The Nation: Remember When NSA Surveillance Was Used to Help Launch the Iraq War?

[Hissyspit]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/174744/remember-when-nsa-surveillance-was-used-help-launch-iraq-war

Remember When NSA Surveillance Was Used to Help Launch the Iraq War?

George Zornick on June 11, 2013 - 10:33 AM ET

- snip -

But what if the government abuses the vast surveillance power it is accumulating? What if the NSA is used for political purposes, not safety? This is often left out of the debate, or dismissed outright. Eric Posner wrote at The New York Times website that “I am unaware—and correct me if I am wrong—of a single instance during the last 12 years of war-on-terror-related surveillance in which the government used information obtained for security purposes to target a political opponent, dissenter or critic.”

Unfortunately, the NSA has already abused its surveillance power in at least one case where political opponents were targeted, and it’s a big one.

In 2003, a woman named Katharine Gun, who was working for a British intelligence agency, leaked a memo to the press from an NSA agent named Frank Koza. It described a massive American effort to monitor the communications of six delegations to the United Nations—the so-called “Middle Six” who were undecided on authorizing the Iraq War and who were being fiercely courted by both sides.

Here’s what memo said, in part. (Note “the Agency” is the NSA):

- snip -

James Bamford, a veteran journalist covering the NSA, confirmed the account in his book and said it extended to monitoring United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq. At the time, however, US media outlets covered the story lightly, or ignored it completely, in the case of The New York Times.

- snip -

One chief argument made by civil libertarians is that massive surveillance power will inevitably lead to abuse—that the mission will creep from security to political and diplomatic applications. The fact is, it already has.

So one must then wonder: Where does it go next?

MORE[p]

[Tx4obama]

1. 2003 was BEFORE the new FISA Court rules/law was put into place. n/t

[villager]

2. The approve 100% of the requests FISA court?

Yeah, well, that certainly slowed 'em down!

[Tx4obama]

4. Well considering it would be attorneys that file the requests with the Court...

I am not surprised that they would cross all the T's and dot all the I's and would outline in detail the 'probable cause'.

So, there would be no reason that the Court would reject the requests.

Sounds like 'competent attorneys' are taking care of business.

[villager]

5. And the attorneys for those not wishing to be spied/eavesdropped on would be...?

:wave:

[Tx4obama]

6. Well, I am not a lawyer and I do not play one on TV... BUT...

Since the meta-data that the telecoms has is owned by the telecoms and not by the customers, I think that the customers would not have 'standing' to go to court.


=====

Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the installation and use of the pen register was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and hence no warrant was required. The pen register was installed on telephone company property at the telephone company's central offices. In the Majority opinion, Justice Blackmun rejected the idea that the installation and use of a pen registry constitutes a violation of the "legitimate expectation of privacy" since the numbers would be available to and recorded by the phone company anyway.

Background
In Katz v. United States (1967), the United States Supreme Court established its "reasonable expectation of privacy" test. It overturned Olmstead v. United States and held that wiretaps were unconstitutional searches, because there was a reasonable expectation that the communication would be private. The government was then required to get a warrant to execute a wiretap.

In Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a pen register is not a search because the "petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company." Since the defendant had disclosed the dialed numbers to the telephone company so they could connect his call, he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed. The court did not distinguish between disclosing the numbers to a human operator or just the automatic equipment used by the telephone company.

The Smith decision left pen registers completely outside constitutional protection. If there was to be any privacy protection, it would have to be enacted by Congress as statutory privacy law.

-snip-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland

-snip-

Thus, some Supreme Court cases have held that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in information you have "knowingly exposed" to a third party — for example, bank records or records of telephone numbers you have dialed — even if you intended for that third party to keep the information secret. In other words, by engaging in transactions with your bank or communicating phone numbers to your phone company for the purpose of connecting a call, you’ve "assumed the risk" that they will share that information with the government.

-snip-

Full page here: https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/privacy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101665881

[villager]

9. Ah, so your "check and balance" is a secret court, that approves 99.8% of requests, where those

...whose 4th Amendment rights are being invaded have no "standing."

