I am very paranoid when on the phone. I always listen for the little clicks and clacks. I have nothing to hide but my parents think that blogging will draw unnecessary attention to me. Perhaps they are right. I know that when I speak to Manish on the phone about some blog-related matter I should not be using the word “mutiny.” After a while though you just become complacent and let words like “mutiny” and phrases like “overthrow the establishment” drip from your mouth like honey into a cup of green tea. I’ve also been using a calling card (from what may be a shady NSA front company) to call my parents who are vacationing in India. I should think twice about what I say because the big news of the day is that the New York Times is confirming what many of us already suspected. Big Brother might be listening to your mutinous conversations. He can hear you.
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible “dirty numbers” linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.
“This is really a sea change,” said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. “It’s almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches.”
Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation’s legality and oversight.
Whispers of the NSA’s Echelon have long circulated in television and literature. Like Area 51 it’s the secret everyone knows about. There exists a giant computer network that listens to the communications of our enemies abroad:
ECHELON is a term associated with a global network of computers that automatically search through millions of intercepted messages for pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and e-mail addresses. Every word of every message in the frequencies and channels selected at a station is automatically searched. The processors in the network are known as the ECHELON Dictionaries. ECHELON connects all these computers and allows the individual stations to function as distributed elements an integrated system. An ECHELON station’s Dictionary contains not only its parent agency’s chosen keywords, but also lists for each of the other four agencies in the UKUSA system [NSA, GCHQ, DSD, GCSB and CSE] [Link]
<
p>
The real rub is that our government is reportedly listening to conversations in which one party is in the U.S. and the second one abroad. Unless I am overlooking something obvious, to me this implies that this aspect of the “War on Terror” is being waged mostly against minority populations instead of home-grown terrorists. Timothy McVeigh types generally won’t be making phone calls abroad prior to a terrorist attack. Luckily this revelation came on the eve of a vote in the Senate to re-new the Patriot Act. The bill promptly fell to defeat when the administration’s secret (and probably illegal) activities were revealed.
During Friday’s session, senators held up copies of the New York Times report as a sign that the government could not be trusted with all the broad powers laid out in the Patriot Act.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said he had been unsure the night before how he would vote. “Today’s revelation that the government listened in on thousands of phone conversations without getting a warrant is shocking and has greatly influenced my vote,” he said. “Today’s revelation makes it very clear that we have to be very careful. Very careful.”
Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who voted against the original Patriot Act but lead efforts to filibuster the current version, said, “I can’t imagine a more shocking example of an abuse of power…” [Link]
I feel though that our government should have the power to listen in on the conversations of U.S. residents in order to prevent a terrorist attack. Actually, they already do:
…there is already a special court that issues national-security-related subpoenas and has a much lower threshold for evidence than regular courts. That court has rarely–if ever–turned down a subpoena request. [Link]
<
p>
So even though the Bush administration could have gone to a puppet court to legally do what they wanted to, they passed on the option. I wonder if that is any indication as to the quality of their “evidence.” All I know is that I will be much more careful about using key words on the phone, and will no longer be accepting calls from my activist friends.
It is notable that many Senators opposing cloture on the Patriot Act bill held up copies of today’s NY Times article during their floor speeches. Interesting timing, especially considering their editors have had the article in the works for a year. Maybe the NY Times is finally trying to make up for their ridiculously sycophantic coverage of the administration during the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Knowing Bush’s character, I always assumed this happened everyday. With better computers, better databases and better searching software, they’ll soon be listening to all conversations, everywhere, all the time. That’s why I stopped calling my favorite hooker from my home phone. Oops. shhhh, no I didn’t say that, erase that. no, no… don’t take me away, please, please….
Drudge has the answer to your question:
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash9nyt.htm
Y’all know my views on this…
M. Nam
Gasp…they are actually listening in to conversations without warrants? In wonderful free America? Gaasp..
Thanks Abhi. Ouch. And I was naive enough to think the NY Times was beginning to operate purely in the public interest. I’m sure Risen’s publisher will be counting the number of times his name is mentioned during the weekend talk shows.
So difficult not to be cynical these days. Maybe I’ll go watch “All the President’s Men” again.
