ABC: BUSHCO's NSA "Spying Apparatus VULNERABLE To Manipulation By The Terrorists Themselves"

[kpete]

Terrorists to US: Can You Hear Me Now?
By Spencer Ackerman 02/01/2008 11:14AM

Fellow TPMmuckraker alumnus Justin Rood has an amazing story up at ABC’s Blotter. It turns out that the super-sophisticated NSA apparatus used for domestic surveillance by the Bush administration (call the effort the Terrorist Surveillance Program, or Program X, or what have you) is vulnerable to manipulation by the terrorists themselves. That’s according to a forthcoming article in a cyber-security journal called IEEE Security & Privacy. Justin reports:

Domestic Spying Program Could Aid Terrorists, Experts Say
Domestic Wiretapping Could Pose 'An Awesome Risk' to National Security
By JUSTIN ROOD
Feb. 1, 2008

Although the Bush administration calls it a vital weapon against terrorism, its domestic wiretapping effort could become a devastating tool for terrorists if hacked or penetrated from inside, according to a new article by a group of America's top computer security experts.

The administration has said little about the program except to defend it against charges it amounts to illegal spying on U.S. citizens. When news of the program broke in 2006, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the program a "limited" effort "targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States."

But documents submitted in an ongoing court case indicate the program involves data centers at major telecommunications hubs that siphon off and analyze billions of bytes of Americans' emails, phone calls and other data.

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

By diverting the flow of so much domestic data into a few massive pools, the administration may have "(built) for its opponents something that would be too expensive for them to build for themselves," say the authors: "a system that lets them see the U.S.'s intelligence interests... that might be turned" to exploit conversations and information useful for plotting an attack on the United States.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4224513&page=1

Don’t worry, though. The competence of the Bush administration is legendary.
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/terrorists-to-us-can

[Myrina]

1. ohferchripesfarkingsake!

... just round us all up now and make us live in transparent camps, nekkid, you schizophrenic, sociopathic crackhead of a man??

[CJCRANE]

2. This article makes the usual mistake

of assuming that Bush-Cheney are even bothered about protecting America from terrorists.

[tanyev]

3. George Bush. The terra-ists' best friend.

[EVDebs]

4. Ptech's notable clientele list....

"Ptech's roster of clients included several governmental agencies, including the United States Armed Forces, NATO, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Customs, the FAA, the IRS, the Secret Service, and the White House. Despite the media allegation that the company's was connected to terrorism, an allegation that both the US government and the company's official denied, as of May 2004 they were still contracted by several federal agencies, including the White House.

Ptech had a security clearance to work on sensitive military projects dating to 1997."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptech

[AntiFascist]

6. According to Indira Singh PTECH is based on PROMIS....

the software which Hillary Clinton's Systematics (when she worked as an attorney for the Rose law firm, also considered an NSA front) once provided a back-end for use in money laundering efforts and was illegally distributed to foreign interests.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=344x167

[renate]

5. that is truly truly scary

:scared:

I don't know enough about computers to be able to tell whether hacking is a viable scenario, but the fact that something similar did happen in Greece (I can't cut and paste that part because it would violate the four-paragraph rule) suggests that it could indeed happen here.

What fresh hell has this administration dropped us into....?

[Octafish]

7. P-TECH.

Yeah. More than a few DUers were on to that way back.

Ptech ** Islamic Charities and the IRS

Inslaw/PROMIS might ring a few bells.

[Independent_Liberal]

8. I get a feeling that the system is feeding off itself now.

It got too corrupt. With the FBI investigating the housing market insurance fraud, something tells me their own greed is doing them in.