NSA Uses Private Firms for Massive Unchecked Domestic Surveillance [VIDEO]

[LoadAmmo]

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002471.htm

Direct link, right click save as:
http://www.ameratsu.com/media/vid/nbc/cnbc_tr_rice_oharrow_060225a.wmv

Together, Risen and O'Harrow paint a picture of an enormous partnership between U.S. intelligence agencies and private data collection firms. Spying agencies like the NSA can leverage its' massive computing power to mine data collected by these private firms. The result is a mind-boggling domestic surveillance capability with access to nearly any information imaginable. Phone calls, email, video as well as finicial, criminal and other personal records can all be searched at the same time. The NSA's powerful computers can mine the data to find otherwise imperceptible links for profiling groups and individuals.

Russert calls it a "sobering" discussion. The interview only scratches the surface of how extensive the scope of Big Brother's monitoring of Americans may be. The surveillance programs are a dramatic departure from what the public has come to believe. It's easy to see why the Bush Administration has avoided legislation and oversight.

 

[LoadAmmo]

James Risen broke the NSA warrantless domestic spying story for the New York Times. He also has a new book out, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA And The Bush Administration. Risen is known to have sources within various intelligence agencies and has recieved information from several NSA whistleblowers. One of those whistleblowers, Russell Tice, recently testified before congress that NSA domestic surveillance programs may be much more widespread than the "limited" program that the Bush Adminstration has admitted. Tice has said that some programs could be monitoring "millions of Americans".

 

[Preacherman]

Bear in mind that Risen is hardly a dispassionate observer. The more fuss he makes about this, the more books he sells. I'd take his remarks with a generous pinch of salt (or two, or three, or...) unless and until some supporting facts emerge, from another source.

 

[El Tejon]

Could be?

And Dick Cheney could come into my office with a shotgun and . . .

 

[LoadAmmo]

Bear in mind that Risen is hardly a dispassionate observer. The more fuss he makes about this, the more books he sells. I'd take his remarks with a generous pinch of salt (or two, or three, or...) unless and until some supporting facts emerge, from another source.

The facts are already out there with many different sources.

Are you so naive that you don't think the Federal Government is data mining and doing roving wiretaps?

Give me a break.

 

[Henry Bowman]

This is pretty old news. As I recall it, this data mining was being done by private companies using freely accessible information. They contacted the feds and said, "Hey look at what we can do. Our results (showing traceable trends between names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card usage, etc.) would be useful to you in discovering and identifying terrorists and other bad guys. Want to buy our services?" and the feds said "Yes, thank you very much."

 

[ArmedBear]

So the government pays the same firms for the same information that leads to my getting catalogs in the mail for hiking boot closeout sales and fancy dog houses?

Uh, BFD.

There are a few paths we could go down:

1. Ban collection of this information by anyone.
2. Set up new systems of accountability so that these new kinds of information are not misused by any government entity.
3. Pipe down and forget about it.

Perhaps we need something like HIPAA for ALL such information. I'd support that. The companies who donate to campaigns would not, however.

What you can do personally...

1. Cash transactions only.
2. Don't use your Vons/Kroger/Ralphs card when you buy stuff.
3. Don't order anything by mail or through the Internet.
4. Don't use a bank or take out a mortgage.
5. Don't own property.
6. Don't own or drive a car.
7. Don't get insurance.
8. Don't use any public utilities.
9. Don't get a phone of any kind.

I'd prefer another Privacy Act to having to live like a member of the under-underclass in the third world, personally. But to each his own.

And yes, camping is a lot of fun, but only for a while.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

Bear in mind that Risen is hardly a dispassionate observer. The more fuss he makes about this, the more books he sells. I'd take his remarks with a generous pinch of salt (or two, or three, or...) unless and until some supporting facts emerge, from another source.

And your point is...? You often bring this up as if it somehow negates the information. It doesn't. To negate the information you have to present information that counters the original information. attacking the source of that information does not accomplish this. This is why ad hominum attacks are ineffective.

 

[rick_reno]

Bear in mind that Risen is hardly a dispassionate observer. The more fuss he makes about this, the more books he sells. I'd take his remarks with a generous pinch of salt (or two, or three, or...) unless and until some supporting facts emerge, from another source.

9/11 really opened the floodgates to this activity. Read "No Place Left to Hide" by Robert O'Harrow, Jr. The author spends quite a bit of page space on this subject.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

NSA is entitled to buy information on the open market the same as any other organization is. Corporations gather this information through data that we willingly supply to them and they are entitled to sell it under the law.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Yup, and anyone who thinks the New Yaaak Times is an authority should look up the history of Walter Duranty.

They have no credibility.

 

[TequilaMockingbird]

Yup, and anyone who thinks the New Yaaak Times is an authority should look up the history of Walter Duranty. They have no credibility.

As opposed to Bush, Cheney and Gonzales....the very paragons of virtue, honesty, and integrity.