I’ve got a feeling that somebody’s watching me…
Moornam, Jefferson cringed in his grave the day you got your US citizenship 😉
With a court order, and with/without informing me
However, I will oppose for citizens, but not oppose for non-citizens…
-arresting me without charge (not 90 days, not 38 days, not 14 hours 37 minutes – even one second is not permissible) – freezing my bank/internet without a warrant
I am not even sure if this a joke or whether Moornam is serious.
Hey, if NSA listens in on the conversations between my mom (wintering in Chennai) and me regarding selling the ancestral home and have any good advice, they should speak up. If the house sells, we’ll consider not suing.
If for nothing else, the Patriot Act should bother you because it is an invasion of privacy (i.e. freedom to keep private business private – and they refer to Arabs as commies?) and is extremely racist. Our soldiers dying on desert floors should at least feel like they were protecting freedom back home. Sad.
Don’t forget good old Ben:
Abhi and Ameet, YOU’RE the one’s who are naive – painfully naive – if you take that Drudge Report story with any seriousness.
First of all, I fail to see how this story and this book deal is “tied together” because this story was initially written A YEAR AGO. So, if the government hadn’t insisted that the Times not print this story last year, then the story would have been published and Risen would then have followed up with his book after collecting more information… and no one would have said a thing, including the right-wing lackeys like Drudge fooling people into thinking this book deal would have any relevence to anything. But it’s happening at the same time because the Times was nice enough to kiss the government’s ass. How does writing a story a year ago mean it’s tied into a book deal for a book that hadn’t been written yet?
The Washington Post also published a news story about this on the same day. If you read that story, you can see that they have information the Times doesn’t have. Which means they knew about this story independently of the Times. But THEY held on to the story for a year, and we would have to assume it was at the behest of the government as well. And there’s no book deal “tied” to THAT story. So what’s the big effing deal?
And if anyone reads these stories, it’s clear that a few members of congress knew about this as well, and kept mum. So, LOTS of people knew about this and kept it quiet. Thank god SOMEONE came forward about these patently illegal practices the administration is engaging in! So it’s pathetically obvious that Drudge’s repeated use of the phrase “Risen claims” is a very disengenuous phrase… clearly intended to mislead readers into thinking Risen was lying when he said he had a story and couldn’t publish it for a year. Sad to say, it’s working.
Secondly, James Risen’s previous book was “The Main Enemy : The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB”. Gee, I guess this guy is an expert on the intelligence community! I guess he also writes books on what he knows. How does this take away from the actual content of the story? It doesn’t. If anything, it gives it more credence.
Judith Miller was a Bush administration pawn, happily publishing lies in order to get American into an illegal war. James Risen is breaking a story that tarnishes the Bush administration. The two are comparable… how, exactly?
I guess only Ann Coulter is allowed to publish books. I forgot.
Well,
BF did not say: Any society that would give up a little external privacyto gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Let’s not confuse Liberty and Privacy. By consenting the government to look at my stock trades, I am not giving up my Liberty. I can still sell Google at $380/- and then smack my head a few weeks later. The FBI agent who is snooping on my records will be laughing his ass off – Hey Jim, look at this Moor guy… he sold Google and bought oil stocks just when Oil was selling off.
Do you want privacy? Cut off your phone line. Close your bank accounts and convert it all into gold and hide it in your basement. Do odd jobs for cash, pay for groceries by cash. Walk – don’t drive. Pay your house down. Generate your own electricity. Have a sump instead of city sewage. Have your own well for water.
You folks want all the benefits of society and government, but you want privacy. Well, guess what. Jefferson never said you can have your cake and eat it too.
M. Nam
Sy, I’m not sure where to start or even if its worth it. Against my better judgement I will attempt to respond to your rant.
Incorrect. The government can’t insist jack. Freedom of the press means that the Times could have published whenever they wanted to. THEY held on to the story and THEY will catch hell for doing so from the rest of the press. Watch it happen. They argue that they accepted the administration’s assurances that this practice was legal and that it would jeopardize ongoing investigations if they revealed the details that were found in this article. To reveal them now , just ahead of the book, just means they wanted to get the story out there before the book came out. There is nothing wrong with that. I just pointed to Drudge to cite a possible motive for the timing.
