NYT (Breaking) Snowden Docs: "Raw Take," Rampant Sharing of Domestic, "Unminimized" Wiretap Content

[Oilwellian]

How a Court Secretly Evolved, Extending U.S. Spies’ Reach
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and LAURA POITRAS
NY Times
MARCH 11, 2014 (March 12th Edition–Pg. A1)

WASHINGTON — Ten months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation’s surveillance court delivered a ruling that intelligence officials consider a milestone in the secret history of American spying and privacy law. Called the “Raw Take” order — classified docket No. 02-431 — it weakened restrictions on sharing private information about Americans, according to documents and interviews.

The administration of President George W. Bush, intent on not overlooking clues about Al Qaeda, had sought the July 22, 2002, order. It is one of several still-classified rulings by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court described in documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.

Previously, with narrow exceptions, an intelligence agency was permitted to disseminate information gathered from court-approved wiretaps only after deleting irrelevant private details and masking the names of innocent Americans who came into contact with a terrorism suspect. The Raw Take order significantly changed that system, documents show, allowing counterterrorism analysts at the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. to share unfiltered personal information.

The leaked documents that refer to the rulings, including one called the “Large Content FISA” order and several more recent expansions of powers on sharing information, add new details to the emerging public understanding of a secret body of law that the court has developed since 2001. The files help explain how the court evolved from its original task — approving wiretap requests — to engaging in complex analysis of the law to justify activities like the bulk collection of data about Americans’ emails and phone calls.

“These latest disclosures are important,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “They indicate how the contours of the law secretly changed, and they represent the transformation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court into an interpreter of law and not simply an adjudicator of surveillance applications...”

For all intents and purposes, once readers realize this program, as reported in this story, was expanded to include the National Counterterrorism Center, in 2012, this pretty much blows the lid off of the ongoing government lies propaganda that our government has not been capturing massive quantities of domestic call content of its citizens, all along.

This is "the" story, IMHO. The cat's all but officially out of the proverbial bag.

# # #

Critical background for readers, regarding what we already "knew," from reports in August of last year...

NSA, DEA, IRS Lie About Fact That Americans Are Routinely Spied On By Our Government: Time For A Special Prosecutor
By Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman
Forbes Magazine
8/14/2013 @ 2:45PM

It seems that every day brings a new revelation about the scope of the NSA’s heretofore secret warrantless mass surveillance programs. And as we learn more, the picture becomes increasingly alarming. Last week we discovered that the NSA shares information with a division of the Drug Enforcement Administration called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The DEA uses the information in drug investigations. But it also gives NSA data out to other agencies – in particular, the Internal Revenue Service, which, as you might imagine, is always looking for information on tax cheats.

The Obama Administration repeatedly has assured us that the NSA does not collect the private information of ordinary Americans. Those statements simply are not true. We now know that the agency regularly intercepts and inspects Americans’ phone calls, emails, and other communications, and it shares this information with other federal agencies that use it to investigate drug trafficking and tax evasion. Worse, DEA and IRS agents are told to lie to judges and defense attorneys about their use of NSA data, and about the very existence of the SOD, and to make up stories about how these investigations started so that no one will know information is coming from the NSA’s top secret surveillance programs.

“How does a foreign intelligence agency which supposedly is looking for terrorists and only targets non-U.S. persons get ahold of information useful in IRS investigations of American tax cheats?” To answer that question, let’s review this week’s revelations…

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation, last August, here’s more on the highly-publicized NSA-DEA connection, pretty much laid bare with the “missing link” provided in today’s NY Times article…

DEA and NSA Team Up to Share Intelligence, Leading to Secret Use of Surveillance in Ordinary Investigations
Hanni Fakhoury
Electronic Frontier Foundation
August 6, 2013

UPDATE: Add the IRS to the list of federal agencies obtaining information from NSA surveillance. Reuters reports that the IRS got intelligence tips from DEA's secret unit (SOD) and were also told to cover up the source of that information by coming up with their own independent leads to recreate the information obtained from SOD. So that makes two levels of deception: SOD hiding the fact it got intelligence from the NSA and the IRS hiding the fact it got information from SOD. Even worse, there's a suggestion that the Justice Department (DOJ) "closely guards the information provided by SOD with strict oversight," shedding doubt into the effectiveness of DOJ earlier announced efforts to investigate the program.

A startling new Reuters story shows one of the biggest dangers of the surveillance state: the unquenchable thirst for access to the NSA's trove of information by other law enforcement agencies.

As the NSA scoops up phone records and other forms of electronic evidence while investigating national security and terrorism leads, they turn over "tips" to a division of the Drug Enforcement Agency ("DEA&quot known as the Special Operations Division ("SOD&quot . FISA surveillance was originally supposed to be used only in certain specific, authorized national security investigations, but information sharing rules implemented after 9/11 allows the NSA to hand over information to traditional domestic law-enforcement agencies, without any connection to terrorism or national security investigations.

