The entire NSA spying operation was nothing more than a cover-up of their own incompetence.

[kentuck]

(from an old article)

http://web.archive.org/web/20020806083614/http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/3416632.htm

<snip>
WASHINGTON — A secretive U.S. eavesdropping agency monitored telephone conversations before Sept. 11 between the suspected commander of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and the alleged chief hijacker, but did not share the information with other intelligence agencies, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the conversations between Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohammed Atta were intercepted by the National Security Agency, or NSA, an intelligence agency that monitors and decodes foreign communications.

The NSA failed to share the intercepts with the CIA or other U.S. intelligence agencies, the officials told Knight Ridder. It also failed to promptly translate some intercepted Arabic language conversations, a senior intelligence official said.

The officials declined to disclose the nature of the discussions between Mohammed, a known leader of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network who is on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, and Atta, who piloted one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

.....more

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[billhicks76]

13. Of Course They Knew

...and Cheney let it happen...thats how they got their beloved Patriot Act passed which was written before 911. Who are the real traitors?

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kentuck.

[monmouth3]

3. This needs to get out there and in the media...n/t

[KeepItReal]

4. Forget the other agencies... Did NSA tell Rumsfeld and his boss Cheney/Bush?

That's the question.

Are we supposed to think they just sat on those intercepts?

[kentuck]

5. That's the other side of the story.

Yes, Bush and Cheney knew this was going on also. The entire "war on terror" was intended to divert the people's attention from the truth and the disastrous incompetence of the Bush White House. The invasion of Iraq was based on lies. We have lost many lives and spent trillions of dollars because of Republican incompetence.

[HereSince1628]

6. The PNAC published comments on needing a new Pearl Harbor

to be able to institute their program.

The Cheney administration may have gotten a bit more than they expected through LIHOP, but they were obviously prepared to immediately seize the opportunity and put in motion their plans for exploiting the position of only standing superpower.

Yes they messed it up with respect to benefits to Americans, but doesn't mean their corporate interests didn't win big.

[DJ13]

7. The PNAC published comments on needing a new Pearl Harbor

Which is why I've always thought this look on Bush's face as the planes hit the towers was one that said "that crazy bastard Cheney actually went through with it".........

[HereSince1628]

8. I think he realized his presidency was over and the neocons were pushing him aside.

It took him 7 years to gain back some of it.

[2naSalit]

12. Precisely

and this world we are suffering through now was all designed and implemented purposefully.

[PowerToThePeople]

16. PNAC, these are the roots of it all

PNAC, BushvGore, 9/11, Patriot act, War on Terror. These are all the things that lead to the movements that this message board is a child of. We can not forget our roots or hand over the movement to the Turd way- that is, in all reality, working for the other team.

[DeSwiss]

9. Incompetence?

- Most of the incompetence of our vaunted Security State gets hidden under the cloak of National Security. It is, essentially, the only true skill they possess. Everything else has to be bought in the private market.

But then there's this:

You'll Never Guess Where This FBI Agent Left a Secret Interrogation Manual
"Security screwups are not very uncommon. But this is a first."

MotherJones
—By Nick Baumann
Fri Dec. 20, 2013 3:00 AM GMT



In a lapse that national security experts call baffling, a high-ranking FBI agent filed a sensitive internal manual detailing the bureau's secret interrogation procedures with the Library of Congress, where anyone with a library card can read it.

For years, the American Civil Liberties Union fought a legal battle to force the FBI to release a range of documents concerning FBI guidelines, including this one, which covers the practices agents are supposed to employ when questioning suspects.

Through all this, unbeknownst to the ACLU and the FBI, the manual sat in a government archive open to the public. When the FBI finally relented and provided the ACLU a version of the interrogation guidebook last year, it was heavily redacted; entire pages were blacked out. But the version available at the Library of Congress, which a Mother Jones reporter reviewed last week, contains no redactions.

MORE

K&R

[annabanana]

10. man oh man!

No one would pubish this mess under the rubic of Fiction. . . .

Too far-fetched.

[Coyotl]

11. If the NSA knew, Bush knew.

[Aerows]

14. The pro-NSA crowd

are like a bunch of husbands that are pissed off that the wife was told about their mistress. They demonize the person that told on them, they demonize how the information came to light, and they demonize the fact that it shatters their relationship.

They never seem to get the fact that the relationship was shattered due to infidelity - no. It is everyone else's fault.

[aggiesal]

15. It was Obama's fault . . .

We all know GW McIdiot could do no wrong.

[99Forever]

17. This is the real battle we should be fighting, instead...

... we have gender wars and reality tv nonsense.