That’s wrong also. This was a NYTimes scoop. The NYTimes and Washington Post have an agreement that they share the next day’s headlines with each other the night before print. That allowed the Post enough time to do some more original reporting before the story broke. No other paper had this.
What exactly is your problem? My post bashes the administration and its policies in this matter. Are you just upset that I read Drudge and cite him? Get over it.
Moornam, you are preaching appeasement by trying to distinguish between liberty and this new “external privacy” term you’ve come up with. Has appeasement ever worked?
It’s okay to disagree with Ben Franklin. Just be decisive about it. 🙂
Abhi,
Appeasement of whom/what?
I’ve not seen anyone answer this question: How does non-intrusive spying by the government infringe on your liberty?
The Constitution promises Liberty – not Privacy. Indeed, Jefferson/Franklin etc defended Liberty – not privacy. They came from a time when most people were living like I described in my previous post: Own house/No Elec/Water/Heat etc etc.
On one hand I have to argue with folks to get the government out of our lives as far as possible. On the other hand, the same folks who want more government (Social Security/Medicare etc) also want more privacy. How can that be possible?
I’m telling you – we Libertarians have our work cut out for us!
M. Nam
I’m sure you won’t mind your neighbor watching you in the bathroom then 😉 Chilling effect against political dissent leads to a state where speech is restricted.
Compiling files in advance leads to selective enforcement where there’s easier prosecution.
Once the gov’t knows where you live, where you are at any time and everything you buy, you get mission creep. Right now the police are using GPS data from cell phones, supposed to be used for emergencies only, for warrantless crime investigations. Cell phone data will soon be used to track traffic congestion in the aggregate, but to track at an individual’s movements is so easy, so available, so tempting.
Misuse of records by gov’t personnel leads to settling personal grudges– this has often happened with IRS and DMV data.
etc. etc. etc.
Moornam,
With due respect, the libertarians I knew in college just wanted to get laid and high. This all politics “shooting from the hip” was their gig was to get to their motives…….nothing wrong with that.
However, the problem with compromising liberty is where do you stop. I know you have some personal very-narrow check list but you are not the only one living in America. Check out a classic movie by Costa Garvas, Z – It describes true events that happened in Greece – you going to think very differently.
If I leave my bathroom shades open, and the neighbour watches me from within his/her property, then I have no problem with it.
However, if my neighbour installs secret cameras on my property or uses any other means that encroach on my property, then he/she will have to crawl back home, although I’m not sure it’s easy to crawl with broken knee-caps.
You have the wrong notion of privacy. Any action that encroaches on my property is a violation on privacy. Any action that does not, is perfectly acceptable.
When I am on the phone with someone, and I speak, my voice is converted to signals by my device. So far so good. The moment those signals leave my house, they are not on my property anymore. I don’t care if the whole world is listening to it, like in that Jim Carrey movie. It’s like shouting in your front lawn – anyone walking on the street can hear you. So, I am against tapping my phone instrument, but feel free to tap my line in AT&T.
When I access a website, I enter the address in the browser. So far so good. The moment I press “Go” – the information leaves my house. It does not belong to me anymore. It’s not on my property. Comcast owns that information. The moment you change channels on TV, you have lost privacy because Comcast is selling that information to determine Nielson ratings.
You think your bank balance is private? Every Credit Card company has access to it. IRS has access to it. The clerk in your local bank has access to it. Heck, I can picture a girl sitting in Bangalore working in a call-center, looking at my balances and thinking: Nice catch, this Moor! But… shudder-shudder, some people have a problem if a law-enforcement agency is monitoring my account (along with millions of others) for withdrawals/remittances which follow the pattern of terrorist funding.
Ah.. what if an FBI agent looks into your phone records, finds that you are cheating on your husband, follows you(using your GPS activity), takes your pictures with the other guy in restaurants etc and blackmails you. Fine. I agree that such abuses are certainly possible. My answer to that is: Call the cops. Follow the law. Yes, the truth could come out and your husband may find out and you may get divorced. But the FBI agent will land up in jail.
Law enforcement officials are working overtime nowadays. They are hiring like crazy, trying desperately to keep up with the workload. I don’t think any agent has the time or energy to snoop into personal records for private gains. ( It’s easier and safer to hire a private detective to do that work.) I would like them to have whatever tools they need to do their job.
