NYT: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report (Snoopgate)

[sabra]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. You know...

I am starting to think that these chuckleheads have actually gone entirely too far for the nation to stomach and will hand over Congress in 07. Then, the fun will really start.

[Up2Late]

2. I hate to be the "wet blanket," but I bet I know what's going to happen.

If and when the Congress starts to find that Bush and his Cabal broke the Law, he's just going to blame it all on Bad Legal advice, and "activist Lawyers" or something screwed up like that.

I doubt 3 years is long enough to plow through all the layers of "Fall Guys" they have, unless they suddenly find audio or video tapes of * doing the planning and telling the WH lawyers to stick it, he'll walk.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
Published: December 24, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter.
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1135401233-ogS8clS2h5nrSCThbg70jA

[Wordie]

4. It just gets worse and worse. Telecommunication companies participating in

this? Jeez.

[Arianrhod]

26. I really do hate to say this

but the telecoms' participation was kind of forced by the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which requires them to open up 10% of a given telephone switch's user lines to wiretapping at any one time upon demand by authorities. There is no mention of any need on the part of the police to prove that they have attained the proper warrants. This law was signed by Clinton in 1994.

The system has been broken for an incredibly long time. It will take an equal amount of time to fix it.

[Wordie]

30. If you build it, they will come.

That's what this looks like. Give law enforcement (or anybody else, for that matter) the power to do something, and they will do it, all the while conveniently forgetting any limitations that are probably built into the law for protection of the citizenry's rights. It's like a kid being given a shiny new toy for Christmas, but then being told he can only play with it on certain structured occasions. How well do you think that would work? And when it comes to technology there are a lot of us who are like big kids! Technology fascinates; if it is available, somebody's gonna use it. (I do realize there are very legitimate reasons for law enforcement to have some of these capabilities; I'm just saying there always has to be an effective oversight built in, or there will be abuses.)

Here are some details from a statement of the Center for Democracy and Technology about the law (this is just the intro to a long statement):

CALEA is but the latest chapter in the 30 year history of the federal wiretap laws, which have always sought to balance constitutional privacy protections and law enforcement interests. CALEA was intended to preserve a minimum law enforcement surveillance capability in the face of technological change. It was not intended to serve as the basis for mandated expansions in that capability. Rather, as was the case with earlier electronic surveillance legislation, Congress crafted a legislative scheme intended to balance the interests of law enforcement and privacy. That balance is reflected in the four assistance requirements set out in Section 103 of the Act.

The industry interim standard already violates the principle of balance by mandating a location tracking capability that Congress did not intend and by failing to require adequate privacy protection in packet networks of call content not authorized to be intercepted. Expansion of the industry standard as the FBI proposes would further upset the balance. Given Congress' particular concern with the expanding sensitivity of signaling information, it is unreasonable to conclude, as the FBI argues, that Congress would pass a law mandating further expansion in the richness of signaling data provided to law enforcement, under a mere pen register standard.

CALEA also went one step further than the previous wiretap statutes, affirmatively requiring the protection of privacy through technological means. Three of CALEA's four capability assistance requirements are intended to preserve law enforcement's surveillance capabilities. But the fourth requires carriers to ensure that their systems are capable of intercepting call content and call-identifying information "in a manner that protects . . . the privacy and security of communications and call-identifying information not authorized to be intercepted." Section 103(a)(4) thus imposes on telecommunications carriers for the first time ever an affirmative obligation to protect the privacy of communications and call-identifying data not authorized to be intercepted. This has direct implications for the packet networks issue.

The Commission has a pivotal role in carrying forward Congress' historical balance between privacy and law enforcement into technologies that form the basis for a wide variety of new communications services. The two aspects of the industry interim standard that CDT's challenge highlights - wireless location information and packet network services - are technologies that are at the very heart of the digital communications revolution. Notably, it is with these two core technologies that CDT believes the industry interim standard gives law enforcement surveillance capabilities that intrude upon privacy contrary to Congress' intent. In this phase of the CALEA proceedings, the Commission is required by CALEA to ensure that the fundamental privacy/law enforcement balance is being adequately maintained for these cutting-edge technologies.

CALEA, however, does not prohibit these surveillance enhancing developments, if they come about as a result of business needs or market forces. If they are available, law enforcement can take advantage of them. But the government cannot mandate them through adoption of a standard that forms the CALEA "safe harbor" standard. It is the Commission's responsibility to narrowly interpret the CALEA requirements and prevent the imposition of capabilities that would upset the fundamental balance at the heart of the Act.
http://www.cdt.org/digi_tele/calea052098.html

Thanks for reminding us about CALEA.

