While President Obama continues to tell the public that there is no widespread domestic surveillance program and denies the violation of privacy rights, another report again contradicts those statements. According to the Washington Post, the National Security Agency broke privacy rules thousands of times every year under the warrantless surveillance program. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that civil libertarians view the programs themselves to be violations of Constitution, but the Administration violated even those rules. Moreover, this information did not come from Congress or the White House. It came from Edward Snowden. You remember him. He is the guy Obama said is no patriot and could have taken a different course to address his concerns. The information reviewed by the Post is more than would have been shared with Congress under current rules.
Some of the “inadvertent” spying is astonishing. For example, the NSA according to this article wanted to listen to calls going to Egypt at area code “20” but made a mistake. That mistake happened to capture a “large number” of calls from “202” — Washington D.C.
The violations also included the unauthorized use of information on more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.
Obama insisted that “a court” reviews these programs, though he is referring to the widely ridiculed FISA court which lacks the authority to seriously monitor the program or reject all but a couple applications in its history.
A NSA official is quoted as saying that they are trying to do better and the public needs to trust the agency: “We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line.” Sure, but what if these entire warrantless programs are on “the wrong side of the line”?
Source: Washington Post
looks like seal team six is about to get a new assignment.
As the adage goes, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern and a thousands of times a year means you’re %&*(*&%%*$ lying.”
Wow. Thousands of “mistakes” and we are supposed to feel safe for our privacy. It is time to return to warrants for everything. Get rid of the Patriot Act and FISA and require warrants for all spying and get those warrants from Federal District courts that are not secret. Secondly, thousands of alleged mistakes are intentional and should be prosecuted accordingly.
AP, The problem Wyden has is that this is intelligence for which he has a duty to keep confidential. If this were a housing kickback, or some other non security issue, it would be much simpler. He’s in a tough spot. But, he and Udall have consistently pressed this issue within those confines. Snowden helped Wyden somewhat. This “phony scandal” isn’t going away. Investigations take patience and persistence. The administration is praying people have neither. This is a big deal. Doublespeak is how Obama is handling it and it won’t work. I worked investigations that required just old fashioned plugging away. There are some reporters and a couple senators doing that work so far. Others will hopefully join in soon.
Mike Spindell:
Well, both you and I both have the best of intentions as to promulgating the freedoms, liberties and civil rights of the American people.
So, we are both coming from the same direction. And yes we should concentrate on what we agree upon, which I believe is exactly on-point with each other, in the arena of personal civil liberties.
(For the time being let us ignore our disagreements on the other half, personal economic freedoms :^))
I respect your acumen, and perspective, and dare I say we agree far more about these issues than we disagree. Remember, I once created a whole article about one of our long discussions on this blog, I found it thrilling and yet still civil, even though we disagreed on some nitty gritty details, mostly whether sociopaths would rule the world if pure laissez faire capitalism was legal.
http://www.nolanchart.com/article8844-my-dinner-with-mike.html
“dare I say we agree far more about these issues than we disagree”
Gary,
We do agree on much of these civil liberties issues and even probably on some of the other issues regarding government. As you know I spent much of my career working for government in NYC and I have some devastating critiques of my own about the flaws that come with government programs.
You know of course my own musings on the Corporate State and the return to feudalism that I see. The greatest defensive stand that we the people can make has to be concentrated on the broad area that is civil liberties, most especially freedom of speech. If our liberty goes than there is no hope for dealing with any other issues. It is here that I think people of good will from most areas of the political spectrum can come together and fight these encroachments as allies. I say most areas because as we know on both ends of the political spectrum lie those who would prefer a totalitarian monolithic state.
As for you dinner with Mike, I loved the piece the first time I read it and again now. How could I not since you make me look smarter than I really am? 🙂
“We have previously said that the violations of these laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged, and we believe Americans should know that this confirmation is just the tip of a larger iceberg.”
-Wyden, Udall Statement (Friday, August 16, 2013)
(http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-udall-statement-on-reports-of-compliance-violations-made-under-nsa-collection-programs
Wyden, Udall Statement on Reports of Compliance Violations Made Under NSA Collection Programs)
It’s time for Wyden and Udall to crack this open — to blow the whistle — to do what it takes to get to the bottom of what’s going on in the U.S.
Tip of a larger iceberg? Oh, yeah.
On the other end of the spectrum, Senator Feinstein had a press release w/ tortured language and obfuscation..just like the administration. Feels like the Summer of 1973. Except I don’t have hair, I weigh 30lbs more, and I’m not hanging out on the beach of Wildwood, NJ.
Commenting on the article Senators Wyden and Udall said this was “just the tip of the iceberg.” These are two righteous politicians on this “phony scandal.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/lawbreaking-at-the-nsa-justifies-a-new-church-committee/278750/
Lawbreaking at the NSA: Bring On a New Church Committee
The Washington Post has revealed an audit documenting thousands of abuses per year. An exhaustive investigation is long overdue — and Ron Wyden should lead it.
by Conor Friedersdorf
“All told, it’s an airtight case for dramatically more oversight. Senator Ron Wyden has long led the lonely effort in his body to expose NSA abuses, and he is the natural choice to lead both an investigation and a Wyden Committee Report to Study Intelligence Activities in the War on Terror. Were there any justice in the world, Feinstein would be kept far away from the effort.”