But instead of being truthful with criminal defendants, judges, and even prosecutors about where the information came from, DEA agents are reportedly obscuring the source of these tips…

Using the NSA-DEA relationship as just one example of the many interagency information-sharing/surveillance protocols that the public's recently learned are in place in our country, here's a report on the results of a FOIA response provided to MuckRock.com, from just a few weeks ago, regarding how the DEA internally instructs its agents to obfuscate the source of its (NSA) intelligence data...

DEA teaches agents to recreate evidence chains to hide methods

Trainers justify parallel construction on national security and PR grounds: "Americans don't like it"

by Shawn Musgrave
MuckRock.com
Feb. 3, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

FOI Requests: DEA policies on "parallel construction"

Drug Enforcement Administration training documents released to MuckRock user C.J. Ciaramella show how the agency constructs two chains of evidence to hide surveillance programs from defense teams, prosecutors, and a public wary of domestic intelligence practices.

In training materials, the department even encourages a willful ignorance by field agents to minimize the risk of making intelligence practices public.

The DEA practices mirror a common dilemma among domestic law enforcement agencies: Analysts have access to unprecedented streams of classified information that might prove useful to investigators, but entering classified evidence in court risks disclosing those sensitive surveillance methods to the world, which could either end up halting the program due to public outcry or undermining their usefulness through greater awareness.

An undated slide deck released by the DEA to fleshes out the issue more graphically: When military and intelligence agencies “find Bin Laden's satellite phone and then pin point [sic] his location, they don't have to go to a court to get permission to put a missile up his nose." Law enforcement agencies, on the other hand, “must be able to take our information to court and prove to a jury that our bad guy did the bad things we say he did...”

Now, multiply the NSA-DEA relationship by another 12+ Federal agencies (IRS, etc., see above), plus countless local law enforcement organizations and big business security departments, and you'll begin to understand that all of these entities work in unison with the NSA/NCTC at those 78 Fusion Centers, noted in the first paragraph of this post. And, as we're learning from the NY Times, today, they're all--either directly or indirectly--maintaining some level of access to the "unminimized," "Raw Take" wiretap data disclosed in the latest Snowden document leak.

Daily Kos

[grasswire]

1. Orwell was an optimist.

Carlin, too.

[Oilwellian]

4. No kidding

This is getting surreal.

[Enthusiast]

14. PLUS ONE! nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. Double Plus One n/t

[glinda]

57. Triple that....

[billhicks76]

52. War On Terror Doesn't Exist

There are a few investigations but the War On Terror us a fraud...a fraud supported by our so-called leaders on both sides of the aisle. It is just the War On Drugs rebranded due to its unpopularity. And they will target activists too.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Should I even pretend any level of surprise here?

[Oilwellian]

6. Well, this part was new

“These latest disclosures are important,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “They indicate how the contours of the law secretly changed, and they represent the transformation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court into an interpreter of law and not simply an adjudicator of surveillance applications...”

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I know, but long picture

Hi guys, remember? Oh never mind....it is a godamn piece of paper!!!!

[OnyxCollie]

43. Regarding the FISA court...

Obama's wiretapping flip-flop? Yes
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/14/obamas-wiretapping-flip-flop-yes/

In October 2007, Obama spokesman Bill Burton issued this unequivocal statement to the liberal blog TPM Election Central: "To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

~snip~

Obama supported an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the measure. But after that amendment failed, Obama declined to filibuster the bill. In fact, he voted for it. It passed the Senate, 69-28, on July 9. The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon. (McCain missed the vote because he was campaigning in Ohio, but he has consistently supported the immunity plan.)

In a message to supporters, Obama defended his position, citing a phrase Democrats fought to include that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the "exclusive" means of wiretapping for intelligence. The bill "is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year... (because it) makes it clear to any president or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court."

...

Yeah, Obama breaks his promise to filibuster retroactive immunity for telecoms and instead votes for more authority for the FISA court, hand-picked by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who had gone to Florida in 2000 to fight for George W. Bush (and was later rewarded with the Chief Justice spot on the SCOTUS), the same George W. Bush whose father was part of the private equity group that would buy the company that the NSA would contract work to, the work that would be authorized by the FISA court.

(On behalf of DU's resident Propagandist, I would like to say, "Fuck Snowden" and "Glenn Greenwald's a poopyhead.&quot

[2banon]

61. I don't think I knew Roberts was involved in the 2000 elections....

and the private equity firm that bought the company that NSA contracted to... omg this thing just goes on an on, like tracking the Rothschilds' and the Rathskellers'.

