Breaking: Democracy Now -- Explosive Interview with Jim Bamford re NSA Wiretapping

[HamdenRice]

More details will be available when Democracy Now posts the transcript of its show for this morning. The main point was that the NSA and telecoms outsourced "mass surveillance" to foreign companies that have connections with foreign intelligence agencies.

Also, the CEO of one of these surveillance companies has fled to Namibia to avoid arrest on multiple felony warrants and indictments.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Uh-huh

Can someone say "political espionage on a grand scale, against certain members of Congress"?

I knew you could.

[HamdenRice]

3. Bamford said the companies have worked for repressive regimes

to filter mass surveillance for relevant information carry out political persecution, but I'm hesitant to summarize without the transcript.

[snappyturtle]

4. If what you're suggesting is true,and I think it probably is, we certainly

then have, finally, an explanation for so much that has gone on.

[Subdivisions]

10. I've been saying the entire time that the NSA wiretaps were about

spying on political opponents and not necessarily on terrorists. And, I'm not the only that was saying this. Anyone who thought or thinks otherwise is simply mistaken.

[Botany]

2. One more gift from bush's war on terror

"they" were no more looking for terrorists than they were helping
to keep us all safe ....

One more time:

The NSA spied on us and the DoJ was the muscle in Rove's America.

[Arctic Dave]

6. The NSA didn't spy on us, That would be illegal.

They let foriegn agencies do it for them. Then they could say, "we do not spy on Americans". Nod, nod, wink, wink. Isn't technical word games fun?




BARF!

[HamdenRice]

8. Actually, according to Bamford, the NSA did directly spy on us

He and Amy Goodman were talking about the California intercept office that basically diverted and copied all telecom traffic. This was done on US soil at an AT&T "secret room" in San Francisco and involved domestic traffic.

The revelation was that NSA turned to a foreign company with foreign intelligence service connections to actually set up the secret room. Maybe the word "oursourced" made it sound like the work was shipped overseas. It wasn't. The foreign spook connected company was brought in, at AT&T's San Fran offices.

[NashVegas]

7. This Justice Dept. Is the Sole Reason I'm Even Voting This Election

[Phred42]

5. Just Insane - Welcome to the New World Order

We need this if we are going to have World Government.

:banghead:

[seemslikeadream]

9. link and thanks for the heads up

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/14/james_bamford_the_shadow_factory_the

The Bush administration’s wiretapping program has come under new scrutiny this week. Two influential Congressional committees have opened probes into allegations U.S. intelligence spied on the phone calls of American military personnel, journalists and aid workers in Iraq. Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Arlen Specter of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Jay Rockefeller, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, say they want Congress to look into allegations from two former military intelligence officials.

The two whistleblowers–Adrienne Kinne, an Army reservist, and David Murfee Faulk, a Navy linguist–spoke last Thursday to ABC News. While the network claimed that marked the first time the two whistleblowers had come forward, they had both spoken out well before last week.

Blogger David Swanson wrote about them as early as July 2007 and, in her first broadcast interview five months ago, former Military Intelligence Sergeant Adrienne Kinne, detailed the spying on Democracy Now! back in May.

She and Navy Linguist David Murfee Faulk were also interviewed for a new book on the National Security Agency by James Bamford, an investigative journalist and author of two earlier books on the agency. Bamford is among the plaintiffs in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists, academics, aid workers and lawyers who feared they were targeted by government spying. A federal appeals court dismissed the case last year after ruling the plaintiffs can’t prove they were monitored. The ACLU might re-open the suit to include the new revelations by Kinne and Faulk.

James Bamford, investigative reporter who has been covering the National Security Agency for the last three decades. He came close to standing trial after revealing the NSA’s operations in his explosive 1982 book The Puzzle Palace. His latest book, which comes out today, is the third in his trilogy on the NSA. It’s called The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.

[mod mom]

11. Thanks slad. rec'd