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We eavesdropped on the bad guys! Oh, my! -- Part 10 (Updated)
(Click here to see all of my posts in this series.)
Another good example of why Osama reads al-NYT
Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
Eric Lichtblau and James Risen
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.
[...]
What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.
The current and former government officials who discussed the program were granted anonymity because it remains classified.
[Read the rest here. I'm sure al-Queda has.]
OK, so the NSA's doing its job. I'd pretty much assumed that was true but did the general public really need to know about it? In addition to hanging the scum who leaked the information to the press, I'm beginning to seriously wonder if it isn't time to reexamine the First Amendment. There are people at al-NYT and some other news outlets that deserve some serious jail time for what they've done to weaken this country.
See also: Bush Administration Defends Spying Program
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Michelle Malkin has much more here.
Dafydd ab Hugh:
The Times' Reach Exceeds Its Grasp
At this point, it's not even eyebrow-raising that the New York Times is vigorously trying to destroy the foreign-intelligence gathering program run by the National Security Agency (a.k.a., "No Such Agency"). "America's newspaper" being a traitor to America has actually become ho-hum.
The newest attack -- specifically designed to disrupt relations between the United States and our foreign allies in Europe, Latin America, Canada, and the Orient -- is the "charge" that since 9/11, the NSA has actually (please sit down before you read this) analyzed the communications traffic patterns of phone calls into and out of Afghanistan and other terrorist hot spots. That is, they are actually determining how many international calls running through American phone nodes originate from or route to known terrorist sites, how long they last, and how frequently they occur. And without a warrant, b'dad!
[Read on here.]
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Dafydd ab Hugh:
Speaking Clarity to Obscurantism
I think a lot of folks are still a bit confused about the most recent New York Times accusation against the NSA (Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report), the "superceding indictment" that appears -- from the misleading way they wrote it -- to imply that, rather than the small group of 500 or so foreign terrorists (at any one time) that the Bush administration cheerfully acknowledges wiretapping, the NSA actually "monitored" millions of people.
What the Times wants the reader to walk away thinking is that the phone calls of millions of American citizens are being listened to by the NSA, those blackguards, and that something must be done to rein in this tyrannical police state. But if you closely parse the Times story, you realize that they're not really saying what they're strongly implying. In fact, that larger group of phone calls they're talking about in the most recent article are not being listened to at all.
[Read on here.]
Baldilocks:
What They Did For "Love"
I’ve posted little on the NSA story, mostly because of time constraints and because of my pure fury at those in the NSA who would leak classified material to the press and at a press who would publish the material.
I’ve read the stories fronted by the New York Times and funneled by some unknown…person(s) with a Top Secret compartmentalized clearance who is sworn and signed to hold secret his/her government’s means of reconnoitering its enemies. Every new revelation leaves this Cold Warrior—who, once upon a time, swore to and signed the exact same agreements--more disgusted and angry.
[Read on here.]
Tom Maguire:
They're Not Going To Stop
The NY Times escalates its war on America with its latest revelations about the high-tech capability of the NSA to monitor and data-mine international communications.
Their first wave of coverage if the "Bush Spied" scandal was fizzling out - even Doug Jehl of the Times admitted the obvious on Friday: ...
[Read on here.]
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