Senate Deal on Immunity for Phone Companies = Were ALL Communications Routed Overseas??

[L. Coyote]

A bipartison version is emerging. Some will use this to bash Dems, some will see a victory.

I was told by an informant that ALL communications were routed outside the USA to circumvent the law and the Constitution. My concern here is that those who know what crimes were committed are controlling the language to cover-up their crimes. Until we know the true history of what was done, there should be no grant of immunity that is ambiguous and may encompass more than realized.

My informant is VERY reliable. I think ALL US communications were not only routed overseas, but are stored to this day. Once overseas, there is no law regulating what can be done, and no legal consequences. The only way to hold them accountable is to ensure no free pass is given in the USA now.

=============================
Senate Deal on Immunity for Phone Companies
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Oct 18, 2007 - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/washington/18nsa.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1192719706-iJ2aLL6GJfmijvo2xXwmoA

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee reached a tentative agreement on Wednesday with the Bush administration that would give telephone carriers legal immunity for any role they played in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program approved by President Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a Congressional official said Wednesday.

Senators this week began reviewing classified documents related to the participation of the telephone carriers in the security agency program and came away from that early review convinced that the companies had “acted in good faith” in cooperating with what they believed was a legal and presidentially authorized program and that they should not be punished through civil litigation for their roles, the official said.

As part of legislation on the security agency’s wiretapping authorities, the White House has been pushing hard for weeks to get immunity for the telecommunications companies in discussions with Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the ranking Republican. A tentative deal was first reported by The Washington Post.

The Intelligence Committee will begin reviewing the legislation at a closed session on Thursday. ......

[rox63]

1. Is there any form of electronic communication that is private anymore?

Or are we limited to in-person conversations and smoke signals? Hell, they're probably watching our smoke signals too. :(

[L. Coyote]

2. Good question. It should be asked by Congress in considering new laws!

However, there is an old axiom about illegal spying, "Just because it's inadmissible doesn't mean it's not recorded!"

[L. Coyote]

3. Campaign 2004: Were Bush / Cheney / NSA illegal wiretaps spying on Dems?

From DU compilation thread from May-19-07:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x925247

Investigating more on this fresh revelation--Bush illegally spied on Americans when his own AG and Acting AG told him it is illegal--leads to some interesting questions. In particular, were they spying on political figures, candidates, and activists. Most succinctly, "Were they spying on the opposition in the 2004 Presidential election?"

Now this to add to considerations, in the context of the 2006 campaign season, when things
were heating up with regard to legality questions after many years of program operations:

-----------------------
What are Cheney and Addington Hiding About NSA Spying on Americans?

"...the gnawing suspicion of many observers all along, as to what is the real reason that the White House, under Dick Cheney's direction, has continuously stonewalled, and shrouded the NSA surveillance program in such secrecy.

"On Feb. 6, 2006, when Gonzales was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was asked by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) about reports that Comey and others had disagreed about the NSA program. Gonzales answered that "there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the President has confirmed. There have been disagreements about other matters regarding operations which I cannot get into." When pressed by Schumer, Gonzales repeated that "none of the reservations dealt with the program that we're talking about today. They dealt with operational capabilities that we're not talking about today." And a little later, Gonzales stated: "I'm here only testifying about what the President has confirmed. And with respect to what the President has confirmed, I do not believe that these DOJ officials that you're identifying had concerns about this program." "

================
The Hidden Power
by Jane Mayer July 3, 2006
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact1
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON about David Addington and the war on terror.

New Yorker: The Hidden Power = "Bush had secretly authorized the N.S.A. to eavesdrop"

Powell says it's Addington. I say don't blame the legal advisors for the actions of the Deciders. Blame them all, but do not ignore Bush while castigating Rove, and do not ignore Cheney while faulting Addington. We have seen this sort of "sacrificial lamb" tail too often, and it comes around again because fault seems to never reach to "The Decider." Who secretly authorizes the spying? Not the counsel!

... Colin Powell commented privately on a recent report in the Times which revealed that Pres. Bush had secretly authorized the N.S.A. to eavesdrop on American citizens without first obtaining a warrant from the FISA court.
..............

[leveymg]

4. Lichtblau's getting ahead of the game. No deal, except Rockefeller and Bond agreed to

let the full committee work on it. Such a measure would also have to pass the Judiciary Commitee, too, before going to the Senate floor. Call Harry Reid and the Dem members of the Senate Intel Committee; call the two moderate Republicans, too. Say - NO IMMUNITY FOR WARRANTLESS SPYING!


2007-2008

Democrats Reasonable Pugs


John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia

Dianne Feinstein, California
Ron Wyden, Oregon Chuck Hagel, Nebraska
Evan Bayh, Indiana
Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
Bill Nelson, Florida
Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island



Harry Reid, Nevada, Ex Officio

[L. Coyote]

5. The Press is already spinning this against the Dems. See Will Pitt's post

Another B.S. anti-Dem article (on the FISA deal that gives immunity to TelComs)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2075261

[TwilightGardener]

6. The telecoms "acted in good faith"? BULLSHIT!!! This was BEFORE 9/11--do

these clowns on the intel committee read the fucking Washington Post? Did they read about Qwest, about Nacchio saying the NSA approached them in February 2001? If Qwest knew it was illegal, then ALL the companies had cause to discover it was illegal--ignorance is NOT an excuse, especially when they had big bucks dangled in front of them to comply. It was all about ignoring the law for a guarantee of profits. Sickening--Rockefeller can rot in hell.

[bain_sidhe]

10. wonder if the bill specifies only activities after 9/11/01

are "immune" from civil litigation. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

[TwilightGardener]

11. I dont' think it does--I know some people are reading that into the wording

of the news article, but I'm betting that the wording just describes the nature of the bill, not the specific requirements or limits of the immunity.

