute safety in exchange for freedom. But that's the only reason for many that the country is worth dying for in the first place.

I'm grown so weary of the un-American fascist cowards who have somehow come to run our country, with their hatred of the constitution, and their stables of ambitiously servile and obeisant lawyers providing opinions to protect them against future prosecution.

Posted by: Dan Kervick on December 17, 2005 at 7:52 PM | PERMALINK

Global:

You know what totally demoralizes me? All these ends-justifed arguments. Gonzales says "oh, it only affects phone calls to foreign countries." Bush says "we can't be a single day without these powers." Republicans say "And what will the Democrats do when there's another 9/11?" Krauthammer says "surely no one would question the morality of torture if it prevented a catastrophic loss of civilian life."

Where is the idea of inviolable principle? Where is the idea that if we become like our enemies, our enemies have won? Where is the respect for the founding document of this nation -- the one the president is sworn to uphold?

I feel like I'm going to fucking start crying and never stop sometimes ...

Bob

Did anyone see the article about the USAF Reserve Lt. Colonel who was arrested for vandalizing cars with pro-bush and pro-limbaugh bumper stickers?

Clark nailed it at the convention when he said "any political party that claims to have exclusive support of the American military is perpetrating a fraud against the American people."

Funny how the vets returning from war and running for office are running as Democrats in something like 8 out of 10 instances, isn't it?

The USSID (18) covering this type of activity is specific on what can be done, but not clear on what can't be done. If I am monitoring a cell tower (by satelite, drone, or tactical vehicle) how do I know when I have my suspect? I can either have pre-information on his exact telecommunication freq, or I can open each packet, look at the information and dump the chaffe. But, by opening Joe Blows packet, I could technically be spying on US citizen. By getting a voice message out of the airwaves (perfetly legal) that is critical, no work can be done until geolocated. If that now turns out to be 3.5 miles off NY coast that is ok. If it is in NY city, that is spying on US citizen and discarded. How do you know where it is until it is processed? If it turns out to be in the US, then it can not be processed. But wouldn't you want to find out if it is ok to use before useing it. (mixed thoughts on whether to use it. I personally am scared of internal CONUS processing, but also don't want to see more attacks)
This is not wiretapping or data mining, it is clearing out the chaffe. That is why Rockefeller is concerned with technology, it is detecting not monitoring, and collection methods are always classified (remember we never acknowledged we had sattelited until late 1970)

Now they are vandalizing cars out of frustration and a breakdown of perceived order. These are the guys with the weaponry...Can anyone say "bloody coup?"

I am starting to become very frightened at the prospects that are held by the very near future.

Global and/or Windhorse:

Forgive my ignorance of basic civics, but what does an American flag flown at distress look like?

I'm assuming it's not half-mast.

Bob

A flag at distress has the field of stars in the lower right corner, versus the upper left. In the common vernacular, it is upside down.

Here's one mainstream conservative who gets it:

Why Didn't He Ask Congress?

By George F. Will
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; Page A31

The president's authorization of domestic surveillance by the National
Security Agency contravened a statute's clear language. Assuming that
urgent facts convinced him that he should proceed anyway and on his
own, what argument convinced him that he lawfully could?

Presumably the argument is that the president's implied powers as
commander in chief, particularly with the nation under attack and some
of the enemy within the gates, are not limited by statutes. A
classified legal brief probably makes an argument akin to one Attorney
General John Ashcroft made in 2002: "The Constitution vests in the
president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence
surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their
agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional
authority."

Perhaps the brief argues, as its author, John Yoo -- now a professor
of law at Berkeley but then a deputy assistant attorney general --
argued 14 days after Sept. 11, 2001, in a memorandum on "the
president's constitutional authority to conduct military operations
against terrorists and nations supporting them," that the president's
constitutional power to take "military actions" is "plenary." The
Oxford English Dictionary defines "plenary" as "complete, entire,
perfect, not deficient in any element or respect."

The brief should be declassified and debated, beginning with this
question: Who decides which tactics -- e.g., domestic surveillance --
should be considered part of taking "military actions''?

