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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUSA's new massive, tax-payer sucking, terrorism industrial complex feeding spy complex. MUST READ
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In the processand for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administrationthe NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, its all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.
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He explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nations cable landing stationsthe more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the countrylarge, windowless buildings known as switchesthus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US. The network of intercept stations goes far beyond the single room in an AT&T building in San Francisco exposed by a whistle-blower in 2006. I think theres 10 to 20 of them, Binney says. Thats not just San Francisco; they have them in the middle of the country and also on the East Coast.
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Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. They violated the Constitution setting it up, he says bluntly. But they didnt care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldnt stay. Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email. At the outset the program recorded 320 million calls a day, he says, which represented about 73 to 80 percent of the total volume of the agencys worldwide intercepts. The haul only grew from there. According to Binneywho has maintained close contact with agency employees until a few years agothe taps in the secret rooms dotting the country are actually powered by highly sophisticated software programs that conduct deep packet inspection, examining Internet traffic as it passes through the 10-gigabit-per-second cables at the speed of light.
This Wired article is a must read, IMO. It was next to impossible to pick the 4 most horrifying paragraphs in this LONG article.
The NSA Is Building the Countrys Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say):
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Fascinating combination of intelligent posters and shrieking paranoid schizos in the comments section.
50000feet
(115 posts)snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Reading this before bed just seems like a bad idea.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)...without a warrant or even any probable cause whatsoever? Really? Because this gets no outrage.
Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment?
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Just like the rule of law that only applies to some (pot smokers, food thieves) while others have immunity to commit war crimes or steal trillions without charges or punishment of any kind.
Uncle Joe
(58,389 posts)Thanks for the thread, tpsbmam.
Initech
(100,097 posts)Kaleko
(4,986 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)of every american without a warrant. Only someone that doesn't understand the constitution would allow this.
I am told he is a scholar of the document.
Quick someone tell him, I know he is just a figurehead and can only veto bills that barely pass (and even some of those he is powerless to do anything but sign.) I also know that by law his appointees have all the power and they don't listen to him, but maybe if someone tells him, he will resign to seek an office with some power to help us.
I know he would if he could, he just got stuck in a position of no authority or power.
PotatoChip
(3,186 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Do we even have a Constitution anymore?
Really, Obama? Really?
Is this REALLY what you want your legacy as President to look like?
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)donors want. Like an obstacle that must be overcome.
I wish he understood how important it truly was,
how without it fascism that favors authority and big business is all that will be left.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Good god.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Oh, right. They work for the same people.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)idwiyo
(5,113 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)idwiyo
(5,113 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)thank you, tpsbmam, for a very important post and subject.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002440614
G_j
(40,367 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Remember this one? You were there.
Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping
It's not like history repeats or anything, just the war and slavery parts.
G_j
(40,367 posts)usually on steroids!
the only mistakes they avoid repeating are the ones that reveal the truth to the public at large.
Interesting article, by the way - I missed it the first time around...
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)excuse to spy on people, they were stopped from instituting the Total Information Awareness program.
Secret windowless buildings all over the country with spies, spying on the American people?? And I used to think people who suspected these things were paranoid.
Two billion dollars to spend on watching the population of this country. I thought we had no money?
Seems to me this is a violation of the Constitution. But who is going to challenge it?
Orwell never imagined how bad it could get.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)a few box cutters being bought at The Depot.