Greetings ladies,

The New York Times came out with a new article today on the amount of data collected by eavesdropping without a warrant. The amount appears to be much greater than anyone in the administration has previously admitted, and it doesn't appear to be limited to outgoing calls to Al Qaeda and affiliate destinations, as they claimed . . . If this information is true, here are two more lies and a bunch more deceit. When are "We the People" going to start holding President Bush and those involved accountable on this? A full investigation is in order, the sooner the better.


Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?hp&ex=1135486800&en=7e76956223502390&ei=5094&partner=homepage

quote:
. . . according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.
Apparently, this newly discovered form of eavesdropping is being done on communications "within the country", not just to and from overseas locations, and they appear to be done on perhaps thousands (or more) citizens who don't have affiliations to anything - they're data mining.

quote:
. . . the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.

This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, i many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.
There's too many additional points of interest to list them all.


This next article by Howard Fineman of Newsweek is excellent, telling of what he predicts from all this. (The "I" word is "Impeach".) Don't forget to read page 2, that's where the predictions are.


The 'I Word'
Expect 2006 to offer up Nixon-era nastiness and a chorus of calls to impeach Bush.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10564288/site/newsweek/from/RS.1/


The following article by Arlene Getz of Newsweek cites an interesting correlation between what is happening here and what happened during apartheid in South Africa. I particularly find fascinating her comments on the American attitude on what's happening.


Where’s the Outrage?
Bush’s defense of his phone-spying program has disturbing echoes of arguments once used by South Africa’s apartheid regime. Why Americans should examine the parallels.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562528/site/newsweek/from/RS.2/


I keep thinking that since this is the holiday season that the situation will calm down and the stories subside until after the New Year. That remains to be seen. I do agree that this is indeed an interesting time to be alive. It certainly is not boring, unless one considers that maybe humanity should have grown beyond all this millennia ago, and that the present situation is predictable.

In spite of all this negativity that is going on, regardless of how you celebrate (or don't celebrate) this time of year, I would like to wish you peace in a prosperous future.

[ December 25, 2005, 01:39 AM: Message edited by: Vi ]