Without more information than can be publicly available concerning
threats from enemies operating in America, the executive branch
deserves considerable discretion in combating terrorist conspiracies
using new technologies such as cell phones and the Internet. In
September 2001, the president surely had sound reasons for desiring
the surveillance capabilities at issue.

But did he have sound reasons for seizing them while giving only
minimal information to, and having no formal complicity with,
Congress? Perhaps. But Congress, if asked, almost certainly would have
made such modifications of law as the president's plans required.
Courts, too, would have been compliant. After all, on Sept. 14, 2001,
Congress had unanimously declared that "the president has authority
under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of
international terrorism," and it had authorized "all necessary and
appropriate force" against those involved in Sept. 11 or threatening
future attacks.

For more than 500 years -- since the rise of nation-states and
parliaments -- a preoccupation of Western political thought has been
the problem of defining and confining executive power. The problem is
expressed in the title of a brilliant book, "Taming the Prince: The
Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power," by Harvey Mansfield, Harvard's
conservative.

Particularly in time of war or the threat of it, government needs
concentrated decisiveness -- a capacity for swift and nimble action
that legislatures normally cannot manage. But the inescapable
corollary of this need is the danger of arbitrary power.

Modern American conservatism grew in reaction against the New Deal's
creation of the regulatory state, and the enlargement of the executive
branch power that such a state entails. The intellectual vigor of
conservatism was quickened by reaction against the Great Society and
the aggrandizement of the modern presidency by Lyndon Johnson, whose
aspiration was to complete the project begun by Franklin Roosevelt.

Because of what Alexander Hamilton praised as "energy in the
executive," which often drives the growth of government, for years
many conservatives were advocates of congressional supremacy. There
were, they said, reasons why the Founders, having waged a
revolutionary war against overbearing executive power, gave the
legislative branch pride of place in Article I of the Constitution.

One reason was that Congress's cumbersomeness, which is a function of
its fractiousness, is a virtue because it makes the government slow
and difficult to move. But conservatives' wholesome wariness of
presidential power has been a casualty of conservative presidents
winning seven of the past 10 elections.

Does anyone remember the New Yorker article with Lawrence Ellison, in which he comments on the data mining that Oracle is doing for the US Gov't? I can't find it online or in Lexis.

The key quote was Ellison (paraphrased): 'Don't trouble me with these precious concerns about privacy. We crossed that threshold years ago. You have no idea what we're capable of doing now.'

Will's column, finis:

On the assumption that Congress or a court would have been cooperative
in September 2001, and that the cooperation could have kept necessary
actions clearly lawful without conferring any benefit on the nation's
enemies, the president's decision to authorize the NSA's surveillance
without the complicity of a court or Congress was a mistake. Perhaps
one caused by this administration's almost metabolic urge to keep
Congress unnecessarily distant and hence disgruntled.

Charles de Gaulle, a profound conservative, said of another such, Otto
von Bismarck -- de Gaulle was thinking of Bismarck not pressing his
advantage in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War -- that genius sometimes
consists of knowing when to stop. In peace and in war, but especially
in the latter, presidents have pressed their institutional advantages
to expand their powers to act without Congress. This president might
look for occasions to stop pressing.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Bear in mind -- I loathe this guy. But this is just to remind
wingnuts that some of their heroes haven't drunk the Kool-Aid.

Bob

Does anyone remember the New Yorker article with Lawrence Ellison, in which he comments on the data mining that Oracle is doing for the US Gov't? I can't find it online or in Lexis.

The key quote was Ellison (paraphrased): 'Don't trouble me with these precious concerns about privacy. We crossed that threshold years ago. You have no idea what we're capable of doing now.'

Posted by: djangone on December 20, 2005 at 1:55 AM | PERMALINK

Have you seen this? ->http://www.optimizemag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166403982

Global Citizen >"...In the meantime the flag that my husband received upon his retirement is hanging in our patio doors, at distress."

Bless both of ya...