Gotcha.

[Tx4obama]

10. Did you read the excerpt in Comment #6 regarding The SCOTUS n/t

[villager]

11. Oh, well, hell, if this Supreme Court is defining what's protected by the 4th Amendment, case closed

We can all rest easy now against the intrusions of the military/intelligence apparatus!

[Tx4obama]

12. Well, that's the spirit ;) It's late here, I'm off to bed :) n/t

[Skittles]

8. are you REALLY that naive?

I don't think it is possible - I don't think you believe a damn thing you're saying

[pam4water]

16. Do you really believe that? That is complete dissociative denial form someone who follows

personalities over principle.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. You should carefully read the ACLU complaint

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023002144

Straight from it...Orwellian does not start to describe this

[Hissyspit]

3. I know.

[kenny blankenship]

7. But but but PEACE IS THEIR PROFESSION!

We need them at full strength and acting with a free hand TO KEEP US SAFE.

[TakeALeftTurn]

13. We already know the FBI aggressively went after Occupy - tried to label them "domestic terrorists"

You don't think the FBI asked the NSA to help their harassment of Occupy?

[L0oniX]

21. +1

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. Why Shouldn't I Work for the NSA? (Good Will Hunting)

&feature=youtu.be

[modrepub]

15. As someone pointed out on NPR the other day

"all this surveillance didn't help prevent the Boston Marathon bombings". We're spending $50B/year for something that doesn't appear to work very well. IMO it would be better if we spent this money beefing up our First Response capabilities and internal infrastructure.

[DCKit]

24. What ^ you said. And it's not 'just' $50 billion, closer to $500 billion. nt

[pam4water]

17. K&R

[Hissyspit]

18. Kick nt

[G_j]

19. K&R

nothing like bugging the phones of UN diplomats, when you need to start a war based on lies, to keep us all safe!

[Octafish]

20. That's an important reminder.

One chief argument made by civil libertarians is that massive surveillance power will inevitably lead to abuse—that the mission will creep from security to political and diplomatic applications. The fact is, it already has.

[xchrom]

22. du rec.

[Initech]

23. The "War On Terror" needs to end now!

It's not a war on terror. It's actually creating more terror than it was designed to prevent. It's a war on American citizens and civil liberties more like it.

[ProSense]

26. This was

James Bamford, a veteran journalist covering the NSA, confirmed the account in his book and said it extended to monitoring United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq. At the time, however, US media outlets covered the story lightly, or ignored it completely, in the case of The New York Times.

...Bush's illegal spying, and the media were complicit. From the link in that paragraph (see original).

"As part of its battle to win votes in favor of war against Iraq," the Observer had reported on March 2, 2003, the U.S. government developed an "aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the e-mails of U.N. delegates." The smoking gun was "a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency -- the U.S. body which intercepts communications around the world -- and circulated to both senior agents in his organization and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency." The friendly agency was Britain's Government Communications Headquarters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1227-26.htm

[reusrename]

27. If it's made retroactively legal, then what you are saying is nonsense.

Go ahead, sputter some more about it.

[ProSense]

28. Why

"If it's made retroactively legal, then what you are saying is nonsense. Go ahead, sputter some more about it. "

...should I get in the way of your good "sputter"?

The telecoms were given retroactive immunity for participating in the law-breaking activity. The law did not make the activity legal.

[reusrename]

29. So what is your point?

You are nonsensical. No one can ever be arrested for any of it, correct?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. And, cover up the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm

The National Security Agency has long resisted the declassification of material on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, despite efforts by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer Carl Marcy (who had prepared a staff study on the August 4 incident); former Deputy Director Louis Tordella, and John Prados to push for declassification of key documents. Today's release is largely due to the perseverance of FOIA requester Matthew M. Aid, who requested the Hanyok study in April 2004 and brought the issue to the attention of The New York Times when he learned that senior National Security Agency officials were trying to block release of the documents. New York Times reporter Scott Shane wrote that higher-level officials at the NSA were "fearful that [declassification] might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq." The glaring light of publicity encouraged the Agency's leaders finally to approve declassification of the documents.