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Submitted by The Fire Inside on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 8:02pm.
From CNN: The congressional oversight committees said Thursday that the Americans targeted included military officers in Iraq who called friends and family in the United States. This should be pretty interesting, a civilian intelligence agency conducting operations aimed at military officers in Iraq calling friends and family in the U.S. If it's narrow in scope that's one thing, but if this was a broad net I think it's quite another. The NSA operates in "strict accordance with U.S. laws and regulations," she said. "Any allegation of wrongdoing by employees is thoroughly investigated" and if misconduct is discovered, "we take swift and certain remedial action." If you believe the NSA operates "in strict accordance with U.S. laws and regulations," you're going to be disappointed. I think it's necessary to a degree to not abide by laws and regulations, but these allegations are shocking in that American military personnel are the ones targeted. Jim Bamford (Body of Secrets: The Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies) interviewed the former linguists who are making the allegations, which the NSA is saying are "unsubstatiated."
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Submitted by CIAGuy on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 8:09pm.I think...
Submitted by The Fire Inside on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 8:58pm.That anyone who actually puts the country first will know where to draw the line.
The first yellow flag to come up is when a program is broad in scope. That means you have no idea what's going on and are just reaching into the dark. If the NSA was spying on a certain number of people in specific positions (e.g. intelligence officers who might be passing along information), I have no problem with that. I don't think many people participating in such a program would, either.
However, the linguists who are now raising these allegations are saying that they were listening to nothing more than "pillow talk" with spouses. To me this is an indication that people were willing to go along with the program when it seemed designed for a purpose but, once it became clear that there was none, felt uneasy about it.
I've flown a lot since 9/11 and find the entire process ridiculous. At this point, I think the Department of Homeland Security should be forced to come out and prove that their efforts at the airport have stopped a terorrist attack or prevented an individual from entering the country who shouldn't have. I've had my knife taken away from me at the airport - this is while I was in uniform - because it is a prohibited item.
The federal government is so worried about a terror attack on an airplane that they put armed Marshals on board a fraction of American flights, but aren't concerned enough that they would rather have an unarmed U.S. servicemember over one that was armed.
But I'm getting way off track. Operating "off the reservation" is necessary. For instance, I'm a firm believer that foreign nationals - whether or not they're on U.S. soil - are not entitled to protections from the Constitution. If I'm running an intelligence agency, I'm going to be very broad in scope when dealing with foreign nationals. U.S. citizens, however, are born with different rights. While on U.S. soil, they should enjoy every protection afforded in the Constitution. Outside U.S. soil is a different story, but programs aimed at U.S. citizens carried out by the U.S. government should be extremely narrow in scope.
I'm speaking strictly from how I would operate versus what is currently legal.
Bush's Law
Submitted by chad360 on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 8:15pm.This book is a good read on all that, and almost makes me like John Ashcroft >almost<
...then try "Ghost War" by Steve Coll, or do they not let you guys in the service get books anymore?
*just kidding*
TFI: would love to hear you thoughts on some of my recent posts, esp Re: NSPD 51 & HSDP 20...
...hang in there, we could all be in for an "October Suprise" or some such similar nonsense.