Warrantless Wiretapping - Articles - Zimbio

Spineless Democratic FISA Wimp Out

Tue, 25 Jun 2008 08:39:00 GMT

posted by beckychr007

The Democratic Party has long thought the reason the country gave them control of Congress in 2006 was so they could sit on their fat asses and do nothing, except help George Bush use the constitution as toilet paper.

The spineless ones are now on the cusp of giving George Bush a nice gift. It is a done deal. The House passed the FISA Bill and Democratic leadership has ordained the Senate will too. Amongst other troubling features, it will grant amnesty to those telecom companies which were happy to oblige the president, when he asked them to engage in some illegal wiretapping.

At least the Republicans have a valid reason for supporting the bill. They sincerely believe it is important that corporations have no qualms when the president asks them to do something their lawyers tell them is illegal, so long as they are assured by the president, no matter how dopey he appears, it is necessary to keep us safe.

Basically, modern Republicans are authoritarians, and think Ben Franklin was a quaint kook when warning that he who gives up a little liberty in exchange for a little security, gains neither.

But, of course, they are entitled to their dumb ass, dangerous opinion.

At least they stand for something.

But Democrats are going along with this solely so they won't look like wusses—a strategy which never works---because it is always so apparent this is precisely what they are.

Don't look for Obama to lead the fight—though he has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the bill.

In October, 2007 he even promised to support a filibuster of it.

Barack Obama is increasingly looking like a hip version of Richard Nixon, the last presidential candidate who funded his campaign solely with private funds, resisted attempts to engage in debates with his opponent, and promised to get us out of a war, and never did.

And he certainly didn't care about illegal wiretapping.

Obama intends to engage in some meaningless theatrics about amnesty, and then vote for the bill in its entirety.

If he thinks this is going to impress the “bitter people” I have news for him.

If they don't think he can exercise leadership in opposing George Bush and the Republican Party, at a time their popularity is at an all time low, they know damn well he is no match for the president of Iran or Osama bin Laden.

Christopher Bond, the Missouri Republican who led the negotiations on the FISA bill said:

“I think the White House got a better deal than they even had hoped to get.”

Not only are the Democrats weak cowards with no principles, they are political blunderers,who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Domestic Spying Abuse: You Were Warned

Fri, 11 Oct 2008 18:30:00 GMT

posted by mentarch
What was that I wrote a while back about Security Agencies? Ah, yes:

It is a given, demonstrated fact that governmental security agencies are not seekers of truth, but seekers of guilt. Whenever they are given any powers to spy on their own citizens, they will do so - for reasons frivolous, paranoid or (apparently very rarely as shown so far) actually justified.

Anything and nothing can - and will - be held against you.

Because in the mindset of governmental security agencies, everyone is suspect, everyone is guilty. Period.

Well, guess what?

Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

(...) "These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."

She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

Another intercept operator, former Navy Arab linguist, David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad's Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007.

"Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another," said Faulk.

(...) Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

Faulk said he joined in to listen, and talk about it during breaks in Back Hall's "smoke pit," but ended up feeling badly about his actions.

"I feel that it was something that the people should not have done. Including me," he said.

Ri-ight.

As if this was never expected.

But hey - like I said: anything can and will be held against you ... thus branding you as a National Security threat anytime, anyhow, any day. For any reason. Case in point:

Protesting nuns branded terrorists

For decades, Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Ardeth Platte have practiced their Roman Catholic faith with an unwavering focus on world peace. Their antiwar activities even landed them in federal prison earlier this decade for trespassing onto a military base and pouring blood onto a nuclear missile silo.

Now they face fresh infamy as two nuns secretly branded by Maryland State Police as terrorists and placed on a national watch list.

"This term terrorist is a really serious accusation," Sister Ardeth, a nun for 54 years, told The Washington Times on Thursday in the first interview that the women have given since being informed they were among 53 people added to a terrorist watch list in conjunction with an extensive Maryland surveillance effort of antiwar activists.