[2banon]

54. Lost tract of FAS and Steven Aftergood, I used to be on their mailing list..

I'm pleased to see he's still on mission..

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. But..but...never mind the little people terrorists...they're protecting us from senator terrorists.

[Catherina]

5. We're past the point of reforms. They need to be cleaned out and start all over n/t

B

[Eleanors38]

31. Well, they "minimalized" that "promise."

[DeSwiss]

9. You. Can't. Fix. Rotten.

- K&R

In the Bill of Rights of the United States, there is an attempt to secure certain freedoms and protections by way of mere text on paper. Now while I understand the value of this document and the temporal brilliance of it in the context of the period of its creation, that does not excuse the fact that it is a product of social inefficiency and nothing more.

In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design. There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendment is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost.

All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order. In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance.

~Peter Joseph

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Oh, you ninnies would probably LET granny smoke that pot for her chemo, instead of putting her in

the slammer--- where she belongs.

[Fearless]

11. Told you so.

[mfcorey1]

12. Why does he drip drip the information? Release everything at one time.

[cui bono]

19. Nah, then it would all get lost. It would be too overwhelming.

It needs to be let out a bit at a time in order to be able to be digested.

[Warren Stupidity]

24. It is a well honed and time tested strategy. It gives your opponents ample opportunity to

dig the hole way deeper as they deny exactly what gets revealed next.

[Eleanors38]

32. ^^^ This. #19 and #24.

[joshcryer]

68. It's easy to handle a trickle.

Let it fall off the front pages. When it's only a few reporters reporting on it they get drowned out in the noise. Then respond to something a few days later. When the NSA literally admitted to spying on the entire internet, every post, every text submitted, where was the outrage?

[Warren Stupidity]

70. Yes, good point, the whole Snowden affair has just disappeared.

[joshcryer]

72. Oh yes, the NSA has listened to the wishes of the public.

It no longer spies on anyone and everything is fine and dandy. The government has responded appropriately.

You know how every single vehicle in the UK has its last 250 trips recorded in a database?

Because the fucking UK made sure that its totalitarian state do so quietly. And any objection be ignored for the better good.

[sibelian]

29. That's what Assange did.

Mistake.

[Maedhros]

39. Yes - Assange was roundly criticized for dumping all his information at once.

(And by the same people that criticize Greenwald for carefully vetting and releasing information slowly).

[sibelian]

41. In some minds only a statement of disagreement

need be taken for an actual contradiction of a point.

[sabrina 1]

65. No, they are doing it exactly right. Just releasing it all at one time would overwhelm people

and it would be a story for a few weeks at most, then disappear and be forgotten.

[Enthusiast]

13. Now this fucking thread should have hundreds of recommendations.

1984?

Imagine what the Stasi could have done with such a setup. The Nazis would have loved such a system.

[newfie11]

21. That's what scares the shit out of me. Nt

[reddread]

23. We should be discussing the pre-9-11-01 "enhancements"

lets hear those apologists work the floor over that.

[sibelian]

15. ..... BOXES. GARGAGE. POLEDANCING.

NARCISSISM.

MOOOOOOTIIIIIIIVESSS

[Enthusiast]

16. Where are the sockpu, er, defenders?

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. I need a picture of a fence or something

with a lot of balloons, flags and a rambling raving text.

[2banon]

62. LOL.. isn't that the truth.. n/t

[dreamnightwind]

20. Fusion Center/Occupy tie-in

from the NY Times article quoted in the Daily Kos piece:

...Access within the N.S.A. to raw FISA information was initially limited to its headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. But in 2006, the N.S.A. expanded sharing to specialists at its code-breaking centers in Hawaii, Texas and Georgia. Only those trained would obtain access, but a review demonstrated that wider sharing had already increased risks. A document noted that the agency was mixing two types of FISA information, each subject to different court-imposed rules, along with other records, and “it is possible that there are already FISA violations resulting from the way data has been stored in these databases.”

The sharing of raw information continued to expand after the enactment of the FISA Amendments Act. On Sept. 4, 2008, the court issued an opinion, which remains secret but was cited in another opinion that has been declassified, approving minimization rules for the new law. A video explaining the new rules to N.S.A. employees noted that “C.I.A. and F.B.I. can have access to unminimized data in many circumstances...”

from the Daily Kos article in the OP:

As noted near the top of this post, in 2012, these programs were expanded to include the National Counterterrorism Center, the co-managers of our nation’s 78 Fusion Centers. ("Coincidentally," this all occurred just in time to enable the now-memorialized, massive surveillance of the Occupy movement.)

