Clintons Spy Program "ThinThread" Was "Far Superior" (w/o violating privacy) To Bushes NSA Program

[kpete]

“You can have a democratic surveillance state which collects as little data as possible and tells you as much as possible about what it's doing, or you can have an authoritarian surveillance state which collects as much as possible and tells the public as little as possible,” Krugman said. “And we are kind of on the authoritarian side.

Why would Bush use a program that does not actually assist the finding of terrorists, yet also has the disadvantage of invading Americans' privacy rights?

Excellent diary and article in May 2006 ...


What Is The Real Purpose Of Bush's NSA Surveillance? by Patriot Daily
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/5/18/23247/5413

The Baltimore Sun http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0518-07.htm reported today that Bush rejected President Clinton's effective, legal surveillance program that did not invade privacy to adopt the current NSA spying program, which is ineffective, illegal and invasive of citizens' privacy rights. So, the question jumping off the page may be: Why would Bush use a program that does not actually assist the finding of terrorists, yet also has the disadvantage of invading Americans' privacy rights?

The Clinton surveillance program, called ThinThread, was created during the late 1990s to "gather and analyze massive amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws." Several bloggers provide excellent posts on the components and nature of the program.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0518-07.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/05/18/211520/-NSA-lawyers-were-against-it-before-they-were-for-it
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/05/18/211287/-NSA-killed-a-legal-program-because-it-had-too-many-safeguards
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/20/1195668/-CISPA-Resurrected-The-Patriot-Act-of-the-Internet
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/05/18/211368/-NSA-had-a-LEGAL-data-program-that-Hayden-and-Bu-hCo-quashed

The key to evaluating Bush's true motive for his NSA program is that testing of ThinThread showed it was far better in finding potential threats and protecting privacy than the current NSA program that Bush chose in its stead. "For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy." But, Gen. Hayden of NSA decided not to use these two tools or the monitoring feature to prevent abuse of the records. The problem is that not using the ThinThread program has "undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential threats." Moreover, "ThinThread could have provided a simple solution to privacy concerns."

Incredibly, the ThinThread program was far superior to the NSA program in place in 2004.

TIA Never Dead Under Jeb/George Bush-Cheney

Cheney was very fond of the program started in Florida as extension of the 2000 election fraud and continued in secrecy with funding by Jeb Bush as governor in Florida.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/6/8/22416/48008

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/6/9/124718/7632