[morgan2]

7. I don't think I could ever seriously consider

supporting any candidate that even thought about granting them immunity and helping cover this up. Its one thing to squable over implementing ideas, but this is a fundamental diffence in world view.

also can a congressional act override a constitutional protection? I don't thnk so.

[Orsino]

8. No, not all communications are routed outside the US.

I work for an international ISP, and can tell you that domestic Internet connectivity usually stays domestic. Too many network administrators would howl at the latency increase that international routing would entail.

They're not recording everything, either. I could believe that connections are logged, but not all the traffic.

[L. Coyote]

12. The method involves a split in the fiber optic transmission, one becomes two.

This much has been publically revealed by a whistleblower.

AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence
05.17.06 | http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against the company, which alleges that AT&T illegally cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic-surveillance program.

In this recently surfaced statement, Klein details his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T office in San Francisco, and offers his interpretation of company documents that he believes support his case.

For its part, AT&T is asking a federal judge to keep those documents out of court, and to order the EFF to return them to the company. Here Wired News presents Klein's statement in its entirety, along with select pages from the AT&T documents.
AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens

31 December 2005

I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. ......

[Orsino]

18. But capturing all communications requires, in effect...

...backing up the entire Internet daily, or something like that. I can well believe that the NSA taps the Internet at many key points, and could selectively monitor, but other than that all they're logging are the facts of various connections.

No, they aren't recording everything, but they might be recording almost anything, so to speak.

[L. Coyote]

19. It is so easy to assert a negative based on no information, but is it true?

[Orsino]

22. Wrong question, perhaps.

Because we allow that kind of secrecy, we can't know about this or other potential abuses. Oversight would control or even eliminate the worst that the government or corporations currently feel free to try.

Because it can happen, it's a good bet that it is. What scares me even more, though, is what else they're getting away with in the name of national security, and what they're planning next.

[L. Coyote]

14. NSA Spying on All Internet Traffic = "secret NSA spying rooms"

NSA Spying on All Internet Traffic - 2007-03-07
http://correntewire.com/nsa_spying_on_all_internet_traffic


“ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross will sit down for an exclusive interview with AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, a former technician who describes secret NSA rooms at AT&T switching centers that he says allows the government to intercept all domestic internet traffic. Speaking publicly for the first time, Klein details how he discovered the secret rooms and the lengths the government has gone to keep his story from the public.”

It was supposedly on Tuesday night, did anyone catch it?

Hmmm…I remember this now. Wired tried to get this out, and the story was made to go away.

The following was taken in it’s entirety from Wired News in the belief that the NSA and the Bush Administration will do all they can to get it removed from the internet and to keep it out of the news. This case will be the equivalent of the “Pentagon Papers” case for the new millennium. Wired News should be commended for taking a stand and publishing this information.

Bloggers can do their part by making this information public and exposing the NSA and AT&T spying. As mentioned in this story, other locations besides the ATT San Francisco office have built these secret NSA spying rooms intended to for surveillance of all long distance and local phone calls, as well as all internet traffic on the internet backbone fed into this spy room at ATT.

.....................

[TahitiNut]

15. I wonder if a satellite parked in a geosynchronous orbit over South America is "overseas."

Things to ponder. :freak:

[Orsino]

17. I'm sure it is...

...but, again, this would add incredible latency to traffic that customers simply wouldn't stand for, turning a couple of hundred milliseconds into whole seconds. Plenty of traffic has to ride satellite hops, anyway, but no, telecoms with land/undersea connectivity use satellites as emergency back-up with limited bandwidth.

[L. Coyote]

20. The fiber optic network can easily handle the traffic.

I do not see where any latency would have to occur. First, you would have to know what the routing destination is......

[Orsino]

21. Fiber offers huge bandwidth...

...but ltency is also a function of distance, and a given packet usually doesn't care whether it's traversing a T-1 or GigEthernet. Routing domestic traffic outside the US introduces unavoidable delay.

A Kansas City user who counts on hitting Yahoo in 45 milliseconds will eventually notice when the round-trip is suddenly 85 milliseconds. An ISP who tries it will be inundated with complaints. Heck, I've seen customers complaining about an extra ten milliseconds, or even less.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

9. Question: if it's being routed overseas specifically to avoid U.S. law,...

,...wouldn't that, in and of itself, be a crime?

:shrug:

[L. Coyote]

16. What law would that violate? USG circumvents USA law all the time. Old hat CIA trick

This is a good question, and would require more legal experience than my own to answer. I would say maybe, maybe not offhand.

Intelligence orgs have long used off-shore oil platforms and Indian Reservations to circumvent laws. This is not a new idea.

At any rate, once the communications are outside jurisdiction, listening to everything John Kerry said on a phone in 2004 would be simple enough. And, who could prosecute? The only real possibilities would be what? Conspiracy to overthrow democratic government, or some conspiracy in routing communications? Obstruction of justice?

[Ravy]

13. It is the job of COURTS to decide if they should be punished.

Immunity is a way of circumventing the Judiciary. The Legislative branch should not be usurping the power of the Judiciary any more than the administration should be usurping the power of the Legislative.



Side note: when doing a spell check, I found I made a typo in administration. Nothing gave me more pleasure than hitting "replace" button on adminstration.

[BelgianMadCow]

23. I have thought as much since the start

with the somehow artificial distinction drawn between overseas and domestic traffic, I immediately thought a rerouting would come in handy.

[L. Coyote]

24. Important distinction. It is split first, into duplicate optical transmissions.

There seems to be some confusion about how routing overseas would delay the Internet. Transmissions are split into duplicate optical streams in the now not-so-secret NSA rooms at the phone company. A "copy" is routed outside US jurisdiction to evade laws and the Constitution, so no delay happens.