ABC Report: NSA ‘Routinely’ Listened In On Americans’ Phone Calls, Passed Around ‘Salacious’ Bits

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:



ABC Report: NSA ‘Routinely’ Listened In On Americans’ Phone Calls, Passed Around ‘Salacious’ Bits»

Ever since President Bush confirmed the existence of a National Security Administration wiretapping program in late 2005, he has insisted it is aimed only at terrorists’ calls and protects Americans’ civil liberties:

– If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we’d like to know why. … In the meantime, this program is conscious of people’s civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America — and I repeat: limited. (1/1/06)

– This is a — I repeat to you, even though you hear words, “domestic spying,” these are not phone calls within the United States. It’s a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I’m mindful of your civil liberties. (1/23/06)

– People who analyze the program fully understand that America’s civil liberties are well protected. There is a constant check to make sure that our civil liberties of our citizens are treated with respect. (2/28/08)

However, ABC News reports that the NSA frequently listened to and transcribed the private phone calls of Americans abroad, according to two former military intercept operators. These conversations included those of American soldiers stationed in Iraq and American aid workers abroad, such as Doctors Without Borders:

(Former Navy Arab linguist David Murfee) Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of “cuts” that were available on each operator’s computer.

“Hey, check this out,” Faulk says he would be told, “there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’,” Faulk told ABC News. (…)

“We knew they were working for these aid organizations,” (former Army Reserves Arab linguist Adrienne) Kinne told ABC News. “They were identified in our systems as ‘belongs to the International Red Cross’ and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them,” she told ABC News.

Kinne called Bush’s assurances that the U.S. was only tracking phone calls of a “known al Qaeda suspect” “completely a lie.” Click here to watch ABC’s report.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/09/wiretapping-whistleblowers/

[Bread and Circus]

1. This is why you don't tear up the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Shame on Democrats and...

Republicans.

[LSparkle]

2. Thom Hartmann talking to Christy Harvey about this right now ...

Harvey just noted, "We live in a kingdom ... "

[Liberal In Texas]

6. Your tax dollars at work.

As Christy said, if they're wasting their time doing that, they're not listening in on the people they're supposed to be listening to, you know, like terrorists.

[Gato Moteado]

3. how does the military feel about republicans in general.....

...and bush and mcdipshit in particular now?

[Quantess]

4. I knew it!

I knew there would be some bored, overpaid Federal employees listening in on juicy gossip or reading naughty text messages. This does not surprise me in the slightest.

[leftofcool]

5. And yet, the Dems caved in on FISA

[Quantess]

7. K & R

[PinkyisBlue]

8. Wow! I wonder if any of these soldiers whose phone calls were listened in on

were later the victims of an unexplained death or killed by "friendly fire".

[MadrasT]

9. Warrantless wiretaps are like Wall Street with no regulation...

Nothing good can come of it. You simply cannot give children permission to do shit like this.

[Tigress DEM]

16. That's why we're going to put the grownups in charge now.

[Horse with no Name]

10. No wonder they didn't outlaw those sex chat lines that cost $20/min

Fuckers were getting their rocks off to them...free.

[barbtries]

11. not a surprise

sure would be nice to see the bushies pay some consequences for their crimes.

[Selatius]

12. The US is East Germany under the STASI, except with modern technology. nt

[Theres-a]

13. K & R nt

[robinlynne]

14. So NOW you get it? 3 years too late? Thanks for the great work ABC. nt

[spanone]

15. of course they did. you know, this is why we make laws. i'm so sick of these people

[seemslikeadream]

17. ABC Report: NSA ‘Routinely’ Listened In On Americans’ Phone Calls,

everything is just fine quit worrying :sarcasm: