A public-private partnership to establish a surveillance state.
A public-private partnership to establish a surveillance state.
The New York Times reports:
The N.S.A.’s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before, according to government and industry officials, yet that alliance is strained by legal worries and the fear of public exposure.
To detect narcotics trafficking, for example, the government has been collecting the phone records of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States who call people in Latin America, according to several government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains classified.
Carpetbagger writes, “Perhaps ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program‘ was a poor choice.” Atrios adds, “I guess we lost the cold war after all.”
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald: “More than anything else, what these revelations highlight — yet again — is that the U.S. has become precisely the kind of surveillance state that we were always told was the hallmark of tyrannical societies, with literally no limits on the government’s ability or willingness to spy on its own citizens and to maintain vast dossiers on those activities.”
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How will RFID figure into all of this suveillance ?? When will we all be tracked by our purchases and cell phones everyday ( just to prevent terrorism ) ?
Why is Reid going along with this? He was always weak, but when and why did he become a Bush lackey?
December 16th, 2007 at 11:36 amFreedom isn’t free.…I guess that phrase takes on new meaning under the Bush/Cheney Halliburton Surveillance State.
-GSD
December 16th, 2007 at 11:37 amI was under the impression that the Congress wet its collective diaper, caved into the administration, and gutted the Fourth Amendment because the President said he wanted to go after terrorists. So they’re using this authority to go after drug dealers now? What excuse are they using, that terrorists sell drugs to raise money, so all drug dealers are now suspected terrorists? Why not just say that all terrorists eat food, so let’s investigate everyone who eats food? Where will it end?
December 16th, 2007 at 11:42 amlooks like it’s time to find out who has pitch-forks at wholesale price…. lets not go with the made in china ones….
December 16th, 2007 at 11:43 amWayne, that is the problem with an authoritarian state, it never ends. Once they have crushed one monster, they find new ones to attack. They only thrice in a state of constant paranoia and must continually feed the beast.
We are on that threshold.
Al Qaeda, terrorists, drug dealers, immigrants, homosexuals, secular humanists, people who don’t say Merry Christmas……
-GSD
December 16th, 2007 at 11:45 am#3…According to the Times article they were already doing that BEFORE 9-11. Early 2001 they implemented the ability to listen in to domestic calls under the guise of pursuing drug dealers. That was the “war” we were supposedly fighting then. Now we’ve got the “islamofscists”. New enemy, same intent–be able to monitor the citizens of this country at every level.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:53 amI can’t wait until the blogosphere is considered subversive.
Maybe we can be interred in the same camp as Michelle Malkin.
-G
December 16th, 2007 at 11:58 amMenehune: It’s been shown that Bush began illegal spying on the first day in office. This country and the ACLU need to get to the bottom of that. Now he wants to exonerate the telecons who did his dirty work and violated our constitutional rights. Where does this tyranny stop? All we need now is another false flag attack so he can declare martial law and postpone the elections. Then the Fascist Coup will have been totally accomplished.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:59 amIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
By that logic, If you do nothing wrong, then you have no need for your civil rights.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:05 pmIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
How do you know?
December 16th, 2007 at 12:09 pmComment by GSD — December 16, 2007 @ 11:58 am:
“I can’t wait until the blogosphere is considered subversive.”
GSD, we’re already considered subversive, aren’t we? To the extremely ignorant, everyone in the blogosphere is suspicious; to the the rest on the right, liberal/progressive blogs are “tin-foil-hat-in-league-with-the-terrorists-AlQaeda-lovers”, definitely the enemy.
“Maybe we can be interred in the same camp as Michelle Malkin.”
And then we can re-enact the scene from”Airplane!” where everyone lines up to “handle” the woman having hysterics. Sweeeeet. :)
December 16th, 2007 at 12:10 pmIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
You do if I am President.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pmIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Everyone’s done something wrong usually many things.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:17 pmf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Yeah we know the Constitution and Rule of Law means nothing to you re-pukes
December 16th, 2007 at 12:19 pmGOOPers keep sticking their noses into private conversations, bedrooms and using that info for political and business leverage. Freedom on the march, my a$$. They sold their souls so long ago, they can’t remember what freedom means.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:21 pmJb has hit the nail on the head. Why aren’t the Republicans terrified of Hillary Clinton getting here hands on this Secret Spy Machine that Bush has built??