"There is no way that we ever want to be identified as terrorists. We are nonviolent. We are faith-based," she said.

The women freely acknowledge their participation in antiwar activities.

Then there was this.

And that.

Or this.

Or that.

And this.

And that.

And so on and so forth.

But-but-but ... I hear my fellow Canadians thinking aloud, that's happening only in the U.S.! Surely, this is not happening in Canada!

Well, guess again - with the following recent example this time around:

CSIS, RCMP monitor protest groups for possible Olympic threats

Security forces are predicting protests will escalate as the 2010 Olympics approach and have mounted a number of "intelligence probes" to counteract threats.

The information is contained in documents obtained by Canwest News Service from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP, the lead agency for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit.

The "threat assessments" show police have identified several threats to Olympic security, including anti-globalization, anti-corporate and First Nations activists, as well as international terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, which has already announced that the London 2012 Summer Games will be a terrorist target.

Nice conflation there, isn't it, between activist groups and ... al Qaeda?!?

Again - nothing new here.

Hence, I am not surprised at all. Allow me to repeat myself yet once again - because obviously, there are still way too many folks out there whom are still sleeping at the switch on this grave matter:

Police and Security Agencies will inevitably abuse any and all domestic spying powers they are given for no other reason than they are driven by the following paranoid mode of thinking: because something/anything deemed potentially disruptive (even remotely or not at all) to the safety and security of citizens (or to the integrity of the nation's critical infrastructure) may or may not happen, spying on lawful citizens must be done.

Ah, the ever convenient rationale of Security Agencies to spy on all citizens.

So, my American friends and fellow Canadians ...

Maybe you remain unfazed by all of this, your smug reasoning reassuring you that nothing like that could ever happen to you, that it is inconceivable that some "tracker" has been listening (or may yet still) to your most private conversations on the phone, or parsing through your emails, or credit card/bank statements, and so on.

Or maybe you remain approving of indiscriminate domestic spying, confident that such setting aside of constitutional rights serves the ultimate purpose of catching them evul ter'rists (which, as it turns out, is a false premise), while also being of the mind that such "accidental" abuses happen to others - never to you. In other words, you are one who would gladly proclaim "Security - Hallowed Be Thy Name" with much gratitude, patriotic fervor and conviction.

But regardless, how would you know whether or not you have been caught in the "wide-net" approach to electronic surveillance already adopted by Police and Security Agencies?

How would you possibly become aware that some faceless "tracker" is sharing all that was caught of your most private, intimate conversations - all the while sharing laughs with colleagues in so doing? That complete strangers have become quite familiar with your private life?

That faceless, shadowy men and women have been endowed with the power to act as nothing more than peeping toms, all-too-eager to watch and listen into every and all facets of your privacy, of your intimacy?

And how would you know whether or not you will be branded a security threat just because you went on strike, or because someone "out there" has decided that some of the books/newspapers/magazines that you read may be suspicious, or simply because you were overheard complaining about the government?

That is the question, isn't it?

No. One. Is. Safe.

All of the above once again demonstrate the harsh, ugly reality in this post-9/11 world driven by fear and the willingness to accept the ludicrous fallacy that we need to surrender "some" of our basic constitutional rights in order to improve security against terrorist attacks.

Yet always forgetting that abuse of security measures is as inevitable as the sun rising and setting - especially without any significant oversight.

Better wake up fast on your own and now, instead of being awaken by the thundering sound of jackboots just outside your home ... mere moments before your door is crashed open and you get picked up in a "pre-emptive security sweep".

Do you get it now?

And if so - what are you going to do about this travesty called "Security", this grotesque affront to your privacy, your intimacy, your civil rights?

