Newsweek will report on how Bush (NSA) has been spying on a LW website...

[snowbear]

..in its next issue per Michael Isikoff on Hardball..



Did anyone else catch this? If not, catch the last portion of Hardball on the re-run in an hour.

I had to take a call during the interview and didn't catch all of it.. But Isikoff will reportedly share how they used the info to divert some sort of Halliburton protest or something.. (He didn't name the website)

Hopefully someone else caught the story and can fill in the blanks.

Kudos to Isikoff ~

[jsamuel]

1. LW?

[snowbear]

3. LW = leftwing (sorry!)

oops!

[Peace Patriot]

4. I think jsamuel means 'left wing'--right?

Any more on this story?

[blm]

No doubt in my mind that operatives were at work all along.

We saw plenty of it here during the campaign.

I think we saw it at work again when DSM action was being taken, too.

[IndyOp]

2. Was it us? Was it us? Was it us?

I wanna be on the enemies list!!

:bounce:

[snowbear]

6. I dunno if it was us... Tweety ran out of time...

I'm looking foward to that issue coming out though..

They could be watching us..

[farmbo]

5. Sounds like the DU trolls were actually $100K /yr NSA operatives.

Our taxpayer's dollars at work.

:grr:

[Carni]

36. Trust me the reston group has been all over AOL boards FOR YEARS

I came up with tyhis concept in like 1999 and fellow posters thought I was nuts!

[farmbo]

38. Job description for Heritage Foundation Interns: "Troll the internet"

eom

[AX10]

7. Of course this is illegal, but......

Chris will find a way to justify the immorality of the "King".

[orwell]

20. Probably something...

...regarding his "sunny nobility."

[babylonsister]

8. Could it be DU? Some Houston DUers protested

Halliburton:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=180x25524

The other big brother?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965509/site/newsweek

Jan. 30, 2006 issue - The demonstration seemed harmless enough. Late on a June afternoon in 2004, a motley group of about 10 peace activists showed up outside the Houston headquarters of Halliburton, the giant military contractor once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. They were there to protest the corporation's supposed "war profiteering." The demonstrators wore papier-mache masks and handed out free peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees as they left work. The idea, according to organizer Scott Parkin, was to call attention to allegations that the company was overcharging on a food contract for troops in Iraq. "It was tongue-in-street political theater," Parkin says.

But that's not how the Pentagon saw it. To U.S. Army analysts at the top-secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), the peanut-butter protest was regarded as a potential threat to national security. Created three years ago by the Defense Department, CIFA's role is "force protection"—tracking threats and terrorist plots against military installations and personnel inside the United States. In May 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy Defense secretary, authorized a fact-gathering operation code-named TALON—short for Threat and Local Observation Notice—that would collect "raw information" about "suspicious incidents." The data would be fed to CIFA to help the Pentagon's "terrorism threat warning process," according to an internal Pentagon memo.

A Defense document shows that Army analysts wrote a report on the Halliburton protest and stored it in CIFA's database. It's not clear why the Pentagon considered the protest worthy of attention—although organizer Parkin had previously been arrested while demonstrating at ExxonMobil headquarters (the charges were dropped). But there are now questions about whether CIFA exceeded its authority and conducted unauthorized spying on innocent people and organizations. A Pentagon memo obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that the deputy Defense secretary now acknowledges that some TALON reports may have contained information on U.S. citizens and groups that never should have been retained. The number of reports with names of U.S. persons could be in the thousands, says a senior Pentagon official who asked not be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

CIFA's activities are the latest in a series of disclosures about secret government programs that spy on Americans in the name of national security. In December, the ACLU obtained documents showing the FBI had investigated several activist groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Greenpeace, supposedly in an effort to discover possible ecoterror connections. At the same time, the White House has spent weeks in damage-control mode, defending the controversial program that allowed the National Security Agency to monitor the telephone conversations of U.S. persons suspected of terror links, without obtaining warrants.

[Peace Patriot]

9. What consitutes "spying" on a web site?

If it's a public web site, it's not exactly spying, is it? Somebody clarify the law here. Is the NSA gathering info on public opinion at a public web site, or gathering such info in order to influence public opinion, illegal? Do their permissible duties include sussing out the public and influencing the public on policy? Is it borderline--like county election officials advocating for particular electronic voting companies? (--should be banned, maybe doesn't quite cross the line into illegal, unless money changes hands).

[sendero]

23. What constitutes spying?

Converting your DU user ID into a name and address.