Go Sen. Dodd!! No Amnesty for the telecoms. We need to know who has been spied on and why…so we can make sure it is LEGAL.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:22 pmIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M
I would love it if the Browshirts showed up at Francine’s house and hauled away his wife. And he would say, as they took her away, ”
“but…but…we have done nothing wrong”.
It’s a slippery slope Francine. How would you like it if, when the new Democratic President took office, they started spying on all you Republiscums and then started interning you as “enemies of the state”?
If I read this right, if I have relatives or friends in Latin America, they can spy on my phone calls without my knowledge. What ever happened to “we don’t spy on our own citizens”.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:23 pmThat’s right, we need to listen to all these right wingers private conversations. They bombed the Fed. Bldg. in Oklahoma City a few years back. Who knows what they are up to?
December 16th, 2007 at 12:25 pmAtrios’ comment reminds me of a Spy Magazine observation in the late ’80s: In ideological struggles like the Cold War you tend to turn into your enemy. This gives the Soviet Union the advantage because they have the more interesting enemy to turn into.
They only got part of the way before reverting back. We, on the other hand, seem determined to go through with it to the end.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:26 pmGeorge Orwell’s telescreens.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:26 pmhttp://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=629
Free installation and no payments for the first year!
Phone call tracking for narcotic traffic? OK – I guess I can see that. But the elephant in the room is banking records…
Post 9/11, it surely was realized the big win would be banking records, not phone meta-data. NYT is still sitting on this. You can feel it in the way this article was written.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:28 pmMaybe Frank has a few too many bags of fertilizer in his garage. Better do a little checking up on him and his.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:28 pmLook into the activities of the East German StaSI (Ministry of State Security) and consider the parallels.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:33 pm#24 – Maybe just one bag of fertilizer and some diesel, or some drano and some laundry bleach and some mothballs. Everyone has the tools to be a terrorist if they have the knowledge to use them, including Frank.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:37 pmAmericans have guns. And private companies have their infrastructure out in the open. Electronic surveillance will be stopped one way or another.
Remember, it’s everyady people like you and me using these powerfull tools to spy on you and me.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:50 pmShameful and Mike McConnell and Hayden should go down for this
December 16th, 2007 at 12:54 pmLooks like the Republicans have neither the balls nor the brains to bring off their takeover.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:58 pmLooks like the Republicans have neither the balls nor the brains to bring off their takeover.
Comment by Perry logan — December 16, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Frank is living proof.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:07 pm“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm”
Frankly, Frank M, everything you’ve done will be defined as wrong. Do you wear boxer shorts? Do you eat poppy seeds? Do you pick your teeth in public? Do you talk to strangers sometimes?
Just what kind of stupid juice do you drink? It must be outlawed. And hopefully the next president will find out why you and people like you are so frigging dumb. Or who is paying you to destroy our freedom? With citizens like you we don’t need terrorists, because you are doing their work for them. Call your Senators and especially Harry Reid, (202) 224-3542, to demand no immunity for illegal activity by ANYONE. Call Chris Dodd, (202) 224-2823, and urge him to filibuster. The Senate may vote as early as Monday on the immunity-granting version of the Intelligence Committee’s version of the surveillance bill.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:15 pmEveryone has the tools to be a terrorist if they have the knowledge to use them, including Frank.
Comment by Dreary Urbanite — December 16, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
Yep, if you have asprin in your medicine cabinet, or a slew of other items which are normally in everyone’s kitchen or bathroom, then you can make explosives.
All it takes is some military training or a book like “The Poor Man’s James Bond” to know how.
Maybe the should make a list of everyone buying drano, asprin or anything that could be used. While they are at it ban all things that could be used as a weapon, like hammers, screwdrivers, your dining room chair.