(Coss-posted at NetRoots, NION and TWWL)

Security, Hallowed Be Thy Name And Dominion

Sun, 1 Sep 2008 07:30:00 GMT

posted by mentarch
(Updated below)

Now, that was quite expected:

FISA court rejects ACLU request for transparency

A court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act denied an ACLU motion Thursday that would have increased public scrutiny of how the Bush administration's new spying law is reviewed, according to a statement released Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the motion 10 hours after President Bush signed the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) into law July 10, requesting that any further proceedings that might question the law's constitutionality be revealed to the public, according to an ACLU press release.

The organization also asked to participate in the hearings and submit briefs to court, which was denied as well.

Of course, like any typical authoritarian power-abusing incompetents, the Bush administration fought to win such travesty of jurisprudence:

President Bush's administration urged the FISA court to reject the group's request in late July.

The Justice Department issued a plea to the court arguing that no third party has any right to participate in the court proceedings and that it is "precluded from doing so here by statute, court rule, and mandated security measures."

But here's the kicker (emphasis added):

The court withheld decisions from the civil liberties group regarding the NSA surveillance program on the grounds that no classified information could be released to them, and without that information, the group would not be able to "present any meaningful argument on the questions posed."

Isn't this just rich? In one single sweep, this decision not only admits that secrecy overules disclosure against the interests of justice, but also uses that same primacy of secrecy in order to pre-emptively deny any recourse against domestic spying by any U.S. police/security agency.

In short: shut up and learn to live with it.

That's justice enough for you folks?

This outcome is exactly what was warned would happen (just one example here among so many).

And to add insult to injury (emphasis added):

A recent post on the blog Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets details how the FISA act creates "fertile ground" for those looking for a convenient excuse for surveillance.

Gee - ya think? (emphasis added)

It is a given, demonstrated fact that governmental security agencies are not seekers of truth, but seekers of guilt. Whenever they are given any powers to spy on their own citizens, they will do so - for reasons frivolous, paranoid or (apparently very rarely as shown so far) actually justified.

Anything and nothing can - and will - be held against you.

Because in the mindset of governmental security agencies, everyone is suspect, everyone is guilty. Period.

Police and security agencies will inevitably abuse any and all domestic spying powers they are given for no other reason than they are driven by the following paranoid mode of thinking: because something/anything deemed potentially disruptive (even remotely or not at all) to the safety and security of citizens (or to the integrity of the nation's critical infrastructure) may or may not happen, spying on lawful citizens must be done.

In other words:

This means that anything can and will be viewed by our security agencies within the narrow, paranoid prism of terrorism and threats to security.

Anything.

From blogging to writing a dissenting letter to a newspaper editor to a journalist trying to do investigative work to gathering at a coffee shop to rant about politics to reading "suspicious" stuff (books, blogs) to organizing/participating in activist actions (letter/phone/email campaigns, peaceful protests), etc., etc., etc.

Because any such activities may or may not - immediately or at some point in time or never at all - lead to acts which may or may not "threaten the safety and security of citizens or the integrity of the country's critical infrastructure".

So just in case and to be safe, let's monitor and survey and spy away on the citizenry.

And that is the ever convenient rationale of authoritarian security states for spying on their citizens.

I repeat: no one is safe.

Here's a (small) sample of what has happened/has been revealed to this effect since I wrote those words:

Bush White House has its own interrogation room;

Officials against torture memo feared wiretaps, physical danger;

Homeland Insecurity in the US Dividing Refugee Families;

FBI apologizes for improperly accessing reporters' phone records;

Citizens' U.S. Border Crossings Tracked (h/t);

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - No Suspicion Required Under DHS Policies;

U.S. May Ease Police Spy Rules (h/t);

I was Spied on by the Maryland Police (via here);

Research assistant of Pulitzer-Prize winner Ron Suskind 'detained by federal agents' and 'interrogated';

FBI wants power to investigate citizens "without any basis for suspicion" (h/t);

Woman kicked from federal building over lesbian shirt;

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors;

Dozens Detained Ahead of Republican National Convention;

Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis;

More Protesters Arrested in the Twin Cities;

Gitmo ‘Justice’ for US Citizens? (via here)

Domestic Spying In Canada: Here We Are.