"If the president does it, then it's not illegal." -- Richard Nixon.
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." George W. Bush, 20 April 2004.

 

[DonP]

Or those Kennedy boys

"As opposed to Bush, Cheney and Gonzales....the very paragons of virtue, honesty, and integrity."

And don't forget those true and upright Kennedy boys, Saints John and Bobby, who not only wiretapped phones with out a court order, like Ralph Abernathy, Martin L. King and Coretta Scott King and others in the budding Civil Rights Movement in the early '60's, but also planted young women in the SCLC and other organizations to report on and possibly induce MLK into hanky panky.

There's plenty of crap to go around at any point in American history for both sides of the aisle.

Right now I'm in the "BFD" camp. No aspect of my life has been affected by all this alleged illegal spying.

What is being discussed here seems to be no more or less than they are doing at the Direct Mail Marketing Association. Data mining and consumer profiling is a staple of the marketing business today.

If I want to I can pick up the phone right now and get a list of people in the Chicago metro area, that voted in a Republican primary, own an SUV and have bought 2 pounds or more of Oscar Mayer bacon in the past 30 days.

I guess the Jewel food store people are guilty of spying and profiling too.

 

[JohnBT]

"The surveillance programs are a dramatic departure from what the public has come to believe."

Oh fiddlefaddle. Somebody is naive or totally disingenuous.



"the history of Walter Duranty." Is that Jimmy's brother?

John

 

[ArmedBear]

People may NOT know how much data is being mined for commercial purposes. But one must assume that, if they cared, they wouldn't have a Vons Card, or at least they'd read some articles about it. Otherwise, they must not care much.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

"the history of Walter Duranty." Is that Jimmy's brother?

No John, he was a reporter for the NYT who knowingly covered up Stalin's forced starvation of the Ukranians in 1932 -- 33 (which killed upwards of 12 million, by some estimates), and received a Pulitzer prize for his efforts.

Several Ukranian groups have tried to get the Pulitzer revoked, and Sulzberger, the current pinko owner has an interesting no culpa on his company's website.

They were lefties then, and they are worse now.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

People may NOT know how much data is being mined for commercial purposes.

There seems to be movement towards curbing corporate data mining. As people learn more and more about what information is being collected, they are starting to get P.O.'d.

 

[ArmedBear]

There seems to be movement towards curbing corporate data mining. As people learn more and more about what information is being collected, they are starting to get P.O.'d.

As I posted above, I would support a HIPAA-like law that covered ALL information, as well as what is really commercial electronic intelligence gathering.

But in the meantime I won't get unhinged if the government can buy some of the same data as Home Depot.

 

[shermacman]

Tice has said that some programs could be monitoring "millions of Americans"

Could be. Then again, it might not be. Then again, it would be like taking a drink from fire hose. Then again, if Abdul Kamelhump and Mohammed Goatanus are talking trash it is going to be incomprehensible "code". Risen is trying to sell a book. There are many things in this administration that I am concerned about, this is not one of them.

PS loadammo, the moderators spend a lot of time keeping this site up. If you want to get snarly on someone, jump on one of us freeloaders.

 

[Preacherman]

Bear in mind that Risen is hardly a dispassionate observer. The more fuss he makes about this, the more books he sells. I'd take his remarks with a generous pinch of salt (or two, or three, or...) unless and until some supporting facts emerge, from another source.

And your point is...? You often bring this up as if it somehow negates the information. It doesn't. To negate the information you have to present information that counters the original information. attacking the source of that information does not accomplish this. This is why ad hominum attacks are ineffective.

Lobotomy Boy, wake up and smell the roses. The information provided by a source known to have an interest in the topic under discussion, or known to be biased in one particular direction, is ALWAYS suspect!!! It must be corroborated by independent, verifiable evidence before it can be accepted as factual. I'm not trying to "negate the information" at all - I simply pointed out that it needs corroboration before being blindly accepted. This is standard practice throughout the world, BTW.

As for "attacking the source", I didn't do that either - I simply pointed out that the source has a vested interest in keeping discussion going on the topic, as he stands to make a great deal of money out of that discussion. That's not an attack - that's stating a fact, which can be verified by anyone caring to do so.

As others have pointed out already, "data mining" by both Government and corporate bodies has been going on for decades. There's nothing new about it, and nothing surprising. The scale of this operation may have increased post-9/11, but that's hardly surprising either, is it? I don't like the fact that so much information about me, and you, and others, is squirreled away in databases without my consent, but there's nothing I can do about it. It's a fact of life in today's society and economy, and is not about to change. Even if a law were passed tomorrow to make such data-gathering illegal, it would simply be circumvented in some way almost from the day it became operational.

 

[telomerase]

Anyone paying attention has known that the NSA has always bought info from the private database firms. The amazing thing is that the Federal 'intelligence' bureaucracies spend something like $40 billion a year supposedly collecting and collating data... then have to buy info from private companies.

 

[orangeninja]

Sweet.