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Trust Us, We’re The Government: The Administration Multiplies Claim of “One Plot” To “Dozens” Foiled By The Warrantless Surveillance Programs

220px-Keith_B._Alexander_official_portraitIt appears that, as opposition grows to the surveillance programs, the Administration is increasing the claimed successes under the programs. The wonderful thing about secret massive databanks is that its use is . . . well . . . secret. After the surveillance programs involving all calls from citizens and hundreds of millions of emails were disclosed, congressional allies came forward to claim that “a possible plot” was foiled by the program. Of course, they could not tell anyone about the plot even after other members of the Senate said that they doubted that claim. National Security Agency director Army Gen. Keith Alexander, however, has decided that just one potential plot is not enough. So he testified this week that “dozens” of potential plots have been foiled in an effort to get citizens to redefine privacy in a more surveillance friendly image.

For many civil libertarians, the Administration and Congress will have to forgive the feeling that this is like asking “who are you going to believe a court or the people who were secretly spying on you?” What makes this particularly fascinating is the small problem of the past false testimony on surveillance given by intelligence officials in congressional hearings — testimony known to be false by the Senators in attendance. This is also the same Administration that only in February blocked a major effort to seek judicial review dismissed in the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote because any confirmation of such programs would endanger American lives.

Yet, now we are told to simply accept on faith that dozens of “potential” plots were stopped. Putting aside the past exaggeration of intelligence claims, this testimony (and the hearing itself) seemed designed to (as with the prior torture program under Bush) to get the public to forget about privacy and constitutional protections by keeping fear alive.

Much like Putin’s defense of the American surveillance programs, Alexander insisted that this is the new normal. Alexander repeated the position of the White House that “We do not see a tradeoff between security and liberty. We are trying to protect Americans.” That is a fascinating — and chilling — statement. It suggests that there is no balancing needed if you “are trying to protect Americans.” Of course, everything the government does in the area (as with criminal non-terrorism cases) is to protect the public.

Moreover, despite Obama’s suggestion that there is a balancing, there is no evidence of it. All of the steps like reading content of emails referenced by Obama is not some concession made by his Administration: it is a power that he does not possess. Those concessions are in fact prohibitions. Obama went all the way up to (in my view, over) the line of maximum power. It is like saying to a police officer that you balanced you desire to get to your location by speeding but not moving into approaching traffic. That really is no more a concession for a driver than it is to say that you are not reading mail without a warrant for a president.

Now back to Alexander. In a repeat of what occurred after the disclosure of the torture program, the Democratic senators structured the hearing to avoid the broad questions of legality and privacy. Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski reminded everyone that they would not address such questions being discussed “in the news.” Instead, they wanted the focus to be on the benefits of the massive surveillance system and of course attacking Snowden.

Yet, no one asked Alexander what constitutes a “potential” plot. We have not seen dozens of prosecutions. What happened to them? Likewise, no one asked for details on the plots. After all, he just said the programs uncovered the plots and presumably the plotters know that they were found out. So why not lay the facts bare for the American public?

Then there is the assumed proposition that if “a plot” or “dozens of plots” were uncovered, it would excuse a massive surveillance of the population and the creation of a fishbowl society.

By the way, various lawyers and intelligence experts with direct knowledge of two intercepted terrorist plots have said that they do not believe the program played a significant role. The two cases cited by allies of the White House involve the arrests and convictions of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi in 2009 and David Headley who received a 35-year prison sentence for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. However, court documents in the US and UK show an array of more important sources, including informants and conventional surveillance.

However, I am still struck by the spectacle of these hearings after the disclosure of false testimony by people like James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence. Clapper has recently said that his testimony was “the least untrue” statement that he could make. Yet, of course that would still make it an untrue statement — which most people call a lie and lawyers call perjury. Indeed, when Roger Clemens was prosecuted for untrue statements before Congress, he was not told of the option to tell the least untrue statement on steroid use.