The "eternal value of privacy" is now quite devalued indeed (emphasis added):

The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

(...)

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

(...)

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

Indeed, too many people seem too self-absorbed, or too fearful of them "terrorists", or actually approve, or remain simply in denial, to be outraged or even give a damn about the slow destruction of our democratic principles, as well as our values of civil rights, human rights, human dignity and human respect.

Security - Hallowed Be Thy Name.

As I wrote previously:

We have been losing ourselves since the day after 9/11.

Looks like we have crossed the threshold of ever being able to find ourselves again.

So we keep on riding fast and hard onto that road to perdition ... well beyond redemption.

How I wish I'd be proven wrong.

I would've even welcome being laughed at for being so far "off the grid" on this - and gladly at that.

But alas ...

Update: Over at NION, diarist Truong Son Traveler provided two commentaries which merit some deserved highlight. First, a reminder of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", along with a "bottom line" meaning of what has been happening (emphasis added):

In one of his most influential essays, (Milton) Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism's core tactical nostrum, what I have come to understand as the shock doctrine. He observed that "only a crisis--actual or perceived--produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function; to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."

Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas. And once a crisis has struck, the University of Chicago professor was convinced that it was crucial to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the cruisi-racked society slipped back into the "tyranny of the status quo."...
The Chicago School followers were ready and waiting and when their Pearl Harbor arrived. It has served their purposes well and now some of us are beginning to see and feel the consequences.

Others may never see. Klein writes that "Friedman predicted that the speed, suddenness and scope of the ...shifts would provoke psychological reactions in the public that 'facilitate the adjustment'".

This has given us The Patriot Act, acceptance of torture, signing statements, The Military Commissions Act, The Bush Doctrine of preventive war, Dick Cheney's one percent doctrine, the unitary executive, FISA with retroactive immunity for the Telecoms, etc, etc. all with little more than a few whimpers in opposition.

And second, a reminder of what Chris Floyd wrote last year (emphasis added):

Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

Both comments in turn reminded me of what I also wrote last year on the day of the 6th anniversary of 9/11:

So - what exactly happened on the day after the fateful and tragic morning of 9/11?

We lost and the terrorists won.

Right there and then.

Whatever else has happened in the six years which followed to this day merely constitutes the gradual and methodical enactment of the terms of our surrender.

No more, no less.

The cynic in me tugs hard toward complete agreement (see here, here or here, as examples) with Chris Floyd's - and Arthur Silber's - conclusion that "it's all over and done with". Case in point:

We The People - this is what it has, and always has been, about. In a democracy, it is the electorate who holds all the keys and guard all the doors - provided that the citizens actually live up to their responsibility.

(...) we are the ones who have broken the "contract between citizens and their government" because, in essence, we thought somehow that our vigilance and implication were optional.

(...) We gave the keys away to the foxes and let them guard the hen house without supervision, because we would not be bothered anymore with our "burdensome" responsibilities as citizens. Hence, we are only reaping what we have sown.

However, what remains of the naive in me keeps on pushing me at reminding all of us of the following:

We are living in a dangerous period of the history of our democraties. You can blame the politicians, the media, the corporations, the lobbying groups, or anyone else, yet the painful and ever so tragic truth remains this: we have only ourselves to blame.

Point of fact to this: it is we (at least, those of us who actually bother to get off the tv couch and go out to vote) who elect demagogues that "make us feel good, make us feel secure, make us feel at ease" while rejecting with disdain and mistrust the genuine candidates that are actually knowledgeable and better qualified as leaders.

So, let it be known ad nauseam: living in a democracy is a right and a responsibility.

And yes, this responsibility requires effort. But which is better: having your back bent by the effort required to keep on living in a democratic society, or letting leave for complacency and find yourself one day with a back bent under a totalitarian regime (however benevolent it may be)?

Or this:

It is high time to remember that it is indeed we who guard all the doors and hold all the keys of our democratic values and institutions.