After you are safe in your padded rooms with nothing at all in there which you can get hurt with, Bush will then lock you in to keep you even safer from them there “terrists”
December 16th, 2007 at 1:23 pm“The Poor Man’s James Bond†to know how.
Comment by Wayne — December 16, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Call me old school but I still prefer the Anarchist’s Handbook
December 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pmDear any member of Congress,
Time to fall on your politacal sword. We know they have soemthing real juicy on you and it could ruin your career but, how about this?
Let them bring something out that they gained from illegal wiretapping and make sure that’s the only way they could have it, plant something even.
This has got to be stopped, talk terror, terror , terror all you want, this is all about control using illegal information gathering against any opposition.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:32 pmPhone call tracking for narcotic traffic? OK – I guess I can see that. But the elephant in the room is banking records…
WTF? What about probable cause?
December 16th, 2007 at 1:37 pmThis is about data mining. And it must be stopped. It will be stopped.
These people who come here a spout “nothing to hide”? It’s only going to get worse for these people. These are people who truly do not understand or appreciate thier freedom.
It’s a slippery slope Francine.
Comment by bilbobaggins — December 16, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
I think it’s way past the “slippery slope” phase.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:38 pmWe have done fell off the goddamned cliff.
This is Republicans wanting to track calls from one region to another. And how that translates to arrests of criminals is pure VOODOO.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:39 pmThink about it, say they want a spending bill passed, they call whoever and simply say, check your personal phone records an some given date. Sure enough they have something on you and you do what they want……
December 16th, 2007 at 1:41 pm100% of terrorists drink water. Including Bush and Chenney.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:45 pmIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Were you “in” on Clinton’s blowjob? Did any of the events which transpired then and which your ilk twist their collective panties over to this day, involve you in the smallest manner?
December 16th, 2007 at 2:10 pmI wonder what’s in my Stasi-file.
Freedom isn’t free here in East Germany of the United States.
December 16th, 2007 at 2:11 pmWatch the bilge-rats scream bloody murder when (hopefully not) a Democrat takes up the reigns of the spying program. See how fast they rediscover the importance of our Constitutional protections.
December 16th, 2007 at 2:13 pmBy the time the public wakes up to what is happening we will be so sumbersed under a totalitarian state, we will be unable to react.
December 16th, 2007 at 2:40 pmBetween the pundits and their accusations of “traitor” to to anyone who expresses dissent and the politicians who are too eager to give the administration all the power, and the communications companies who are willingly complicit in illegal spying, and the media who have failed mightily in challenging those in power, investigating their claims and reporting the news, we have been placed on the one-way road of no-return.
Our enemies could not be more pleased – we have destroyed ourselves. They need only to continue to exploit the economic policies of our leaders and the America we once knew will be no more.
Frank, Biggie
I have another vocabulary assignment for you guys today. (don’t you just love how much you learn by being here?)
Today’s word is “Quisling”. DO look it up, won’t you??
p.s. – I’d also like to congratulate jmh, chl, and some of our other regular troll-contributors. You have all improved a lot in the areas of vocabulary and usage these last few months. On behalf of the rest of us here, I offer you a sincere “you’re welcome”.
December 16th, 2007 at 2:45 pmGuido-
No, I don’t believe its justified. “By seeing that” I meant that may there would be some utility in legally (court supported) monitoring of narcotics trafficking. Didn’t mean to suggest support for the trawling net being deployed.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:03 pmWell, this story covers at least two of the “Fourteen Points of Fascismâ€:
[Note: The 14 Points was written in 2004 by Dr. Laurence Britt, a political scientist. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of: Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile).]
For those who may not remember, Hermann Göring spoke about war and extreme nationalism during the Nuremberg trials in an interview with Gustave Gilbert, a Jewish German-speaking intelligence officer, and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail :
Bottom line, in closed societies, this type of surveillance is cast as being about “national security”; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
What gets me is how each chink seems to show an exponential increase in the possibility for abuse.
Wiretapping terrorists – OK, I can see that. But how do we know who is a terrorist.
Wiretap overseas calls – OK, not subject to US Law.
Wiretap narcotics – Well drugs are bad.
Bank records – …etc.