Yet, it is important to note that Senators have come forward to admit that they knew of the massive surveillance program. So, when Clapper was given untrue testimony, these Senators sat quietly and allowed the public to be lied to. They are now holding hearings that assure the public that it can trust them that these programs have foiled “dozens” of plots. It is asking rather a lot from any citizen, but it may be the last measure of devotion demanded by this President.

88 thoughts on “Trust Us, We’re The Government: The Administration Multiplies Claim of “One Plot” To “Dozens” Foiled By The Warrantless Surveillance Programs”

  2. You don’t say . . .

    Isn’t that you wearing the /Hqsa3kqTYyLu+n37li25v3H81iqwDcFgCTLngX9nLmMk6zIATR3CgHRGe1toPrt7ytL?

  3. Tony,
    They weren’t doing it right. The centrifuges had the wrong kind of governor on them. One of these days, we are going to need to go back to this, so might as well get psychologically prepared.

  6. Bron: In the case of the centrifuges, I believe there was insufficient safeguards within the code and hardware, so a virus that set various voltages on the rail (maximum or minimum) could force the centrifuge to spin so fast it literally broke parts that could not be replaced.

    Quite a bit of electronically controlled equipment relies on its software to keep inputs within reasonable specifications, because hardware safeguards, brakes, fuses and such all cost money and take up space, and increase maintenance and repair costs. But of course that makes them vulnerable to malware.

  7. Blouise,

    You don’t need a license to drive a segue. Oh. Wait. No, that’s a Segway.

    Never mind.

  8. The more the government’s intelligence services do to try and keep us f\safe and free from radical terrorists, the more conspiracy theorists seem to pop up on this blog.

  9. Gene,

    I was using literary license to segue … if your cell phone or computer are sitting on your ottoman … poof … your ottoman is lethal. Of course, if your cell phone is up to your ear then your head is lethal.

    BTW … Alexander is a buddy of that infamously adulterous CIA Director, Petraeus. I wonder if Alexander collected the clandestine couples’ emails?

  10. Blouise:

    can they litterally blow things up or do they just make them work beyond the intended capacity?

  11. my question is why arent people upset by the IRS? They have far more data than the NSA does and they are willing to use it against us.

    The IRS knows about our bank accounts, our health, just about everything we do they know about. If they wanted, they could tell us where we had dinner, assuming we used a check or credit card, on October 15, 2008.

    That seems to me to be more worrisome than some military geeks who are just gathering phone numbers to figure out who is calling whom.

    Maybe the NSA is much more of a safe bet to bad mouth than the IRS?

  12. “So my boy, your electronic furniture like a computer, cell phone, vehicle can become a weapon in the hands of those who wage Cyber Warfare.”

    So can an ottoman wielded by a lunatic, but the statement holds all things being equal. Besides, technically a computer is a tool, not furniture. Unless you’re doing something really against the manufacturer’s suggested use.

  13. Gene,

    ” … your own furniture is as likely to kill you as terrorism.”

    We’re talking cyber warfare operations … remember Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Russia … check out what Bamford has to say about that and General Alexander:

    “To me what scares me most now is that you have this director of the NSA who now has under his authority the ability to actually destroy things. It’s a thing called cyber kinetic warfare where you’re using cyber not just to erase someone’s hard drive but to actually blow things up. The largest dam in Russia for example, was destroyed. It wasn’t cyber warfare but it was an accidental cyber event. The U.S. used that in Iran and destroyed the Iranian centrifuges…now you have this General who can not only eavesdrop on everybody but he can blow things up.”

    You can check out Bamford’s articles in Wired Magazine.

    So my boy, your electronic furniture like a computer, cell phone, vehicle can become a weapon in the hands of those who wage Cyber Warfare. Poof … citizens disappear. Reagan’s Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative) is now operational and golly. gosh. geewhiz, everybody thought it was about missiles.