"There's this peculiar asymmetry in time which is that you can know
everything you want about the past and you can't change a bit of it
and you can know absolutely nothing about the future but what you
do changes everything." - Stewart Brand

Massive data mining indeed: the NSA monitors ALL communications satellite traffic in realtime. See http://cryptome.org/sigint-hr-dc.htm#ECHELON
The NSA is the largest intelligence agency in the world.

i'm a geek so i thought it went without saying, the internet depends on the worldwide satellite network extensively, so not only all voice communications but all internet traffic is monitored in realtime by a phalanx of supercomputers which are part of the ECHELON system. There's more we don't know than what we know, of course.

djangone >"...Lawrence Ellison, in which he comments on the data mining that Oracle is doing for the US Gov't?..."

no surprise there

Mr. Ellison & his company were started by the U.S. intelligence community to do exactly that

"There's this peculiar asymmetry in time which is that you can know
everything you want about the past and you can't change a bit of it
and you can know absolutely nothing about the future but what you
do changes everything." - Stewart Brand

i just caught an NSA flag for writing about ECHELON in all caps.....

Osama found out back before 9/11 that we were listening in on cell phone conversations - isn't that how Clinton knew where to send the cruise missiles that one time? They're learned that lesson, which is why they use human couriers for their messages these days.

Remember how Osama found that out?

throsz:

You're so right, dude.

Why in god's name did we ever include that pesky First Amendment?

Bob

Tbrosz, the blow torch idea was idiotic. Everyone knows you take out steel structures with thermite and asbestos blankets.

throsz:

Notice how yer buddy George Will eviscerates your carping at Congress?

Nice, huh ...

Bob

Osama_Been:

I'm surprised you can quote Samuel Adams without your brain exploding. You might want to look up the context of that quote.

Why in god's name did we ever include that pesky First Amendment?

I seriously doubt that the main reason freedom of the press was protected by the Founding Fathers was so that newspapers could print America's military secrets.

Remember how Osama found that out?

No, but I remember who armed him, trained him, and whose support of repressive regimes in the ME created him in the first place.

I also remember who didn't take the intel warnings seriously and went on vacation instead.

All of which is more relevant.

throsz:

You might want to grapple with Will's argument against unchecked executive power.

It's nicely historically contextualized, and places Will's objection well within the mainstream of modern conservative thought.

Bob

All the conservative moaning about how uber-surveillance is helping us catch terrorists is really quite a load of b.s.

We don't need to watch everybody constantly to stop a few violent guys. What you watch everybody constantly for is so you can oppress everybody and enforce a narrow, political uniformity on a nation. It's a Gestapo.

These are just a bunch of nutty, McCarhtyist Republicans running this shit. Anything to fuel their paranoid little fantasies and to spend their whole entire lives playing soldier, like when they were kids. They just love labeling people 'semi-communists' and then watching them to see if they speed when they drive, spill their yogurt on the kitchen floor every once in a while, etc.

It's just a power-trip. The president should follow the law.

First of all, Kevin, many people have been complaining about Echelon for years, not least the European Parliment. You may not feel such people are worth taking seriously, but in that case, you have the burden of proof of arguing that the current situation merits being taken seriously and Echelon does not.

Given that Bush can monitor all the international communications he wants under UKUSA agreement, without even bothering with FISA, these are the likely objectives here:

1) To make the US ubiquitous survellience franchise independent of our allies. This would be consisent with Bush's general policies.

2) To extend Echelon in effect, though possibly as another program, to domestic survellience.

In either case, Echelon is central to the discussion, and I'm sorry if acknowledging the importance of this forces you to re-evaluatre some previously held assumptions.

throsz:

It was a secret that America monitors the cell phone calls of its sworn implacable foreign enemies?

If Osama didn't believe it before -- his bad for one seriously whopping brainfart.

Bob

deCascadian: Great quote!

But Oracle actually got its start by snatching SQL from under IBM's noses and making a business of it. Ellison's cutthroat business practices proved a perfect match for government data work, though.

I'm really wishing I could find that article now, because Oracle is going to be shown to be the company closest to the heart of this, bet you a PETA data mine.

I thought we learned about cell phone tracking missiles when the Russians killed Dzhokhar Dudaev in 1996. I'm not sure why it was publicized, but I thought it was because the russians were proud of their accomplishment.