[Fumesucker]

22. Tsunami of self-referential blue links in 3.. 2.. 1..

[DisgustipatedinCA]

47. Yes, I would've thought the Pros would be here by now. I'm guessing broken fax machine.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

49. Ironic you should post that picture about anti-intellectualism...

While complaining about "Blue links" - meaning REFERENCES TO ACTUAL FACTS.

Unlike making fact-free bullshit accusations, which is the signature anti-intellectual habit of so many of the haters on the D.U.

Or maybe watching a hater descend into self-parody really isn't ironic.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

/ Now, according to the OP, Obama is responsible for things the Bush administration did. Apparently. Go figure.

[Oilwellian]

51. No, according to the OP...

Obama escalated the spying program and spread the "love" the NSA has for the American people to many other government agencies.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

58. You get props from me for at least attempting to make an intellectual argument...

...however, the only thing that could be remotely called "escalation" is sharing info with the National Terrorism Center, adding a single agency to the dozen who were already allowed to use foreign intelligence information.

However, the overall thrust of the Obama administration is deescalation. Please compare the Bush administration's interpretation of the law with the law that is now on the books:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/148767817/Chart-On-Surveillance-Oversight-Prepared-By-Nancy-Pelosi-For-Democratic-house-Members

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[JDPriestly]

59. A true conservative would treasure and protect our Constitution.

The President takes an oath to protect the Constitution. Looks like the FISA court has been eviscerating the Fourth Amendment as well as the structure of separation of powers established in the Constitution. The surveillance makes a joke of the concepts of free speech, freedom of religion, equal protection, public trials, the right to counsel when accused of a crime and the many of the other rights that the Constitution prohibits our government from violating.

A true conservative and a president who lived up to his oath would limit the intelligence community so that it complied with our Constitution and did not violate the rights of the people. That is why Obama's role in this must be carefully questioned.

Can a government that violates our Constitution so egregiously be accepted as legitimate in our country? That is the question that a true American must ask himself?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

73. Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be

"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination.

~ The Onion

The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the NSA's activities are Constitutional. "Random internet guy who thinks thinks he is the Supreme Court" is not, in fact, the Supreme Court.

Are you aware of how much you sound like a teabagger when you arrogate unto yourself the sole interpretation of the Constitution? Talk about truthiness!

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[JDPriestly]

81. The Supreme Court has not repeatedly stated that the NSA's acitivites are constitutional.

Please cite the case law. The NSA is relying I understand on an old case Smith v. Maryland from the late 1970s long before we had the internet and the high-powered computers to analyze, sift and categorize all the personal information you can glean from documents including on-line bank statements, telephone numbers, e-mail lists, etc. I don't think that the Supreme Court has ever decided a case that relates to our current NSA programs.

If this Court did, it might approve of some or all of the snooping into our private communications. But sooner or later the NSA is going to do something so outrageous that the Supreme Court will start to place the NSA on hold, so to speak.

That is the nature of the law.

The slaveholders who beat and whipped their slaves were acting within the law of their time. It took a lot of conscience-raising by the abolitionists to educate Americans and to change the political reality to get a Supreme Court that finally overruled the law allowing slavery.

The fight for civil rights is always hard-fought, long and tedious. There are always martyrs. That's the way we progress as a society.

Sure beats revolutions and wars at least in terms of limiting casualties, if not in terms of getting something, however tawdry and poorly executed done.

I happen to like our slow, tedious way of righting our moral course.

The NSA is committing moral and social wrongs to serve what it considers and what is in my mind also, a noble cause: protecting people against terrorism.

The problem is that the NSA has lost sight of the real goal, which is protecting our constitutional government. The NSA may also be serving certain private interests and using tax money to do it. Facts supporting this thesis seem to be emerging.

The Tea Partiers need to read the Constitution and the case law supporting and defining it before they talk about it. I don't know anyone who has read all the case law related to the Constitution. That would be a gargantuan task. And I don't claim to know all that much about the Constitution and the case law, but I do know something.

The Constitution is the agreement, the contract between us, the American people and our government. It is the basis of our law which is in great part derived from common law. The Constitution limits the power of our government over our lives. The NSA is overstepping. It may construct pedantic arguments to convince itself that it has the right to even enter our toilets and check on what we are flushing down them, but the Constitution establishes that we individuals have a basic right to privacy in spite of what the NSA thinks. Looking at all our e-mails, tracking who looks at porn, who watches what movies, who attends what church and how often, who visits DU, etc. all of our activities, some done in private and some in public is only the purview of the government if we are transgressing some part of what is generally understood to be the unwritten and sometimes written social contract, that is if we are violating a law. Other than that, the government is out of bounds when it watches who we communicate with.