[Trevelyan]

5. Please sign Rep. Conyers' letter to begin Impeachment Inquiry over this

issue and so many other */cheney outrages.

http://www.impeachpac.org/
http://www.conyersblog.us/

TELL CONGRESS TO IMPEACH GEORGE BUSH
http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/65

http://www.johnconyers.com/ - "Conyer's Action Items

Join me, below, in sending the:

Letter Advising the President of Censure

and

Steps to Begin Special Committee Investigation

Dear Mr. President:

We are brave, proud, patriotic citizens of the United States. We love our country and are writing to express our profound disappointment with you and your administration for your conduct surrounding the Iraq War, the collection and use of intelligence, and your disrespect for the laws of this great nation..."

[FogerRox]

6. KNR

[mazzarro]

7. Woooow! The stench is getting more pungent -- n/t

[madaboutharry]

8. This is what the East German government

did to its people. This administration must be legally and peaceful removed from office through the Constitutional provision of impeachment. It is the only way that our democracy can be restored.

[Nancy Waterman]

9. This story doesn't just have legs

it just sprouted wings!!

[Daphne08]

24. Yes, the Stasi was my first thought as well. n/t

[seafan]

10. Remove. Convict. Imprison.

snip from article:

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

snip

Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials.

Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.

[Triana]

11. This is Echelon/TIA....

....they talked about that few years ago. Then, all got quiet. Now, we know they've implemented it without our knowledge, and without judicial or congressional oversight.

TW/AOL, Earthlink, BellSouth, Cox Cable, AT & T - whoever, whatever. If the gov't has back doors into these networks they're data mining BIG TIME and looking for keywords to zero in on.

[Zan_of_Texas]

12. Bamford discussed the scope of this on Monday

Monday, December 19th, 2005

An Impeachable Offense? Bush Admits Authorizing NSA to Eavesdrop on Americans Without Court Approval

Interview with Amy Goodman
Democracy Now broadcast transcript -- EXCERPT

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/19/1515212

James Bamford, investigative journalist and author of several books including the first book ever written about the National Security Agency called "The Puzzle Palace : Inside America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization." He is also author of "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency"; and most recently, "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies."

AMY GOODMAN: James Bamford, if you could explain how exactly the surveillance happens, how does it work at the NSA? What was allowed before, in terms of monitoring overseas conversations, and where are these listening devices?

JAMES BAMFORD: <snip> Now, the way the NSA actually does its eavesdropping, is it -- if you think about the FBI being sort of a retail eavesdropper, they will go from house to house or put a bug on a central telephone company’s office for where a person happens to have their junction box, or whatever. The NSA, on the other hand, does it wholesale, where they take entire streams of communications coming down from satellites, which can contain millions of communications, and they sort of intercept those communications with large dishes and filter the information through very quick computers that are loaded with names of people, words that they're looking for, and at one point they -- one listening post in the central part of England, for example, they intercept two million pieces of communications an hour. So that's emails, faxes, telephone calls, cellular calls and so forth. So, it's an enormous amount of eavesdropping, and Senator Frank Church, back in the mid-70s, when he was conducting his investigation of NSA, said that if NSA's technology were ever turned on the American public, there would be no place to hide.

AMY GOODMAN: And how it actually goes down? I mean, how they record?

JAMES BAMFORD: Well, they record it by picking up the signals. The signals are transmitted by -- either by satellite or microwave or by undersea cable. And the NSA has developed methods for eavesdropping on all of those techniques, either using satellites in space or ground stations or submarines that can actually tap into undersea cables. So, they have perfected the methods by which they can intercept all of the different forms of communications, even fiber optic communications, which are buried underground. And the key is that being able to sift through it all and pick out the communications that they want. But again, the NSA is supposed to be directed externally. And the problem is once a president decides to secretly turn the NSA's big ear internally, and that's what has been happening.

[leftchick]

25. keywords like, Kerry, Democratic,Peace,Anti-war

etc. :grr:

[Singular73]

13. NYT: NSA Spying Broader Than Bush Admitted

NEW YORK - The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls — without court orders — than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

The story did not name the companies.

Since the Times disclosed the domestic spying program last week, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al-Qaida.

But the Times said that NSA technicians have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorists.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunications data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the paper said, quoting an unnamed official.

The story quoted a former technology manager at a major telecommunications firm as saying that companies have been storing information on calling patterns since the Sept. 11 attacks, and giving it to the federal government. Neither the manager nor the company he worked for was identified

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051224/ap_on_go_pr_wh/domestic_spying

------------------------------------------

Wow. They are data farming from private corporations now to spy on US citizens?

THis is SERIOUSLY messed up.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

14. Oh my, now there is a real

surprise. They didn't come clean and tell all??