After that no high value targets with appropriate levels of paranoia would allow a cell phone in their presence.

Remember how Osama found that out?

I believe it was from the Washington Times, my favorite cult newsrag.

Seriously Tom, you're an engineer, so I must assume you've seen welding torches before. Do you really think a plot to cut the Brooklyn Bridge's suspension cables - without being detected - seriously? That's a little like flashing an AFA workshop. I used to expect more of you. As it is...I can only quote Billy Pilgrim, "So it goes."

Echelon has been around for a long time and no one has ever complained about it before

Excuse me, I think you mean no American has complained: we're not thrilled about being spied on by an ally (allies on paper, at least).

LW Phil:

I believe you are correct about the Washington Times being the leak source, which doesn't vindicate them in my mind at all. Remember, it was also Fox News that was one of the worst spreaders of false information during the Katrina hurricane.

To be more precise, I think it was satellite phone tracking that was compromised, not cell phones.

I'm an aerospace designer. I have no idea how well an acetylene torch could cut through a multiple-wire cable, since I've never used one. I would imagine it would take hours. For the record, I don't do much carpentry either.

Electronic Privacy Information Center has been complaining about it for years (epic.org), as have other privacy advocates.

throsz:

Well, seeing that you're willing to criticize some of the less responsible right wing punditry -- how about the more reputable George Will?

But maybe you've read his Op Ed I posted. After all, you've stopped complaining about Rockefeller and Reid :)

Intelligent conservatives agree: There wasn't proper Congressional oversight.

Bob

Tom -
Thank you for responding. As a former carpenter, albeit not a metalworker, let me assure you the degree, and quality (Wien's Displacement Law comes into play here) of light created by a welding torch attempting to cut through a single suspension cable on a far lesser bridge that the Brooklyn would attract every law enforcement unit within 20 miles. Maybe even 50.
Whatever. Thank you for being honest.

Wouldn't using a blow torch to cut the suspension cables of a bridge be somewhat like cutting off a branch one is standing on?

It seems clear that there's something involved here that goes far beyond ordinary wiretaps, regardless of the technology used. Perhaps some kind of massive data mining, which makes it impossible to get individual warrants? Stay tuned. The administration keeps saying the program “targets those with known ties to al qaeda.” They not say that they are monitoring only these targets. How many people associated with these targets are under surveillance? How many layers deep does the surveillance go? These questions must be a subject of inquiry.

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I hope your Golden Shield chickens turn into Emus and kick your dunny down.

Your and empire in the 21st century - of course you need a Totalitarian Information Agency!

But just as we borrowed the internet so we shall ' borrow' PAM the terminatrix. Your chimperor's days are numbered. Your entire evil empires days are numbered. It is written. You are the last empire.

Good fucking riddance arseholes.

david: Go spam yourself!

Wouldn't using a blow torch to cut the suspension cables of a bridge be somewhat like cutting off a branch one is standing on?

True, but remember we're talking about jihadi suicide types here. As stupid as the original accusation is, let's be logically consistent here. Sawing off a tree limb in that perspective, is a one-way ticket to heaven.

Which doesn't excuse the initial stupidity of the claim.

Professor Rat, I understand your frustrations and your sentiments, but there are 49.5% of us who disagree vehemently with the empire-building and jingoism. Would you doom us, the loyal opposition, to the same fate?

Maybe we have to go beyond the common sense meaning of a statement like this:

While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said.

Try reading it from the point of view of a programmer involved in building the surveillance system in question. There is nothing that says that the list of 500 people in question couldn't change, say, every 30 milliseconds, as the system switches rapidly between thousands of international calls and communications.

Imagine how much data one they handle with a 500-CPU supercomputing cluster, with each node handling multiple calls in a multiplexed manner.

What we have here is likely a massively parallel effort monitoring a large subset of all international communication. Yet the whole thing monitors only "500 people at a time" - it just happens to be a very short time.

Hammer, I like the way you're thinking, but you may need to upscale your suppositions. AFAIK, Fort Meade is the world's b