If you looked at my communications records, you might think that I am a very different person than I am. That is true of a lot of people. We may have very different views and lifestyles than our co-workers, our employers, some of our family members or our neighbors. But if you look at our telephone and other electronic communication records, you will see lots of communications with them. The entire NSA scheme is intrusive and wasteful on top of everything else.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

82. If you want to argue that the law is Constitutional but *wrong*, that's one thing

I will say that reasonable people can have that viewpoint, even though I don't agree.

That's entirely different than arguing about "obvious" unconstitutionality however.

Hell, I'll even go so far as to say that it's not beyond the pale to argue that the Supreme Court *should* rule presently constitutional actions as unconstitutional. I'm not a strict constructionist.

Time and time again though, the arguments I see on the other side of this debate fall into one of a number of behaviors:

* Repeating talking points that make factually-disproven assertions
* Belief that the NSA is doing clearly computationally impossible things
* Conspiracy theorizing about illegal actions such as giving Top Secret data to private corporations for economic gain
* Making legal claims that is outright inconsistent with all the case law so far
* Confusing the NSA with the CIA, or even foreign intelligence agencies
* Deliberately pretending leaked "capabilities" (or foreign agencies) are the same thing as actual active programs
* Falling into rhetorical histrionics about fascism over relatively minor anonymous monitoring
* Arguments by assertion and clearly making random "facts" up on the spot because they want them to be true
* Attacking the Obama administration about acts of the Bush administration
* Angry attacks on people who provide links disproving false attacks
* Appeals to juvenile alienation "You believe the President isn't lying?!?"

Now, I'll be happy to admit that my side of this argument aren't angels either. I see this:
* Pretending that Snowden's criminal actions mean all concerns about the NSA are illegitimate
* Using the word "traitor" for Snowden, when treason is made an almost impossible charge to make Constitutionally

I've let slide other things, like attacking President Obama about his protection of "whistleblowers", trying to make out Snowden's felony leaks of information about legal programs (including on foreigners) as "whistleblowing" when it's clearly not. Still, it's not to difficult to see which side is being unreasonable and utterly unthinking.

Nanci Pelosi was booed and heckled at netroots for saying to entirely uncontroversial things: 1] that Snowden broke the law, which he clearly did, and 2] for saying that the country needs a balance between security and privacy.

So. You want to argue that that balance should be set at a different point? Go ahead. I may not agree, but you will get my respect. You want to scream and moan and bitch like an alienated teenage boy because you have no clue about the competing concerns that must be handled in modern day nation states? Then you get no respect. Not from me or anyone else who actually gets into office.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[sabrina 1]

66. Who are the haters on DU? n/t

[Fumesucker]

69. Evidently you missed the "self-referential" part

No surprise coming from a self described conservative.

I used to follow those links but far too many of them turned out to say the opposite of what they were claimed to say or they were to something which had nothing at all to do with the subject at hand or they were simply links to other posts of the same poster.

In short those blue links were and are mostly meaningless distractions at best and often downright misinformation.

Sometimes when something is really really ironic you might want to consider that it was deliberately made that way.

Reading, it really is fundamental.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

74. If it was self-referential to nothing but blanket assertions, you'd be right

But it's not. ProSense has given us an example in this very thread.

Here are the links she put out:

http://web.archive.org/web/20081216011008/http://www.newsweek.com/id/174601/output/print
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00309
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_America_Act_of_2007#Legislative_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act#Protect_America_Act_of_2007
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080214-4.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008#Provisions

None of that is self-referential.

Oh, wait! Here is a self-reference! www.democraticunderground.com/10023026724
Except that just goes to more research:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-prism-success-even-bigger-data-seizure

The fact that you refuse to acknowledge any referenced fact that doesn't fit in your worldview doesn't make those facts "meaningless distractions" or "misinformation". It makes you an anti-intellectual.

An anti-intellectual who imagines that you can, without referencing a single fact yourself, accuse others of not making any external links - when the evidence shows exactly the reverse.

Here's a clue: "devastating to my case" is not the same thing as a "misinformation". Only anti-intellectuals imagine that they can substitute their ignorance for established fact which they'd prefer didn't exist, because it disproves what they'd like to be true.

This entire breathless report in the OP is all about things that happened in the NSA under the Bush Administration. And the usual DU screamers and haters use this to scream and hate on President Obama. And call links which positively point this out as a Bush Administration action, as "misinformation".

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[bobduca]

77. sheer projection

"Only anti-intellectuals imagine that they can substitute their ignorance for established fact which they'd prefer didn't exist, because it disproves what they'd like to be true. "

[Fumesucker]

83. ProSense is the boy who cried wolf

The poster has ruined their credibility by posting NonSense time after time in the past, no serious person here clicks on those links any more since ProSense has wasted everyone's time on many occasions in the past.

Credibility is hard won and easily lost.

