Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

Originally posted by Toadmund
The Bush assministration is only trying to stop people from finding out about all their misdeeds on the American people.

Go look up what a ‘whistle-blower’ actually means, my point is that people are leaking programs which are not illegal for various reasons and then claiming protection as a whistle blower, that’s not how the law works. If you leak a classified program then you’re committing a felony. The Bush administration, just like any other administration is doing what is required by law, and that is to prosecute the sources of these leaks. As far as I’m aware they haven't done any “misdeeds” on the American people.


[edit on 17-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

AT&T, Bell South and Verizon all deny that they have given records to the NSA as reported in the source stories of this article. Who's lying? What's going on?

From the AT&T link above:

“There has been a lot of speculation in the news media. The fact is, AT&T does not allow wiretapping without a court order nor has it otherwise given customer information to law enforcement authorities or government agencies without legal authorization.”

Without legal authorization? Would that come in the form of a presidential memo?

New Presidential Memorandum Permits Intelligence Director To Authorize Telcos To Lie Without Violating Securities Law

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security.

So, the pres signed a memo that authorizes these companies to lie to us about it?

Anyone else find this odd?

I saw that today myself and haven't had the opportunity to follow up on it. I did follow the links to what was supposed to be the actual memo from archives and of course it is worded so bizzarely its incomprehensible.

If true....what the hell is our recourse? How can you hold anyone accountable when the highest office in the country allegedly O.K.s the lying?

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
...all deny that they have given records to the NSA as reported in the source stories of this article. Who's lying? What's going on?

Where do they deny that they have given the government phone records? All their statement says is that ...AT&T does not allow wiretapping without a court order... nothing new here, and nothing that backs up you previous assertions. Furthermore, they say ...nor has it otherwise given customer information to law enforcement authorities or government agencies without legal authorization. Again, nothing new here, and still nothing that supports your previous statement. All this says is that AT&T has never given the Government phone data unless it had the proper legal authorization. How does this contradict in any way what we already know?

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Who's lying? What's going on?

Without legal authorization? Would that come in the form of a presidential memo?

New Presidential Memorandum Permits Intelligence Director To Authorize Telcos To Lie Without Violating Securities Law

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security.

So, the pres signed a memo that authorizes these companies to lie to us about it?

Only if you equate conceal with lie. The way I read it, the memo allows certain information to be withheld from the public if it is a matter of national security.

It will only be a matter of time before some "patriot" leaks it to the press anyway. And unfortunately that will have the same disastrous effects that the leak that we were monitoring bin Laden's sat-phone calls had.

WestPoint23 - Read the links in my post. From those links:

May 16 (UPI) -- Refuting media reports, Atlanta-based BellSouth says it did not provide its customer telephone records to the U.S. National Security Agency.

Verizon Communications denied Tuesday that it had received a request for customer phone records from the National Security Agency, bringing into question key points of a USA Today story.

"Contrary to the media reports, Verizon was not asked by NSA to provide, nor did Verizon provide, customer phone records," the New York-based phone company said in an e-mailed statement.

As regards AT&T, it depends on what the meaning of Deny is...



[edit on 17-5-2006 by Benevolent Heretic]

Originally posted by jsobecky
Only if you equate conceal with lie.

If a telephone company gives its records to the NSA and then 'conceals' that fact by stating a denial, as BellSouth and Verizon have, then yes, I would equate concealing with lying.

I'm not saying that's what's happened, I'm explaining the conditions under which I equate concealing with lying.

I admit, I'm totally confused as to what has taken place. Too bad we can no longer to trust the media or the government to tell us the truth.

BH, thanks for those other quotes, I was only referring to the AT&T one at the time.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
bad we can no longer to trust the media or the government to tell us the truth.

In this case, for obvious reasons, the ‘truth’ is on a need to know basis only, and you don't need to know.

Another interesting couple of articles about the NSA/AT&T deal...

Their Secret Rooms

Of course the Federal government can claim 'legality' of anything that can't be openly challenged in court. Nothing is 'illegal' until the justice system has a chance to review evidence or arguments, within a court of law.. Until then, the Feds are innocent until proven guilty. If the courts are not permitted to review the "proof" because of an executive trump card called "National Security" (NS), then they can do anything at all as long as they cover it up with the NS card.

Fascism has taken root and Bush may have finally gotten his longed for title of dictator... Not decider. DICTATOR

AT&T Whistle Blower

31 December 2005

I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it's been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties. I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project.

It seems that We The People have forgotten that the government and all government employees
work for us.

Unfortunately, we've lost our guts collectively.

How is it possible the the NSA annual budget is "Classified" ?

It's OUR money. We all contributed.

I want to know how much money these clowns are wasting!

Once a year we are required by the IRS to tell the government what we did with our money in exacting detail.

Just imagine if we ALL were to file our tax returns marking all the columns "CLASSIFIED"


This administration keeps trying to hide behind War Powers to excuse what they are doing.

This War on Terrorism is a ploy to excuse blank check funding of the military industrial empire.

We might as well call it The War on Evil Doers. A battle that will never end.

This was a matter of international law enforcement that should have been limited to capturing
a relatively small handful of violent criminals.

The authorization to use of military force was based on lies and deception.

Congress should revoke this authorization, thus ending War Powers.

It's illegal but those expected to investigate and prosecute it are the people doing it. And they are supported by a cast of people blindly heeding the call to patriotism or fundamentalism or neo-conism. Why has it got this far, why not do something after the election of 02, oh! yeah the Supreme Court did something then. WMD anyone? Saddam was conected to al-Qaeda. Downing Street? Congress is discussing making English our main language( wasn't it always) and banning gay marraiges thats some real important stuff. We have been lied to from day one this is just another brick in the wall>