@max-1:
Sometimes I wonder the same about the same thing. It seems like every time something of real import comes along that both political sides could agree on, like Wall Street corruption, or the NSA mess, a swarm of silly distractions buzz in. What got the Tea Party going was the Wall Street bailout, then they got into all kinds of screwy stuff.
One of my uncles, who is a management guru among other pursuits, says there is such a thing as Management By Confusion, whereby management perpetuates its own existence by a series of manufactured crises. For example, changing computer systems when the old system works just fine. Then, management screw-ups are lost in all the confusion. After a few years of this, when the original screw-ups begin to manifest themselves, for example crummy product R&D, it is blamed on the computer problems. All of which can be solved by- – -drumroll- – -a NEW computer system!
He says this kind of stuff is not accidental.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Edward Snowden Leaks Again—And It’s a Bombshell
BY MARC TRACY
AUGUST 16, 2013
Excerpt:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114335/new-snowden-docs-show-we-dont-even-know-what-we-dont-know
The terrifying thing is that we are not having that debate. As these documents are the latest things to demonstrate, the various overseers as well as the public do not have access to the information that even the current rules assert they should have. That is how I can state with certainty that we are not having that vital debate: We do not have the means to have that debate with any kind of authority; therefore, no matter how much we discuss these issues, we are not having that debate.
The most important thing about the Egypt-D.C. confusion isn’t that U.S. calls were collected in violation of rules, for instance. It is that, after this violation was uncovered, it was not reported to oversight staff.
In a separate, in many ways equally important Post article, Carol D. Leonnig reports that FISC’s chief judge is hopelessly dependent on the NSA in order for it to perform its statutorily mandated oversight. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance,” the judge, Reggie B. Walton, told her, “and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court.” Obama, Leonnig noted, has explicitly held FISC up as assurance that the programs do have strong oversight. But it should be obvious that outside oversight that depends on the purely internal machinations of the thing that is supposed to be overseen is not accountable oversight.
Lawmakers are not blameless. They may access unredacted documents, albeit in a secure room where they lack the ability to take notes. They might theoretically then, even, pull a Mike Gravel and read the results into the record on the House or Senate floor. Gellman reports that “fewer than 10 percent of lawmakers” presently have the ability actually to do this in practice. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, was unaware of the May 2012 audit until she was contacted for the Post story.
But mainly this is on the NSA, which is to say, on the administration. President Obama pledged last Friday to make these surveillance programs “more transparent.” He argued, “It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs. The American people need to have confidence in them, as well.”
Yet the administration did not disclose, say, the lapses Gellman reported. In fact, the NSA retroactively placed an on-the-record interview with its director of compliance off the record, according to Gellman. It did this after Obama’s speech extolling the importance of and promising transparency. In a sense, we got his wished-for transparency. We can see right through him now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/americas/in-brazil-kerry-is-told-spying-sows-distrust.html?_r=0
In Brazil, Kerry Is Told Spying Sows ‘Distrust’
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: August 13, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s foreign minister on Tuesday excoriated the surveillance practices of the United States, dismissing as unsatisfactory Secretary of State John Kerry’s explanation of the wide-ranging collection of data on telephone and electronic communications and describing the spying as “a new type of challenge” in Brazil’s relationship with the United States.
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Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota issued the unusual expression of indignation over the National Security Agency’s spying programs while standing next to Mr. Kerry at a news conference in Brasília, the capital, where the secretary of state had stopped on a two-day trip to South America, largely in an attempt to allay concerns in Brazil over the N.S.A.’s spying.
Resentment has festered in Brazil since revelations of the surveillance practices emerged in July, detailing how the agency established a data collection center in Brasília and prioritized Brazil, with its vast telecommunications hubs and large population of 200 million, as among the agency’s most spied-upon countries.
Washington’s ties with Brazil remain warm: President Dilma Rousseff is scheduled to go to the White House in October for a highly anticipated state visit; high-level contacts continue in areas like energy and agriculture, according to Mr. Patriota; and trade between the two countries is thriving (though still eclipsed by Brazil’s robust commerce with China). Still, the surveillance has clearly struck a nerve.
Mr. Patriota, a former ambassador to the United States, said that the surveillance practices “cast a shadow of distrust” over bilateral relations and that “listening to explanations doesn’t mean accepting the status quo.”
Mr. Kerry absorbed these comments before defending the programs and trying to assuage concerns. “Brazil is owed answers with respect to those questions, and they will get them,” he said. “And we will work together very positively to make certain that this question — these issues — do not get in the way of all the other things that we talked about.”