For your information I haven't made any case at all on this thread regarding the subject of the OP so it doesn't matter what the links say, there is no case of mine to "disprove".

To a big extent I stay out of the factual disputes on DU, I prefer to comment more on the personalities and cliques of DU since that's what I find both more interesting and amusing. This is entertainment for me, it's what I do in between reading books and in lieu of watching television.

My first post on this thread, the one you responded to was largely in reaction to this thread of a few days ago, I was poking fun at that OP since that poster dodges any tough question asked of them with a ROFL smiley like this and had also posted Asimov's lament on anti-intellectualism.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024642132

[ConservativeDemocrat]

84. In truth, I wish she wouldn't do the ROFL smiley bit...

Still when screamer side behaves like creationists, and responds to long strings of pertinent facts from established authorities by just repeating bullshit assertions, I can see how she would end up being sadly amused.

No one cares about whether people who have no credibility think others have credibility or not. When anyone blithely dismisses established facts, that speaks volumes. Roughly speaking, the typical exchange goes something like this:

MoronicLeftWingNut: President Obama beats his wife. A blogger from Russia Today says so. So it's true.
ProSense: It's provably false: made up by an insane southern racist. Here's a link to research debunking it.
MoronicLeftWingNut: Do you think the President should stop beating his wife?
ProSense: Did you read the link?!?
MoronicLeftWingNut: Answer my question! Do you think the President should stop beating his wife?
ProSense:

This repeats ad-nauseum on the D.U. constantly. Moron Screamers vs Information Providers. I myself have been sucked into spending hours figuring out the actual facts surrounding an issue (which I admit is a interest of itself, as sometimes research can be fun), usually finding out that the thing is quite murky with no clear "right" answer, only to be met with a response that clearly shows that the petulant D.U. screamers have absolutely zero interest in an adult, fact based, conversation.

I strongly suspect that ProSense has also given up on these people. They're the leftist equivalent of Teabaggers. They certainly appear to hate the President just as much. And are about as interesting as them as well, which is to say - not at all.

Specifically, in this thread, your entire attack was nothing but a thinly veiled Ad Hominem against ProSense, accusing her of being "ignorant" with a quote from Azimov because she was providing referenced facts to the ignorant screamers. Then you tried to justify your attack by calling those referenced facts "self-referential", when they were provably not. Right in the same thread!

I mean seriously. Are you stupid? Or do you think we are?!?


You want a picture? Here's one. It unfortunately describes all too many of the hate-filled anti-Democratic left that for some reason have decided to hang out on the D.U. instead of RevLeft.com:




- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Cha]

85. ...

[sheshe2]

86. Kick and Hell yes Recommend!

Well done, ConservativeDemocrat!

[Whisp]

88. will you marry me?

[Cha]

87. So sayeth the fumesucker. You have "no credibility".

[2banon]

63. what a great quote!

[woo me with science]

25. Fascism. nt

[Luminous Animal]

26. Kick

[myrna minx]

27. K&R n/t

[jsr]

28. Recommend

[ProSense]

30. Interesting

Some efforts took place in public. In May 2002, the surveillance court rejected a request to dismantle a “wall” that inhibited criminal prosecutors from working closely with intelligence investigators using FISA surveillance; that fall, a review court overturned the ruling. Meanwhile, the administration was also pushing in private to get around obstacles to sharing information among intelligence agencies.

<...>

The newly disclosed documents also refer to a decision by the court called Large Content FISA, a term that has not been publicly revealed before. Several current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Large Content FISA referred to sweeping but short-lived orders issued on Jan. 10, 2007, that authorized the Bush administration to continue its warrantless wiretapping program.

The Bush administration had sought a ruling to put the program, which had been exposed by The New York Times, on a firmer legal footing. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales disclosed a week after the decision that a judge had issued “innovative” and “complex” orders bringing the program under the surveillance court’s authority. But when they came up for renewal that April, another surveillance court judge balked and began requiring cumbersome paperwork, prompting the administration to seek a legislative solution, an intelligence official later explained.

<...>

Two classification guides say that the N.S.A. used the orders during a transition to the enactment of the Protect America Act, an August 2007 law in which Congress legalized the program. It was replaced with the FISA Amendments Act in 2008.

This is what I've been posting about for years. Bush was actually spying on Americans. He bypassed the courts, and Congress briefly made it legal.