[xchrom]

10. and didn't specter just say on lou dobbs

that he didn't see anything about the spying that rose to ''illegal'' or ''illegal intent''.

[Peace Patriot]

14. I really want a legal clarification on this. I don't know the answer.

I would WANT gov't to be RESPONSIVE to public opinon, and to people who are moved enough by something to actively protest or petition. That's one thing--and it would seem to require gov't gathering info on people and their opinions. On the other hand, I wouldn't want the gov't to be putting dossiers together on groups and individuals in order to oppress them, or shut them up. Where is the line drawn? How do you draw the line? Secrecy would be one way to draw the line. Secret dossiers. (Say, big difference between gov't sending a spy to a community issues meeting, and gov't sending someone to speak and answer questions. Both might take down names--but for different purposes, one to be responsive, one to direct black ops against dissenters.)

Is secrecy where the line is drawn?

About the web site spying, is there a difference here, between, a) the NSA (if legally permitted to do so) reviewing web sites to see what people are thinking and saying, in order to formulate policy, or explain policy (a P.R. dept function, say), and b) the NSA tracking down bloggers' or web site managers' identities and starting a secret dossier, for unknown (but inherently suspicious) purposes?

Of course, the Bush junta makes ANYthing like this give one the chills. They could give a crap what public opinion is. (They have Diebold and ES&S.) I'm just wondering what the legal lines are (and also what their defense might be).

[babylonsister]

16. Did you see this from today?

The other big brother?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965509/site/newsweek

Jan. 30, 2006 issue - The demonstration seemed harmless enough. Late on a June afternoon in 2004, a motley group of about 10 peace activists showed up outside the Houston headquarters of Halliburton, the giant military contractor once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. They were there to protest the corporation's supposed "war profiteering." The demonstrators wore papier-mache masks and handed out free peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees as they left work. The idea, according to organizer Scott Parkin, was to call attention to allegations that the company was overcharging on a food contract for troops in Iraq. "It was tongue-in-street political theater," Parkin says.

But that's not how the Pentagon saw it. To U.S. Army analysts at the top-secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), the peanut-butter protest was regarded as a potential threat to national security. Created three years ago by the Defense Department, CIFA's role is "force protection"—tracking threats and terrorist plots against military installations and personnel inside the United States. In May 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy Defense secretary, authorized a fact-gathering operation code-named TALON—short for Threat and Local Observation Notice—that would collect "raw information" about "suspicious incidents." The data would be fed to CIFA to help the Pentagon's "terrorism threat warning process," according to an internal Pentagon memo.

A Defense document shows that Army analysts wrote a report on the Halliburton protest and stored it in CIFA's database. It's not clear why the Pentagon considered the protest worthy of attention—although organizer Parkin had previously been arrested while demonstrating at ExxonMobil headquarters (the charges were dropped). But there are now questions about whether CIFA exceeded its authority and conducted unauthorized spying on innocent people and organizations. A Pentagon memo obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that the deputy Defense secretary now acknowledges that some TALON reports may have contained information on U.S. citizens and groups that never should have been retained. The number of reports with names of U.S. persons could be in the thousands, says a senior Pentagon official who asked not be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

CIFA's activities are the latest in a series of disclosures about secret government programs that spy on Americans in the name of national security. In December, the ACLU obtained documents showing the FBI had investigated several activist groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Greenpeace, supposedly in an effort to discover possible ecoterror connections. At the same time, the White House has spent weeks in damage-control mode, defending the controversial program that allowed the National Security Agency to monitor the telephone conversations of U.S. persons suspected of terror links, without obtaining warrants.

[Doctor_J]

21. sister, you seem to be repeating yourself

or is it just me :shrug:

[babylonsister]

22. Well, TOJ, thank you for pointing that out, but

I was responding to Peace Patriot's query to give further info. Not everyone reads every comment in a thread. PP was trying to connect the dots, so for me the first dot is that there's definitely spying going on, in the US, and it has nothing to do with terrorism. Just trying to be thorough. :hi:

[xchrom]

19. that's what i don't get -- if they are spying on quakers

how is this without criminal intent?

if they are spying AT ALL on people who are not terrorists -- how can you consider this not really egregious?

i don't get it.

[RazzleDazzle]

24. He also didn't think more than one bullet could've killed JFK

idjit stooge and ultra-useful fool.

[MnFats]

11. I'm willing to BET NSA/Bush minions have been tuning in to DU..

...for quite some time now....
...Hi fellas!
...We're not dangerous!
...Go get Osama and we'll wait for you here.

