"But the Guardian headline that Obama spied on every email for two years is kind of silly, given the time-line.
I would have said US GOVERNMENT collected all emails for TEN YEARS if I was writing the headline."
...the entire piece is misleading. Sometimes it seems like Greenwald is trying to absolve Bush or create the impression that Obama is no different from Bush.
His latest piece is repackaging and conflating already reported claims to give the impression that there is something new here. He added a new document, but all it does is confirm what we already know.
• Secret program launched by Bush continued 'until 2011'
• Fisa court renewed collection order every 90 days
• Current NSA programs still mine US internet metadata
<...>
The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days". A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011.
<...>
Eventually, the NSA gained authority to "analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States", according to a 2007 Justice Department memo, which is marked secret.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama The 90-day order was reported initially. The news that the program ended would make the initial claim that it was ongoing false.
Mentioning the memo, which actually shows that the procedures were being followed after they were put in places (
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023058210 ), creates the impression that it was simply a continuation of Bush's illegal data collection.
Conflating the metadata program with Stellar Wind, Bush's illegal eavesdropping program, is curious.
Remember whistleblower Thomas Tamm?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023032225
In addition to eavesdropping on Americans, the Bush admistration was collecting metadata illegally. Bush-Cheney had utter disregard for the law.
The program was in fact a wide range of covert surveillance activities authorized by President Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. At that time, White House officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, had become convinced that FISA court procedures were too cumbersome and time-consuming to permit U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to quickly identify possible Qaeda terrorists inside the country. (Cheney's chief counsel, David Addington, referred to the FISA court in one meeting as that "obnoxious court," according to former assistant attorney general Jack Goldsmith.) Under a series of secret orders, Bush authorized the NSA for the first time to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails between the United States and a foreign country without any court review. The code name for the NSA collection activities—unknown to all but a tiny number of officials at the White House and in the U.S. intelligence community—was "Stellar Wind."
http://web.archive.org/web/20081216011008/http://www.newsweek.com/id/174601/output/print
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