What makes anyone think that Shrub, Giuliani, Abramov, etc. would hesitate for a second to run a company which gathers this info for the government and then surrepticiously look at this data to gain a business advantage (and/or destroy a business or political rival) ?
December 16th, 2007 at 6:35 pmIf you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
That goes for the administration too, right Frank? We can only hope someone was taping anything over at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. What’s good for the goose….
December 16th, 2007 at 7:05 pmYEAH! FACISM IS REALLY UGLY!
December 16th, 2007 at 8:36 pmhttp://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/16/dodd-to-filibuster-fisa-bill-needs-material-to-read-on-senate-floor/#comment-372803 check this out….sorry TP…..But I think it’s worth it.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:42 pmTODAY . . . TELECOM IMMUNITY IS UP FOR A VOTE AS SOON AS TODAY . . . REID CAPITULATES!
CBS reports:
Now the issue of telecom immunity to rising to a boil, as the Senate prepares to vote (possibly on Monday) on the FISA bill.
The Senate actually has two versions: one which includes an immunity provision (as written by the Senate Intelligence Committee), and a second without it. It is these two competing drafts which have landed on the desk of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
On Friday, Reid announced in the Senate that he would be moving the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) version of the bill to the floor.
Why this didn’t rate a topic on Think Progress I can’t imagine. It does seem to merit a headline and singular stream of commentary.
Call your Congressional reps this morning and demand that NO immunity be considered. It’s an unconstitutional breach of every American’s Constitutional rights. You have a Constitutional right to privacy, not after the fact, but before it occurs. If Congress should decide to amend the Constitution, and thereby your Constitutional rights, Congress must do so before your rights have been violated . . . before you have been deprived of your rights. Congress must have had an opportunity to discuss and decide the matter BEFORE the Constitution has been amended by the Executive and Judicial branches, neither of which has power to unilaterally amend the Constitution. A Constitutional Amendment requires a vote by a majority of the states . . . That includes a vote by you and me.
Did I vote to have my phone tapped, my privacy invaded? Dub’ya (Pelosi and other elected officials may dream that that happened). The public may not be Constitutional scholars (Bush barely reads), but in fact, that’s the law . . . our elected Senators, Representatives and appointed justices are not free to willy-nilly ignore the Constitution. . . if they do . . . if they can . . . this country has far greater problems than Al Quaeda.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:53 amToday, I heard an argument has been put forth by a presidential candidate that Americans must have guns in order to protect ourselves against our own government. How sad is it that the same party that is making this argument is simultaneously arguing that our government must be able to spy on us all in order to protect us from the terrorists within. The latter begets the former. If we weren’t creating a lawless, fascist government, we would perceive no need to take up arms against it. The crazies have offered up a self-fulfilling paranoid prophecy.
The real war is the one at home . . . the one that is cloaked in self-preservation and paranoia. It is the true fight that we must confront and wage with all of the ferocity we can muster. It threatens our very destiny.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:04 am#53, RockyRoad you are so correct…
But too many people don’t have the faculties, or energy to contemplate, and understand fully what you’ve written.
But Britney is in a divorce, they do know that much…I feel so much better now.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:22 pm1. If you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to be worried about the wiretapping.
Comment by Frank M — December 16, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
By that logic, If you do nothing wrong, then you have no need for your civil rights.
Comment by Wayne A. Schneider — December 16, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
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Frank, that’s the most ridiculous, asinine statement that’s ever been uttered by subservient, authoritarian do-gooders.
Are you a 5 year old, who must have his life watched over in every aspect? Are you not to be trusted?
What happened to individual responsibility? To assume that it’s ok for the Government to spy or monitor its people’s lives is to live in a fantasy world, that the Government didn’t lie to the people involved in the Tuskegee experiment, or the CIA manipulated governments of the world for America’s interest, but is now coming back to haunt us.
Innocent until proven guilty; Liberty; Free. You can’t have those things with a microscope aimed at you by the Government. Privacy is a basic need for human beings; this “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” crap is for weak minded lemmings. You are the exact opposite of a freedom loving Patriot.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pm