The program was in fact a wide range of covert surveillance activities authorized by President Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. At that time, White House officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, had become convinced that FISA court procedures were too cumbersome and time-consuming to permit U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to quickly identify possible Qaeda terrorists inside the country. (Cheney's chief counsel, David Addington, referred to the FISA court in one meeting as that "obnoxious court," according to former assistant attorney general Jack Goldsmith.) Under a series of secret orders, Bush authorized the NSA for the first time to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails between the United States and a foreign country without any court review. The code name for the NSA collection activities—unknown to all but a tiny number of officials at the White House and in the U.S. intelligence community—was "Stellar Wind."

http://web.archive.org/web/20081216011008/http://www.newsweek.com/id/174601/output/print

Note, this is inside the U.S. and involves bypassing the FISA court to actually "eavesdrop."

Republicans fought to make that legal, and succeeded in doing so before Democrats were able to force an expiration of the law.

From a post last year:

There have been a number of media reports using the same Obama quote to basically claim that he once called out Bush, but then embraced the policy. They are intentionally conflating a quote about the PAA with his position on the 2008 FISA amendments, which he voted for. They are not the same thing. The PAA was a Republican effort to absolve Bush.

While the article mentions that Obama voted against the Protect America Act (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00309), there is no mention of the fact that the Act expired in early 2008.

Senator Mitch McConnell introduced the act on August 1, 2007, during the 110th United States Congress. On August 3, it was passed in the Senate with an amendment, 60–28 (record vote number 309).[12] On August 4, it passed the House of Representatives 227-183 (roll number 836).[12] On August 5, it was signed by President Bush, becoming Public Law No. 110-055. On February 17, 2008, it expired due to sunset provision.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_America_Act_of_2007#Legislative_history

The amendments to FISA made by the Act expire 180 days after enactment, except that any order in effect on the date of enactment remains in effect until the date of expiration of such order and such orders can be reauthorized by the FISA Court.”[38] The Act expired on February 17, 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act#Protect_America_Act_of_2007

Here's Bush's statement at the time: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080214-4.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023026724

The major problem with the FISA amendments is that it gave the telecomms immunity. Otherwise, it included several reforms. What it did not do was make Bush's illegal spying legal.

Here is information on the FISA law including the 2008 amendments.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008

Specifically, the Act:[19]

• Prohibits the individual states from investigating, sanctioning of, or requiring disclosure by complicit telecoms or other persons.
  
  
• Permits the government not to keep records of searches, and destroy existing records (it requires them to keep the records for a period of 10 years).
  
  
• Protects telecommunications companies from lawsuits for "'past or future cooperation' with federal law enforcement authorities and will assist the intelligence community in determining the plans of terrorists". Immunity is given by a certification process, which can be overturned by a court on specific grounds.[20]
  
  
• Removes requirements for detailed descriptions of the nature of information or property targeted by the surveillance if the target is reasonably believed to be outside the country.[20]
  
  
• Increased the time for warrantless surveillance from 48 hours to 7 days, if the FISA court is notified and receives an application, specific officials sign the emergency notification, and relates to an American located outside of the United States with probable cause they are an agent of a foreign power. After 7 days, if the court denies or does not review the application, the information obtained cannot be offered as evidence. If the United States Attorney General believes the information shows threat of death or bodily harm, they can try to offer the information as evidence in future proceedings.[21]
  
  
• Permits the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to jointly authorize warrantless electronic surveillance, for one-year periods, targeted at a foreigner who is abroad. This provision will sunset on December 31, 2012.
  
  
• Requires FISA court permission to target wiretaps at Americans who are overseas.
  
  
• Requires government agencies to cease warranted surveillance of a targeted American who is abroad if said person enters the United States. (However, said surveillance may resume if it is reasonably believed that the person has left the States.)
  
  
• Prohibits targeting a foreigner to eavesdrop on an American's calls or e-mails without court approval. [22]
  
  
• Allows the FISA court 30 days to review existing but expiring surveillance orders before renewing them.
  
  
• Allows eavesdropping in emergencies without court approval, provided the government files required papers within a week.
  
  
• Prohibits the government from invoking war powers or other authorities to supersede surveillance rules in the future.
  
  
• Requires the Inspectors General of all intelligence agencies involved in the President's Surveillance Program to "complete a comprehensive review" and report within one year

Effects

• The provisions of the Act granting immunity to the complicit telecoms create a roadblock for a number of lawsuits intended to expose and thwart the alleged abuses of power and illegal activities of the federal government since and before the September 11 attacks.[citation needed]
  
  
• Allows the government to conduct surveillance of "a U.S. person located outside of the U.S. with probable cause they are an agent of a foreign power" for up to one week (168 hours) without a warrant, increased from the previous 48 hours, as long as the FISA court is notified at the time such surveillance begins, and an application as usually required for surveillance authorization is submitted by the government to FISA within those 168 hours[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act_of_1978_Amendments_Act_of_2008#Provisions

[Eleanors38]

35. And from 2006 until 2008, the Posse Comitatus Act (1878) was repealed...

by Congress at the order of GWB. It was quietly re-instated in 2008 by Congress. The elimination of the Act comported with Bush's "unitary presidency" ideology, and would have put the feds in a command-structure wherein they could define and redefine the law whenever it suited them. Congress must have figured it out, at least regarding the Act.

