Whistleblower: NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistleblower_Bushs_NSA_targeted_reporters_0121.html
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Wednesday January 21, 2009

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.

"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."

Tice further explained that "even for the NSA it's impossible to literally collect all communications. ... What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata ... and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected."

According to Tice, in addition to this "low-tech, dragnet" approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.

"In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them," Tice told Olbermann. "What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year -- and it made no sense. ... I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."

When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, "An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists."

"To what purpose?" Olbermann asked. "I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?"

Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, "If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything." He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it "was digitized and put on databases somewhere."

Tice first began alleging that there were illegal activities going on at both the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in December 2005, several months after being fired by the NSA. He also served at that time as a source for the New York Times story which revealed the existence of the NSA's wireless wiretapping program.

Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.

Tice is now coming forward again now because George Bush is finally out of office. He told Olbermann that the Obama administration has not been in touch with him about his latest revelations, but, "I did send a letter to, I think it's [Obama intelligence adviser John] Brennan -- a handwritten letter, because I knew all my communications were tapped, my phones, my computer, and I've had the FBI on me like flies on you-know-what ... and I'm assuming that he gave the note to our current president -- that I intended to say a little bit more than I had in the past."

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Jan. 21, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

YouTube link

There is a connection here

To the work Dan Rather was doing, and how they were watching him, sent him a fake document, and made an example out of him. This has been going on since before 9-11, and they allowed it to happen, even facilitated the attacks by knowing exactly when, where, who and how. I equate this to not only knowing someone is going to break into your house, but leaving the door wide open, the keys to your car on the table and dinner right next to it. I hope this all blows up and the truth really comes out, Rove is an absolute criminal along with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Colby, Clinton, the list just goes on.

Rather

Dan Rather claims his document was real and he was targeted on the web by right wing fantatics. The type style was real, etc. His court case is on-going.

To the NSA

http://www.nsa.gov/ who monitors this blog and it seems everything else... you can kiss my Canadian @$$

Any system

Any system that can be gained, WILL be gained.

The unchecked illegal spying that has been ongoing is fatally corrosive to this and any Republic.

Two things...

Why do people continue to act as though Echelon never existed?

Echelon Gave Authorities Warning Of Attacks

In Run-Up To War, Rice Authorized NSA To Spy On U.N. Security Council

Protests Against Echelon Vanish After 9/11

NSA Monitoring Cellphone And Internet As Well As Phone Calls

Ties With Terror: The Continuity Of Western Al-Qaeda Relations In The Post-Cold War

Spymasters Gather In New Zealand

Program Shows CIA Behind Wikipedia Entries

How Does Your Money Work?

2001 European Parliament Report On Echelon

Secondly, why is torture, and wiretapping being singled out, and portrayed as the only crimes of the Bush Administration? Election Fraud, covering up 9/11, giving trillions of dollars to the banks, lying us into war, revealing the identity of a CIA officer, rewriting climate reports, etc... etc... etc... Go read Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Tice mentioned DARPA TIA in part 2 tonight

Raw Story now has video of part 2 of Olbermann/Tice interview.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistleblower_NSA_collected_credit_card_re...

Tice mentioned he suspected the NSA was running the DARPA Total Information Awareness program. Congress had previously intentionally defunded that program in 2003 to shut it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office

NSA: more UnAmerican activities....

On the NSA's website, they talk about their "core values" in their mission statement. It goes as follows: "We will protect national security interests by adhering to the highest standards of behavior: Lawfulness, Honesty, Integrity, Fairness, Accountability, Loyalty, Collaboration, Innovation, and Learning". Yikes. Scratch the first 5 for starters....

How about we add the following for a little reality check: Trashing the Bill of Rights, Deception, Duplicity, Hypocrisy, Unpoliceability, Criminality, Promotion of anti-American ideologies, ..... and how about we add "TERRORIZING those who promote fundamentals of a free society, such as the unfettered dissemination of information by journalists and media people"?

The NSA, as a government agency, is supposed to abide by the US Constitution (rather than hack it apart). Because they enjoy the privilege of little or zero effective oversight, the people at the head of this agency determining policy and methods have to be 100% trustworthy. Obviously, the current batch falls light-years shy of this lofty expectation, succumbing to what Lord Acton (and others) summed up decades ago: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Also, by filling their databases with billions of terabytes of useless garbage, clogging up realtime and offline processing, generating millions of man-hours of unnecessary archival tasking, they are severely hampering their own efforts in collecting useful intelligence regarding those rare parties who might be an actual threat to our national security. A little reality check for the NSA, if they are doing their peeping tom act in here: *We the people are not the enemy. We are America*.

Well done, Russell Tice. You are a hero and an American Patriot amongst shills for Orwellianism and fascism. History will remember you kindly.

Hey NSA...

You can admire my robust and hairy British ass too! Know that my spirit of hope is robust. The truth will out, the people will learn what they must do to make and maintain a better world.

How's the weather in Yorkshire?