Convincing Brazil that such spying is needed may be an uphill struggle, but the Obama administration knows that without strong ties with Brazil, the United States cannot have a satisfactory approach to a range of issues in Latin America, including energy integration, curbs on environmental degradation and the fight against drug trafficking.
Mr. Kerry tried to emphasize the positive aspects of relations with Brazil by focusing on subjects like the government’s plans here to send tens of thousands of Brazilian students to American universities and vigorous bilateral trade, tilted in advantage of the United States in the form of an ample surplus.
Still, it was clear at the end of Mr. Kerry’s visit that solutions to certain problems remain unresolved, like Washington’s requirement that Brazilians traveling to the United States have visas, even though Brazilians rank among the highest-spending foreign tourists and Brazilian companies are increasingly investing in the United States.
Brazil, for its part, has maintained warm and even improving relations with Washington while simultaneously raising its economic and diplomatic profile in the developing world, especially in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. In Cuba, Venezuela and other countries where the United States is officially viewed as antagonistic, Brazil has emerged as a major trading partner.
“The surveillance leaks are very serious, but they also give Brazil an opportunity, since the U.S. often presents itself as an example of good leadership,” said Elena Lazarou, director of the Center for International Relations at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a top Brazilian university.
http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-udall-statement-on-reports-of-compliance-violations-made-under-nsa-collection-programs
Wyden, Udall Statement on Reports of Compliance Violations Made Under NSA Collection Programs
Friday, August 16, 2013
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) issued the following statement regarding reports that the NSA has violated rules intended to protect Americans’ privacy thousands of times each year. Wyden and Udall are both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“The executive branch has now confirmed that the ‘rules, regulations and court-imposed standards for protecting the privacy of Americans’ have been violated thousands of times each year. We have previously said that the violations of these laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged, and we believe Americans should know that this confirmation is just the tip of a larger iceberg.
While Senate rules prohibit us from confirming or denying some of the details in today’s press reports, the American people have a right to know more details about of these violations. We hope that the executive branch will take steps to publicly provide more information as part of the honest, public debate of surveillance authorities that the Administration has said it is interested in having.
In particular, we believe the public deserves to know more about the violations of the secret court orders that have authorized the bulk collection of Americans’ phone and email records under the USA PATRIOT Act. The public should also be told more about why the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has said that the executive branch’s implementation of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has circumvented the spirit of the law, particularly since the executive branch has declined to address this concern.
We appreciate the candor of the Chief Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court regarding the Court’s inability to independently verify statements made by the executive branch. We believe that the Court is not currently structured in a way that makes it an effective check on the power of the executive branch. This highlights the need for a robust and well-staffed public advocate who could participate in significant cases before the Court and evaluate and counter government assertions. Without such an advocate on the court, and without greater transparency regarding the Court’s rulings, the checks and balances on executive branch authority enshrined in the Constitution cannot be adequately upheld.”
AP,
I’m sure Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) is already busy preparing articles of impeachment as we type… YES?
Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter,
Consider: The conspiracy theorist propagators are insiders creating obscure distractions (aka shiny objects) for the people to look at so that they can remain divided and never coalesce around a single unifying moment of clarity. Say… warrantless wiretapping of American phone and electronic communications in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments.
If they can just keep it up… no one will EVER be held accountable for obvious and orchestrated violations of the People’s Trust and Constitution.
@Frank:
Zullo himself says there “isn’t enough evidence to convict Obama of jaywalking, much less anything else.” Which is why the Birthers are trying to browbeat congressmen into launching an investigation. They can’t get any prosecutors to touch it. All the Birther issue does is make Republicans and the Tea Party look paranoid and crazy. Which assessment slops over onto everything else they say. Please read something other than Birther websites, and I am sure you will change your mind.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/08/statement-of-congresswoman-tulsi-gabbar.html
“Statement of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard on NSA
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) released the following statement on reports of thousands of privacy violations and illegal surveillance each year by the National Security Agency (NSA):
“As more and more is revealed about the NSA’s sweeping surveillance practices, we are just scratching the surface of the full scope of blatant violations of personal privacy and freedoms. The news today uncovering even more abuse and overreach is extremely troubling. It also raises more questions about how extensive and invasive these programs truly are. The American people deserve to know more about the extent of the NSA’s intrusions on our civil liberties.”
Postado há 30 minutes ago por Glenn Greenwald”
As of a short time ago, there were nearly 4,000 comments on the WP website relating to the story that appeared just yesterday about NSA’s violation of its own rules. When a story of this nature goes viral so quickly, the perpetrators surely begin to suffer a distinct feeling of unease. I suspect that change is in the wind, but the Puzzle Palace people won’t give up without a fight. Once you’ve convinced yourself that you’re Zeus, you don’t take kindly to being taken down a peg or two.
Diogenes,
Why would Obama shield his blackmailers?
Well, the (in)famous Hoover reigned supreme some 20 years and we all know how he managed to earn and propagate his immutable job.
Would it be possible that somebody is clutching Obama’s you-know-what and forces him to things he would not do out of his own volition?
Just a fleeting conspiratorial thought.