We are definitely seeing the lights go out.

[OnyxCollie]

45. Instead, it provided for general blanket warrants.

Verizon, all your business network records are belong to us.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order

How does that comport with the Fourth Amendment?

AMENDMENT IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[Logical]

53. Do you really think anyone still reads your dozen repeated posts? nt

[Katashi_itto]

56. Only Reposted now 173 times give or take, still thinking it's has some kind of credibility

[snooper2]

33. I'm sure everyone just glossed over these words "information gathered from court-approved wiretaps"

I'll repeat-

"information gathered from court-approved wiretaps"

I think that is pretty key, but in a couple weeks that will be lost and the meme will be "The NSA sent all me data to the FBI and CIA!"

[randome]

34. Good catch.

But we must stay afraid. Very afraid because...someone says we should!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

64. So, where are the court records? Secret, perhaps?

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton

[sabrina 1]

67. You mean the Secret court that issues group warrants, (since when does a court do that?) AFTER THE

FACT. They don't have to issue the warrant BEFORE the fact.

That court makes a MOCKERY of democracy.

And what probable causes, (millions of them would be needed) did this secret court see that persuaded them to issue these 'group warrants'?? Because no warrant can be issued without probable cause.

Can you explain how millions of people can become subject to a group warrant? What in our law permits this?

[cantbeserious]

71. It Is The Collateral Collection That Is At Issue

eom

[libodem]

36. I freaked out when I saw the movie Brazil

In 1984. It was as if I knew it was destined to come true. It has come true, more or less.

[cantbeserious]

37. No Surprise

eom

[struggle4progress]

38. IMO anyone, who didn't know the Bush administration had engaged in massive illegal wiretapping,

must have been in a semiconscious stupor

It was big multiyear story

[Maedhros]

40. Yes - but that transgression was characterized as an EVENT.

The wiretapping was something that had happened and was in the past.

Lo and behold it continues and has metastasized in ways nobody was discussing.

[Oilwellian]

42. Hence the reason why we voted for Obama to end it

Instead, he expanded it.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

50. Incorrect.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/148767817/Chart-On-Surveillance-Oversight-Prepared-By-Nancy-Pelosi-For-Democratic-house-Members

I think I'm going to have to hot-key this every time I come on to the D.U. The need for it is clearly overwhelming.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[JDPriestly]

60. Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress at the time should have impeached Bush over this.

Instead, they voted to approve immunity for the telecoms. They cannot be trusted to deal correctly and wisely and constitutionally with the intelligence establishment.

[randome]

75. Why in God's name would you prosecute a telecom for complying with a warrant?

When the data is theirs to begin with? I don't see how that makes sense.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]

[Pholus]

78. So why did they specifically need immunity?

That don't make sense neither.

Oh yeah, there wasn't a warrant at the time.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/07/senate-approv-1/

Ahhhh, memory lane.

[JDPriestly]

79. It's the Bush administration that issued the warrant for something they weren't supposed to

have and to enable themselves to do something they weren't supposed to do. It's the people in the Bush administration who authorized the illegal surveillance who should have been brought to justice, impeached or otherwise brought to justice. Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress had a constitutional obligation to at least raise the issue of whether the executive branch had acted beyond its authority and outside the law.

The telecoms should have taken the warrants to court if they believed that the warrants were intended to require them to take illegal action.

The executive branch is bound by the law and the Constitution. The Supreme Court decides whether the government is acting in accordance with the law and the Constitution. This should have been handled through proper constitutional processes. Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress did not fulfill their duty to uphold the Constitution when they gave the Bush administration a pass on illegal programs and behavior.

[WillyT]

46. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[blkmusclmachine]

48. Thanks, 9/11

[marshall]

55. Thank goodness people like Feinstein finally woke up!

It took realizing she herself was being spied on to see tha we are all victims of our government.

[kelliekat44]

76. Now, if we all understand this stuff then we have to understand that a President operating alone is

not more powerful than the clandestine organizations actually running our government...."Scandal" is not too far off from the truth here. Once in office a President understands this...why...because all power (information) lies within these shadow-government operations, as does security and safety. Only the insiders selected by those controlling the switches really decide these matters. Oh, sure, they allow control of most domestic and first tier financial stuff to the guy in the WH but the larger issues of the MIC, the PIC and stuff are controlled beneath a sea of operational rules that even escape the knowledge of the President. The PNAC cabal has controlled the military and intel for over 40 years at least.

[G_j]

80. K&R

for unfolding the truth. We deserve to know.