Whistleblower: NSA Spied on Everyone, Targeted Journalists
January 22nd, 2009Via: Rawstory:
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.
“The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice claimed. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”
Tice further explained that “even for the NSA it’s impossible to literally collect all communications. … What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected.”
According to Tice, in addition to this “low-tech, dragnet” approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.
“In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them,” Tice told Olbermann. “What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year — and it made no sense. … I started to investigate that. That’s about the time when they came after me to fire me.”
When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, “An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists.”
“To what purpose?” Olbermann asked. “I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?”
Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, “If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything.” He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it “was digitized and put on databases somewhere.”
Tice first began alleging that there were illegal activities going on at both the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in December 2005, several months after being fired by the NSA. He also served at that time as a source for the New York Times story which revealed the existence of the NSA’s wireless wiretapping program.
Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
Tice is now coming forward again now because George Bush is finally out of office. He told Olbermann that the Obama administration has not been in touch with him about his latest revelations, but, “I did send a letter to, I think it’s [Obama intelligence adviser John] Brennan — a handwritten letter, because I knew all my communications were tapped, my phones, my computer, and I’ve had the FBI on me like flies on you-know-what … and I’m assuming that he gave the note to our current president — that I intended to say a little bit more than I had in the past.”
Probably every regular cryptogon reader suspected something that existed on this scale. It is nice to have it confirmed, if only for the sake of validation and not wanting to be regarded as a total tinfoilhead.
A cool word I was recently introduced to by a comment-poster to that story on rawstory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
His entire comment, which I thought was on target:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/rawstory/13973/#905989
@Loveandlight
They suspected it?
They didn’t have to just suspect it. They could look at the court documents that describe how the intercepts took place!
https://cryptogon.com/?p=877
Who regards what as tinfoil? What’s your point if any?
So, where are these databases physically stored? 🙂
Of course any responsible agency would have redundant storage, distributed across geographic areas, with off-site backups and disaster recovery plans. Makes the prospect of a modern Bastille Day less likely, among other things.
Louis XIV had “ULTIMA RATIO REGUM” inscribed on his cannon. What’s inscribed on American phone and network switches?
Who regards what as tinfoil? What’s your point if any?
With regard to communications spying, a lot of mainstream people in the USA think that “only those who deserve suspicion” have anything to be concerned about. If pretty much everybody is having their communications spyed on as a tangible fact, then it’s not tinfoil to say so.
Though as the article states, there will undoubtedly be doubleplusgoodthinkers who will continue to cry “Tinfoil!” in response just the same after the facts are revealed:
had his credibility attacked by Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
So it may be that my point is moot because of all the mass-brainwashing out there.
Upon further reflection, it also occurs to me that my point is made even more moot by the truism that I probably really shouldn’t care what people who are that brainwashed think about anything I say or do.