Richard Clarke, Other Experts Contradict Administration Line on Wiretapping

[babylonsister]

Clarke, Other Experts Contradict Administration Line on Wiretapping
By Paul Kiel - February 26, 2008, 1:34PM

You've heard from President Bush over and over and over and over again about the imminent danger the country is in. And you've heard from the director of national intelligence and attorney general about how the telecoms are quaking over the uncertainty created by not securing retroactive immunity.

Yesterday, four former top national security officials put forward a different line in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. The officials -- Richard Clarke (former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council), Rand Beers (former Senior Director for Combating Terrorism at the National Security Council), Lt. Gen. Don Kerrick (former Deputy National Security Advisor), and Suzanne Spaulding (former assistant general counsel at the CIA) -- all worked with McConnell in the past. McConnell led the National Security Agency from 1992 through 1996. The letter was distributed today by the National Security Network.

McConnell and the administration, they wrote, was distorting the truth about surveillance capabilities after the lapse of the Protect America Act. The country is not "at greater risk," they write. "The intelligence community currently has the tools it needs to acquire surveillance of new targets and methods of communication."

And they're also not buying the administration line on how crucial it is that the telecoms be granted retroactive immunity for cooperating with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program:

Telecommunications companies will continue to cooperate with lawful government requests, particularly since FISA orders legally compel cooperation with the government. Again, it is unclear to us that the immunity debate will affect our surveillance capabilities....

The Administration has made it clear it believes this entire debate hinges on liability protection. As previously stated, it is unclear that liability protection would significantly improve our surveillance capabilities. It is wrong to make this one issue an immovable impediment to Congress passing strong legislation to protect the American people.

Letter at link~

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/national_security_experts_cont.php

[Cant trust em]

1. Richard Clarke is my man

if the Bush Administration listened to him we might not have had 9/11 and we certainly wouldn't be stuck in fucking Iraq right now. I highly recommend his book, if you want a really sad read.

[Kansas Wyatt]

2. Bush is the only one in imminent danger.

Of having all his criminal activities uncovered in civil suits against the telephone companies.

Let him twist in the wind, as the truth comes out! Let him go down in history as an American pResident who was really a Brutal Dictator. If history won't be known for years Georgie, then why do you care so much now?

[Winterblues]

3. The letter still pushes to pass this provision. Why?

Why does the FISA act of 1978 not meet the needs? What is lacking other than it requires the Administration to get warrants if it wants to spy on Americans..Why is this new bill necessary?

[crimsonblue]

6. the NSA came to enjoy their access to the entire internet

and they don't want to give it up. If any organization in the world is smart enough, powerful enough to monitor the entire internet, it would be the NSA. I think it can just go down as a matter of public record that the NSA has access to the entire internet (thanks to AT&T). My current guess puts it at a 30-45% probability that the NSA has supercomputers capable of watching and evaluating the entire internet (it may actually be more likely, because just very recently announced a new supercomputer, Kittyhawk, that can host the entire internet as an application, just like you may load up Word or Outlook). Obviously, the NSA does not want (and cannot allow) for this awesome power to go away. Hopefully, this pipeline that the NSA has gets shutdown, or else they better start making more secure browsers and such

[babylonsister]

4. .

[bigbrother05]

5. k and r