NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans

[Guest guest]

S

Sun, 1 Jan 2006 00:59:07 -0800

NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans

 

 

 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_doug_tho_051227_nsa_just_one_of_many.htm

 

 

December 27, 2005

 

NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans

by Doug Thompson

 

http://www.opednews.com

 

Spying on Americans by the super-secret National Security Agency is

not only more widespread than President George W. Bush admits but is

part of a concentrated, government-wide effort to gather and catalog

information on U.S. citizens, sources close to the administration say.

 

Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the

Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are

spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365

days a year.

 

" It's a total effort to build dossiers on as many Americans as

possible, " says a former NSA agent who quit in disgust over use of the

agency to spy on Americans. " We're no longer in the business of

tracking our enemies. We're spying on everyday Americans. "

 

" It's really obvious to me that it's a look-at-everything type

program, " says cryptology expert Bruce Schneier.

 

Schneier says he suspects that the NSA is turning its massive spy

satellites inward on the United States and intentionally gathering

vast streams of raw data from many more people than disclosed to date

— potentially including all e-mails and phone calls within the United

States.

But the NSA spying is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Although supposedly killed by Congress more than 18 months ago, the

Defense Advance Project Research Agency's Terrorist Information

Awareness (TIA) system, formerly called the " Total Information

Awareness " program, is alive and well and collecting data in real time

on Americans at a computer center located at 3801 Fairfax Drive in

Arlington, Virginia.

 

The system, set up by retired admiral John Poindexter, once convicted

of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, compiles financial,

travel and other data on the day-to-day activities of Americans and

then runs that data through a computer model to look for patterns that

the agency deems " terrorist-related behavior. "

 

Poindexter admits the program was quietly moved into the Pentagon's

" black bag " program where it does escapes Congressional oversight.

 

" TIA builds a profile of every American who travels, has a bank

account, uses credit cards and has a credit record, " says security

expert Allen Banks. " The profile establishes norms based on the

person's spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for

patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials

that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific

areas or a change in spending habits. "

 

Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative

alert and the individual becomes a " person of interest " who is

referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland

Security, Banks says.

 

Intelligence pros call the process " data mining " and that is something

the NSA excels at as well says former NSA signals intelligence analyst

Russell Tice.

 

" The technology exists, " says Tice, who left the NSA earlier this year.

 

" Say Aunt Molly in Oklahoma calls her niece at an Army base in Germany

and says, 'Isn't it horrible about those terrorists and September

11th,' " Tice told the Atlanta Constitution recently. " That

conversation would not only be captured by NSA satellites listening in

on Germany — which is legal — but flagged and listened to by NSA

analysts and possibly transcribed for further investigation. All you

would have to do is move the vacuum cleaner a little to the left and

begin sucking up the other end of that conversation. You move it a

little more and you could be picking up everything people are saying

from California to New York. "

 

The Pentagon has built a massive database of Americans it considers

threats, including members of antiwar groups, peace activists and

writers opposed to the war in Iraq. Pentagon officials now claim they

are " reviewing the files " to see if the information is necessary to

the " war on terrorism. "

 

" Given the military's legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances

are cold comfort, " says Gene Healy, senior editor of the CATO

Institute in Washington.

 

" During World War I, concerns about German saboteurs led to

unrestrained domestic spying by U.S. Army intelligence operatives, "

says Healy. " Army spies were given free reign to gather information on

potential subversives, and were often empowered to make arrests as

special police officers. Occasionally, they carried false

identification as employees of public utilities to allow them, as the

chief intelligence officer for the Western Department put it, `to

enter offices or residences of suspects gracefully, and thereby obtain

data.' "

 

" There's a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this

country, " Healy adds. " That history suggests that we should loathe

allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information. "

 

In her book Army Surveillance in America, historian Joan M. Jensen

noted, " What began as a system to protect the government from enemy

agents became a vast surveillance system to watch civilians who

violated no law but who objected to wartime policies or to the war

itself. "

 

" It's a fucking nightmare, " says a Congressional aide who recently

obtained information on the program for his boss but asked not to be

identified because he fears retaliation from the Bush administration.

" We're collecting more information on Americans than on real enemies

of our country. "

 

Sen. John Rockefeller says he raised concerns more than two years ago

about increased spying on Americans but – as a member of the Senate

Intelligence Committee – could not share that concern with colleagues.

 

" For the last few days, I have witnessed the President, the

Vice-President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney-General

repeatedly misrepresent the facts, " Rockefeller said last week. When

he was first briefed about the activity in 2003, we sent a handwritten

note to Vice President Dick Cheney outlining his concerns.

 

" I am retaining a copy of this letter in a sealed envelope in the

secure spaces of the Senate intelligence committee to ensure that I

have a record of this communication, " Rockefeller told Cheney.

However, Rockefeller says now, " my concerns were never addressed, and

I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues. "

 

Missouri Congressman William Clay worries that the Bush Adminstration

is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.

 

" The agencies involved in data mining are trying to skirt the Privacy

Act by claiming that they hold no data, " said Clay. Instead, they use

private companies to maintain and sift through the data, he said.

 

" Technically, that gets them out from under the Privacy Act, " he said.

" Ethically, it does not. "

 

 

© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue

 

Contact Editor