And since I won’t be doing either illegal or immoral, I have no problem with law enforcement people having non-intrusive access to my information.
M. Nam
That’s a bit technologically naive. So long-range microphones, heat sensors and x-rays are fine?
So would you support making it illegal to encrypt your email, since it’s stored on your ISP’s property?
True. Would you support reversing the credit protection and financial privacy laws?
This is naive w.r.t. human nature because of retribution against whistleblowers. Most gov’t agents don’t even get thrown in jail for torture these days.
And yet the GOP is arguing we need a secure national ID card because DMV records are regularly sold for identity theft. Cops, DMV workers and IRS agents have often been caught accessing these records to settle scores with enemies and ex’s.
Any method that does not encroach on my property in any way is fine. All these methods you listed have to send waves/signals/rays etc over my mailbox, onto my driveway, enter the bathroom walls and then hit me. The moment they came over the mailbox, they violated my property. End of story. Can’t have that.
Unless my ISP hands it over to the authorities…
I’m not sure the details of these laws, but the moment I take a wad of notes and deposit it into my account, I assume that many many people will know about it. Privacy cannot be guaranteed beyond my front door.
This is a different problem – nothing to do with privacy.
M. Nam
Incorrect, all except x-rays are passive devices. You emit sound waves, heat and infrared energy. So you’re ok with me listening and watching an inch from your property as long as I don’t paint you with additional energy. That’s the 1800’s idea of how technology works. What about the satellite case– would you support satellite monitoring of your backyard?
Once they have it, they can do damn near anything they want with it, right?
The NYT delayed this story by a year:
The Fourth Estate, keeping you informed.
MoorNam, Your posts are so vehement and your thought process so naive, it’s more amusing than persuasive. The nature of power means that every power given to a govt will get misused unless checked. If we could depend on the goodness of a govt and the integrity of administration officials, we wouldn’t need the delicate balance of power between the admin, the congress and an independent judiciary. These checks and balances are what keeps democracy alive.
If you say the govt can snoop on you as long as it doesn’t physically bother you, it’s as good as doing away with democracy and handing ourselves over to complete tyranny.
If Orwell doesn’t convince you, maybe you’ve heard the gist of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle – “You can’t observe something without affecting it”.
Ummm… Google Earth? A word of advice for the FBI/CIA – try not to monitor my backyard when I have BBQ parties – or else you will be drooling over your screens.
If you are a closet Libertarian, it’s time you came out! I’ll even throw a backyard BBQ party for you!
People think that the Bush administration is intent on giving artbitrary powers to the law enforcement folks. That’s simply absurd. There are at least three levels of analysis before they decide which are credible threats and which are not. After this, they give out the names/addresses of these threats to the ground personnel after checking them thoroughly to make sure that there is no personal relationship between the spy and the spied. There is never one person spying – there are teams of three or more people. Everything is recorded. The people who do the actual spying have no authority to use this information, which is sent to an analysis team. The analysis team submits its report to the management, which then decides the next course of action.
There are so many checks and balances built into the system that for one individual to misuse this power is next to impossible. And by no means is anyone trying to get rid of these checks and balances. Playing the Orwellian argument is this case is to over-simplify the issue.
M. Nam
M. Nam, I think “singlestrand” may be referring to the checks and balances BETWEEN the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government (as prescribed in the Constitution), not the checks and balances WITHIN the executive branch/law enforcement.
As per these Consitutional checks and balances, the president may snoop, so long as he does so within the limits set by the legislature, and with the oversight of the judicial branch. In this instance, the president seems to be insisting that these checks and balances in fact do not apply.
Of course, conservatives try to debunk yet another screwup by the Bush (mis)administration by attacking the source, instead of discussing the issue on hand.
A Suntimes article says some members of Congress AND the special court were informed of the program.
Instead of increased spying on people, maybe they should pay more attention to the intelligence that is presented to them. As in the PDB from August 6th 2001 which specifically stated that Bin Laden was planning to hijack airplanes within the United States and they chose to ignore it. If they actually paid attention to the intelligence presented to them and took timely action maybe we would not be having this discussion.
True, but they were not allowed to discuss the spying with anyone.