ATT Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

This doesn't surprise me one bit, but sure is a great read:

www.wired.com...

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

[edit on 8-4-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

This is not good at all. You know pretty damn well that this has been going on awhile and having it be made public may not do much good:

At the hearing, Mr. Gonzales inched closer toward acknowledging that intercepting purely domestic calls could be considered legally permissible in his view if the communications involved Al Qaeda.

"You would look at precedent," he said. "What have previous commander in chiefs done?"

Answering his question, he cited Woodrow Wilson's authorizing the interception of all cables to and from Europe in World War I "based upon the Constitution and his inherent role as commander in chief."

www.nytimes.com

Citizens are becoming apathetic to this issue as well as the rest of the issues.

All it took was the president and his supporters to say it's legal, and it's allowed, and we're in a war for most of the nation to sit back and accept we're being listened to whenever we talk on the phone.

It's a real pity.

The amount of replies to this thread proves my point. People don't care anymore because people are brainwashed into thinking they can't do anything to stop it.

The sheeple have been suckered in by Big Macs and American Idol.

I hope I live long enough to see the you know what (poopie) hit the fan.


This connection provided by ATT, literally.

Originally posted by QuietSoul
The amount of replies to this thread proves my point. People don't care anymore because people are brainwashed into thinking they can't do anything to stop it.

I am not sure that the lack of replies is due to brainwashing.

What is left to say here? It is pretty much straight forward. The only thing left that can be stated is someone's outrage.

And some of us are trying to do things. I am in regular contact with my Senators and Congressmen to voice my displeasure or satisfaction with what is going on in today's politics. Other than holding their feet to the fire for making bad decisions or holding them responsible for not acting to quell a bad situation, I am unable to do much more.

I do my part.

JDub

Legal eavesdropping that is purely domestic. There's a new one. Sometimes it's almost as if they raise the threshold of what is legal or acceptable to the public incrementally and then see if we cry bloody murder. If we don't, they ratchet it up further. (As always, I am not applying these words, which are likely interpreted as criticism, to any one political party or moral leaning.)

I know this is a very trite and silly analogy, but for some reason (understand that I'm very sleepy at the moment, though lol) this popped into my mind: Yoda's voice uttering, "BLIND we are if creation of this legal basis WE could not see!"

:shk:

What's left to say?

I'm trying to consider how this effects the concept of expectation of privacy. What about priviledged conversations, such as those between man and wife, lawyer and client, doctor and patient, and so on? I realize national security is more important than any individual's privacy, but I'm seriously concerned that in federal cases where this information will come into play, the 'one way mirror' of classified document rules will continue to compromise the integrity of the justice system.

It allows a small group of people to abuse the information, for political or financial or any other ends, and cover their abuses, by virtue of the sensitive nature of the information.

The NSA, if they're not cherry picking, could really help this country. God help them if they're using that immense power to tighten the noose around the collective American neck.

But of course if the NSA was airtight, along with the party line 100%, there would be no leaks.

There has been a low-level, mostly non-violent purge going on in the American intelligence services. But the bad guys who are trying to manipulate the country have seriously underestimated the abilities and ethics of the intelligence community, both at home and abroad.

That's how it appears to me, anyway. When you lose the respect of the men who gather your intelligence for you, and the men who do your dirty work, the NSA/CIA/ETC ( ) and Special Forces respectively, you're in no position to rule without complications.

The nuts and the bolts at NSA (clerks) are making really, really good money, compared to most Americans. I would not expect them to suddenly become concerned and turncoat on the situation.


Hope I'm wrong.

I think that's insightful, if sad.

The hammer-lock on the media has been placed as much by the threat of job loss as anything else. Peter Arnett was constructively discharged by CNN and two producers terminated after a story on a 1970 incursion into Laos by US special forces to execute awol US servicemen with sarin gas. Then there was the very public humiliation of Dan Rather after a document on Bush's own awol military history (although apparently accurate) was shown to possibly be a fake (plant? Mr. Rove?).

www.wsws.org...

Arnett was later hired by the BBC, but he won a Pulitzer. Not many journalists have his chops and can't hope to find alternate work in their profession abroad. People are afraid to come forward. This is why people like Sibel Edmonds and Joe Wilson are true patriots. If the public supports those efforts it will encourage more people with knowledge to risk everything to expose the truth. Remember, the approval ratings for the GOP and neocons is at an all time low.

Keep the faith. Perhaps democracy will conquer and truth will out. If so then the Constitution will be saved.

Another problem is that there is so very much corruption and so many stories and angles and twists and turns that most people don't have the time to catch up and take action. We are being buried under a blizzard of corruption. But I believe the worm is beginning to turn at last. And I don't use AT&T!

[edit on 11-4-2006 by seattlelaw]