It is, in the end, up to us to act as the Guardians and Caretakers of our constitutions, our civil rights and our civil liberties.

It has always been up to us.

What remains to be established is whether it is effectively already too late, and if that is not the case, whether we will wake up to our responsibilities as citizens living in (dying) democracies.

In other words: we must draw the line once and for all - either we stand up for our civil rights and therefore win against tyranny-in-the-making, or cowardly stand down in the name of Security and lose everything.

(Cross-posted at NetRoots, Progressive Historians, NION, The Wild Wild Left, DKos)

FISA Delay Buys Time for Activism

Sun, 30 Jun 2008 10:35:00 GMT

posted by vjack
Although the mainstream media has been reporting that the Bush/Hoyer FISA "compromise" is virtually uncontested and expected to sail through the Senate, grassroots activism among progressives has had some measurable impact. In fact, the Senate vote has been delayed due to opposition. Just who do we have to thank for having the courage to stand up for the Constitution? Senators Dodd, Feingold, and Bingaman appear to be the key players in the Senate. This gives us more time to contact our own Senators and ask them to oppose any measure which grants telecom immunity.

Initially pitched as a bipartisan compromise, the GOP is now claiming victory over the America-hating Democratic Party. Once it became clear that Democrats were going to cave in large numbers, it appears that it is no longer necessary to maintain the illusion of compromise.

Many Democratic voters will end up deciding that this legislation is acceptable because Obama supports it. Since Obama supporting bad policy is difficult to reconcile with support for Obama, many will conclude that the deal must not be that bad in order to maintain their support for Obama. Others will be forced to seriously question their continued support for Obama.

For the record, I am well aware that candidates of both parties tend to cater to their respective bases to win the nomination and then intentionally move toward the opposite end of the political spectrum in the general election campaign. They trust their base to come along, even as they betray them. Don't be fooled into thinking that this is only happening to Obama. The Republican Party may lose some conservatives once McSame's nomination is official.

Just because I am aware that this is usually how things work in American politics does not mean that I am happy with it. I think giving blanket immunity to the telecoms after they submitted to Bush's criminal demands is a massive mistake and an issue on which we should press our elected officials to take a stand.

To learn more about why this matters and what is at stake here, I encourage you to read this letter from Senators Dodd and Feingold.

Tags: FISA, capitulation, compromise, telecom immunity, grassroots, activism, politics, Dodd, Feingold, Bingaman, Senate, Democratic Party, GOP, Obama, McSame

Judge orders White House to produce wiretap memos

Sat, 2 Nov 2008 15:33:00 GMT

posted by mnlewis

WASHINGTON – A judge has ordered the Justice Department to produce White House memos that provide the legal basis for the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. signed an order Friday requiring the department to produce the memos by the White House legal counsel's office by Nov. 17. He said he will review the memos in private to determine if any information can be released publicly without violating attorney-client privilege or jeopardizing national security.

Kennedy issued his order in response to lawsuits by civil liberties groups in 2005 after news reports disclosed the wiretapping.

The department had argued that the memos were protected attorney-client communications and contain classified information.

But Kennedy said that the attorney-client argument was "too vague" and that he would have to look at the documents himself to determine if that argument is valid and also to see if there is information that can be released without endangering national security.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Saturday the department is reviewing the opinion and will "respond appropriately in court."

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad without obtaining court warrants. The administration said it needed to act more quickly than the court could and that the president had inherent authority under the Constitution to order warrantless domestic spying.

After the program was challenged in court, Bush last year put it under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established in 1978 after the domestic spying scandals of the 1970s.

"We think just as a common sense matter the legal theories for the president's wiretap programs cannot be classified and should be available to the public," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of the groups seeking the memos.

"It's an important decision because up to this point the judge has relied on the government's assertion that it has done everything properly under the law and that it has disclosed everything it needs to disclose," Rotenberg said Saturday.

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Reporter Joan Lowy, Associated Press Reporter