    And finally, one of the main requisites for advancement in spy careers is the ability to lie … Alexander heads up what is quite possibly the most powerful spy agency in the world … of course he’s a constant liar.

    Also, just for the fun of it, I remind you that Michele Bachmann is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Talk about scary.

  14. I can understand how Snowden might have jeopardized national security by revealing capabilities we have that our adversaries did not know.

    And I can understand that Snowden might have lied.

    If Snowden lied, it must have been to claim we have capabilities that we in fact do not have. And Clapper, himself, agrees, we do have these capabilities or at least we do not used them.

    So my question is how, exactly, does one jeopardize national security by claiming capabilities that we do not have?

    The administration is claiming that before Snowden lied we did not have the capability and therefor we could not monitor the activities of our adversaries. And the administration is claiming that after Snowden lied our adversaries changed their behavior and we cannot monitor them – with the capabilities that we do not have. So help me now. Where, exactly is the damage to national security that results from lying about capability that we do not have? It seems to me that we are in exactly the same situation both before and after Snowden lied. In either case the result is the same – we cannot monitor the activities of our adversaries.

    I think the administration can claim that Snowden lied. Or the administration can claim that Snowden damaged national security.

    But what the administration, Clapper, Feinstein, and the entire congress cannot do is claim both that Snowden lied and that Snowden damaged national security – not unless they want the make a ‘least untrue statement’.

    Or maybe a that is a ‘maximum untrue statement’. I am still studying this innovative concept and not sure I have yet grasped all the subtleties.

  16. Somehow… I have my doubts. My issue isn’t that they are “listening” in. My issue isn’t even with collecting the data.

    My issue is with KEEPING the bloody data, you know.. “just in case”.

    Tools are being developed that given the right set of meta data one won’t NEED to listen IN to your conversations, one will be able to correctly GUESS your very thinking processes over a short time.

    If they have information on everything you do, to whom you speak, where you go, links you click, search engine data and who knows what else, and apply it to these tools then your very psyche can be discerned.

    Science Fiction, right? Nope. It’s not. Even if it IS, it won’t be soon enough. If you don’t believe that, look at the science news in the last few months. Cloaking devices, teleportation, completely mapping the human genome, and more. ALL of these things were Science Fiction not that long ago.

    It won’t be too long before E.E. Smith’s Lensman Series becomes fact.

    Folks… this crap has to stop. It stops with us. Not on TOP of us.

  17. In Rome when a general failed the Republic, they fell on their sword in the name of honor.

  18. Dave: That line of argument smells nothing like being in favor of water-boarding, torture, or any other illegal activity.

    That line of argument is precisely the argument against murder: The effectiveness of just killing somebody is irrelevant, it is against the law.

    In fact, the reason for MOST laws that a super-majority of common people believe need to be in place is precisely because the acts are, in fact, effective, from the point of view of those committing them. Otherwise people would seldom have engaged in such acts in the first place. The fact is that stealing works, one can get wealthy stealing, or enslaving people, or by killing those that get in their way, or defrauding people. Effectiveness is irrelevant if it is against the law.

  19. Tennessee First District Republican Congressman, Phil Roe, just came down on the side of being more open and does not think Snowden is a traitor. Interesting. Before he became a politician, Phil was a physician (OB/GYN). His response to this issue is interesting. It is worth noting that he voted against the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

    Roe does not believe Snowden is a traitor. Newspaper story at the link. Here is the money quote:

    Roe cited the Tsarnaev brothers — alleged masterminds of the Boston Marathon bombings — as another example of shortcomings within the U.S. intelligence gathering system.

    “We had the Russian intelligence community make a phone call to our intelligence community saying ‘We think those guys are terrorists’ and we missed them,” Roe said.

    http://www.timesnews.net/article/9063629/roe-doesnt-think-nsa-leaker-is-a-traitor

  20. *The alleged effectiveness of a program is irrelevant when its constitutionality is in question.*

    (That line of argument, by the way, smells similar to those in favor of water-boarding, for instance.)

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