Bush rejected Clinton surveillance program: ThinThread

[katty]

more: http://www.patriotdaily.com/bm/civil/orwellian/what-is-the-real-purpose-.shtml

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What Is The Real Purpose Of Bush's NSA Surveillance?

And on recommend list at Daily Kos

The Baltimore Sun reported today that Bush rejected President Clinton's effective, legal surveillance program that did not invade privacy to adopt the current NSA spying program, which is ineffective, illegal and invasive of citizens' privacy rights. So, the question jumping off the page may be: Why would Bush use a program that does not actually assist the finding of terrorists, yet also has the disadvantage of invading Americans' privacy rights?

The Clinton surveillance program, called ThinThread, was created during the late 1990s to "gather and analyze massive amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws." Several bloggers provide excellent posts on the components and nature of the program.

The key to evaluating Bush's true motive for his NSA program is that testing of ThinThread showed it was far better in finding potential threats and protecting privacy than the current NSA program that Bush chose in its stead. "For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy." But, Gen. Hayden of NSA decided not to use these two tools or the monitoring feature to prevent abuse of the records. The problem is that not using the ThinThread program has "undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential threats." Moreover, "ThinThread could have provided a simple solution to privacy concerns."

Incredibly, the ThinThread program was far superior to the NSA program in place in 2004:

[BrklynLiberal]

1. It was rejected because it was Clinton's policy. That is why.

:puke:

[trotsky]

6. Bingo.

It is clear this group came into office with the overal dictum: "If Clinton did it, let's do the opposite."

Needless to say, none of us are therefore surprised when peace, privacy, & prosperity turned into endless war, spying on Americans, & a piss-poor economy.

[ixion]

2. Little Lord Pissypants would much rather spy on the peasantry

:grr:

[katty]

3. yes, clearly!

[unblock]

4. the spying is obviously good for only 2 purposes:

1) spying on political opponents (democrats)

2) tracking down leakers

and it's OBVIOUSLY good for both these purposes.

[NJ_Lib]

5. Well, don't forget who's the "decider" here... Even if it...

... makes no sense... As long as the 3 year old Chimp gets to decide...

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Nothing that bush is involved with is any good.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

8. "Everything changed on 9/11."

That's what they say. Never mind that they were warned that terrorism would be their #1 issue. They thought it was the Clenis talking, so they gave it the hand.




...sorry for that image.

[bluedeminredstate]

9. "Everything changed on 9/11"

Don't forget the nonsensical, "We realized our oceans couldn't protect us."

I hate to be picky, but if Americans didn't figure this little detail out by 1812...:shrug:
but the stark nekkid Chimperor has never made much sense even when he tries really, really hard.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

11. And when he says "We," he means "I."

It's the royal "We."

[eridani]

10. Congress needs to fry Shrubbie's ass on this one

Don't understand why this hasn't gotten more recommendations.