:sarcasm:

[ny_liberal]

18. why is everyone surprised?

of course, they won't tell the whole story

[C_U_L8R]

19. there is SO MUCH more to this story

I hope some really good investigative journalists are working hard and digging deep.
There's a lot more to this story. And I hope congress is investigating EVERYTHING.

I'd like to know who is on Bush's enemies list... I'm sure it's not all terrorists

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

20. I don't know about everyone, but I had a "sarcasm" graphic in my post.

I'm not surprised, I think I predicted it.

[goforit]

15. And we'll just sit around and watch these asses get what they want.

[EFerrari]

16. They have to cast a wide net to obscure their real targets.

And I don't mean binLaden but the Kerry Campaign, MoveOn, and other terra - ist outfits of the same type. It's harder to charge them for tampering with the Kerry campaign if they were also spying on a Brazilian other people.

Nice try, MendacityCentral.

[shance]

17. So what private "companies" are entering our houses while we're gone?

And what "private companies" or government properties are tracking us to and from work?

There is no way to know the limit of their offenses now.

[soothsayer]

21. Can you say Bechtel? I bet that's one of 'em!

[aquart]

22. Now that's an impressive Friday news dump.

They waited until fucking Christmas??????

Hoping we'll forget by New Year's?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

23. So, how many consecutive lies did Bush tell just in the last week?! nt

[carincross]

27. 15 days, not 72 hours

Joe Biden said on "Hardball" on 12/21/05 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10565905/) that according to the FISA law he has 15 days, not 72 hours, to apply for a warrant because of a special "in time of war" provision.

[Tellurian]

28. The excuse for the HUNT sounds lame as well-

More to the core of the TRUTH IS...Repugs are hunting anyone and everyone who are unlike themselves.
TARGET #1 are die-hard democrats. I don't mean politicians, I mean U.S. Citizens.

[sattahipdeep]

48. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland , has introduced a resolution

Bush to face tough questions over Patriot Act, spy orders

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has introduced a resolution
requiring the White House to turn over the names of all
who were secretly wiretapped. Associated Press photo by Dennis Cook

[demgrrrll]

29. Can you even begin to imagine the information they have collected

on their "enemies" ?

[HR_Pufnstuf]

31. How much business intelligence was mined?

For the govt-friendly corpses.

That's the big Q.

[cliss]

32. Well, this certainly blows holes in Bush's alibi

about tracking Al Qaida. As usual, the man is lying. They just cast a VERY BIG net over this entire country. Just to be on the safe side.

Cheney obviously wants to know who his enemies are, right down to the little Grandma who calls Bush "Whistle Ass".

THAT's what this is about. Nailing down potential enemies, even critics, of every stripe and color.

[Pab Sungenis]

33. Breaking: NYT: NSA Spying Broader Than Bush Admitted

NEW YORK (AP) - The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls - without court orders - than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

The story did not name the companies.

More at: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20051224%2F0700426712.htm&sc=1151&photoid=20051222WHRE101&floc=NW_1-T

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

34. Surprise, surprise, surprise

my husband says. Wonder if there is any way we can find out how many Dems/progressives/anti-war/environmentalists/pro-choice folks were snooped upon?

[napi21]

35. I suspect this was going on for a long time.

I'll be interested to see how much info actually comes out during the hearings, or through anonymous sources through the Press.

I guarantee you, I couldn't be a terrorist if I tried...too old, not able to walk very well, etc, but there are things I've ONLY said to my husband or relatives while sitting in my living room, and NEVER in an email, on a message board, or on the phone!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

36. I hope the pizza man or perhaps the meter reader wasn't

standing just outside your door.... remember "those days"? Neighborhood spy program?????

http://www.aclu.org//safefree/general/17023res20021007.html

Stop the Government from Turning Neighbor Against Neighbor (10/7/2002)


Stop the Government from Turning Neighbor Against Neighbor!
In one of the most misguided responses to the terrorist attacks, President Bush is proposing a program to recruit one million volunteers to act as spies and informants against their neighbors. Initially, the proposed program would have recruited letter carriers, utility workers, cable installers and others whose jobs allow them access to private residences to report "suspicious" activity. Due to intense public outrage, the Administration has now announced a scaled back version that would exclude postal and utility workers.

[napi21]

38. Yea, I remember. Nobody bought into it then, and they won't now

either! Besides, if the pizza guy was at the door, I'd be busy paying him and not griping about the gov't. ;o)

[tularetom]

37. I wonder who the telecommunications companies are

and what is their justification for going along with this illegal activity? Can they be sued for any damages suffered by someone as a result of NSA snooping (loss of job for example)? Don't these companies have legal staffs who can tell them not to get involved in crap like this? Or do they owe bushco bigtime for all the tax breaks etc and keep their yaps shut because they know which side their bread is buttered on?