[Extend a Hand]

12. ahh, but we are dangerous to those

who would like to stifle dissent.

[Doctor_J]

25. If they'll spy on a Quaker meeting,

surely they'll be spying on sites like this...

[Pacifist Patriot]

28. I sure hope so. I'd be crushed if my observations about

how fucking stupid, irresponsible, hypocritical and criminal the Republicans are were falling on deaf ears.

[FogerRox]

31. RIght on PP

[enid602]

13. not DU?

I'll really feel left out if it's one of our competitors.

[Pacifist Patriot]

29. We have competitors?

:)

[Kahuna]

15. Thanks for the DVR alert.

:pals:

[Doctor_J]

17. I took today's speech by Smirk to mean he admits to spying...

I am pretty sure he dropped all pretense to confining his spying to terrorists. He pretty much is now admitting that he'll spy on whomever he wants to, and no one will tell him not to.

He's now a dictator - beyond the reach of the Constituion or any other law.

[Dr Fate]

18. I hope it's DU- free publicity is great. n/t

n/t

[NMDemDist2]

26. ROFL

perfect response (but if it is DU, Skinner and the mods will need some help for a week or so dealing with the freep invasion.......

[mmonk]

40. Yeah

can you imagine the hits on this site if it ends up being DU?

[MissWaverly]

27. What next issue, I just bought the 1/23 issue yesterday

didn't see anything about this???

[Bluestar]

30. No Surprises Here

I lived through the Nixon years and have assumed that Chimp and Co. were spying on us all along. The big difference is then there was no internet, so only high profile lefties got investigated (MLK, Black Panthers, Malcolm X, etc.). Now they're after ordinary folks like us.

[Gingergal]

33. I heard Isikoff talk on the govt spying on Halliburton protesters

which they learned about from a "left wing" website. Why is the govt spying for a private company? Why are the govt agents spying on liberals here at home? Could it be because they simply disagree with them politically? This is like the 1970s only worse because it appears to be much wider.
I posted this on General Discussion earlier.
I was afraid I was the only one to notice this scary stuff.

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x220832>

[EVDebs]

32. Domestic Spying is now being called TSP

Terrorist Surveillance Program by the Bush people. This is because domestic spying is plainly illegal, from the days of Operation Chaos and the hearings of the '70s when we all found out about 'what went wrong'.

In the end, the truth always comes out.

Rex84, Operation Garden Plot, Operation Cable Splicer, 'suspension of the Constitution'...all of it.

[Gingergal]

34. Remember that the only good critics are the ones

* calls constructive critics. He gets to decide if you are "with us or against us."

[EVDebs]

35. "...as he determines...' language in the Iraq War resolution started this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2382761

The War Powers Act of 1973 has been consistently bent to allow this imperial president powers the office was never meant to have. He isn't a KING but his minions treat him like one and bend the law to that effect.

The Constitution is hanging by a thread.

Delusions of grandeur probably is the best of all mental illnesses to have, as long as you're not carrying the nuclear football, wouldn't you say ? In Bushworld yes means no and no means yes. George Orwells' "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows ..." Right now we must ask the President,

"Does two plus two equal four ?" at the next press conference. Huh ?


God save us, every one.

[0007]

41. Feerepublic would be called a constructive critic and therefor

would not bear watching'

[sarcasmo]

37. Kick and Nom for all of us folks who are now on the watch list.

[EVDebs]

39. We are ALL now in the position of Dr Martin Luther King in '68

with MIGs, military intelligence groups, around the country spying on us. Please read Orders To Kill by William Pepper regarding that time period.

Another war of occupation, this time in Iraq, is bogging the country down and wearing out our defense forces. We have oil conservation strategies available, see Amory Lovin's Oil End Game, www.oilendgame.com , for example, without constantly having to be a presence in the Middle East.

After all, there's only less than thirty years of oil left ( 1 trillion barrels of world reserves / 84 million barrels daily consumption (now!), which could go to 120 million by 2020).

Taking the long view, militarily our smartest moves are making sure we DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT WARS, not making sure we DO. This is Sun Tzu 101 people. Don't fight when you don't have to...

[mmonk]

42. I think its related more

to the dollar as a reserve currency. Ever since the dollar has been pegged to oil, we pretty much get the benefit using inflation and currency control to our benefit through issuance of debt. If the euro gets to be tied to oil, it will hit hard.