[napi21]

39. I don't know why, but I remember some ISP's fighting issues

of releasing customer info, and if my memory is right, the ISP's lost in every case.

[Zhade]

49. Verizon, for one. But I thought they won?

NT!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

40. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that they needed....

...the biggest telecomm companies with the largest number of subscribers...that should narrow down the list considerably.

As to why they cooperated, why would they not cooperate if they were told that it was legal under the auspices of the Patriot Act? And if they were still uncertain at that point, I'm sure that a little chat about nationalizing their firms came into the conversation.

But, in reality, I suspect those companies were paid, and paid well, to allow their systems to be used by the NSA.

[karynnj]

42. It could also have been requested via the FCC

which regulates the companies - making non-compliance difficult and the use of the data not at all obvious.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

51. Good point!

[karynnj]

41. It's a regulated industry

The FCC has incrdible control over their business.

It was governmantal decisions that broke up AT&T a regulated monopoly that contributed to society in general and the US in particular more than any other company I can think of. (Only a regulated monopoly would spend the research dollars on pure research leading to things like the transister, then allow the patten to be used by the world.)

From the data that was mined - it looks like they the company gave them the information that feeds the billing process - This information was considered private enough that their were FCC regulations on its use - even within the phone companies.

[davsand]

43. J. Edgar Hoover did it a long time ago.

I'm not minimizing this at all, but this kind of shit has been going on for VERY long time. J. Edgar Hoover's "files" on people are legendary--and those were virtually all domestic issues. I really can't see why everyone is pretending such shock that it is still going on.

As I recall, Hoover went after politically different folks (communists sympathizers they called them back then--no matter what they really thought) people who were outspoken in criticism of the government's policies, and people who had lifestyles that were not part of the "mainstream" as Hoover defined it. (HOW anyone could expect that man to be a judge of mainstream is beyond me--but that is for another day.)

Now TELL me how that is any different than what we have going on these days...



Laura

[Media_Lies_Daily]

52. Yep....G. Gordon Liddy was a "second-story bag-man" for the FBI....

...before he did the same kind of work for the White House "plumbers".

[Up2Late]

44. American Radio Works did a Radio Documentary in January 2005...

...about this mess called "No Place to Hide" Here's the link:

<http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/noplacetohide/>

There is also a book:

<http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/oop/click_ord/showdetail.html?sid=5325&isbn=0743254805&assoc_id=amer>

No Place to Hide

By O'Harrow, Robert

An award-winning "Washington Post" journalist takes readers on an unsettling ride behind the scenes of the emerging surveillance society where private companies and the government watch every move.

If you want to here a short segment, the "American Public Media" show "Marketplace" has about a 10 minute clip at this link:

<http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/01/19/PM200501195.html>

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Special Report: No place to hide

Even as the Bush Administration went hunting for terrorists overseas after September 11th, the government was also looking for them here. One industry was more than ready to help. Data management companies had spent the decade before September 11th collecting billions of records about almost every American adult. In his new book, No Place to Hide, Robert O'Harrow looked into the data industry in this country and its new relationships with intelligence and law enforcement agencies. He worked with John Biewen from American RadioWorks on a companion documentary. In this report for Marketplace Beewin traces the transformation of a man named Hank Asher (pictured) from run-of-the-mill tech millionaire, to a player in the war on terror.

<http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/01/19/PM200501195.html>

[newspeak]

45. remember when Phil Donahue was ON?

I sent him a letter asking him to do a show on the "no fly list," since an elderly pro-peace nun, a key green party member and Quakers were on it. The list was not about terrorism, but about intimidation. Who would believe a non-violent, pro-life organization like the Quakers would be on a list of suspected terrorists. They seem not to care about real terrorists, but intimidating anyone who is opposed to war and poverty, another words, true Christians. It seems anyone who are for the majority of the people, be it, labor rights, anti-poverty, or pro-peace are the real enemies to a military-industrial complex, pro-aggression state. Nothing surprises me anymore.

[newspeak]

46. and those that don't believe fascism has come to the US

when private corporations are aligned with the government against the people, it is fascism. A government that gives power to private corporations against the people is fascism. The power that is given to corporations for torture, for prisons, for security, our rights as individual citizens will deteriorate to the point that the corporations blended with the government will be in control. Now that is a very frightening thought because there is no accountability to the people and heinous acts can be committed.

[emulatorloo]

47. kick n/t

[Presidentcokedupfratboy]

50. Can these guys make Nixon look good?

They sure are on the right track. I never thought that would be possible.

Between Watergate, Iran-Contra, the lies leading up to the war with Iraq, and now this, the GOP has a monopoly on presidential corruption.

This makes Monicagate look like a parking ticket.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

53. It's the domestic spying that's going to trip these assholes up.

Just my opinion. We'll wait and see.