During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon.
On Friday, the New York Times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants."
But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.
In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:
"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."
NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."
Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs."
Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.
The "60 Minutes" report also spotlighted Echelon critic, then-Rep. Bob Barr, who complained that the project as it was being implemented under Clinton "engages in the interception of literally millions of communications involving United States citizens."
One Echelon operator working in Britain told "60 Minutes" that the NSA had even monitored and tape recorded the conversations of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.
Still, the Times repeatedly insisted on Friday that the NSA surveillance under Bush had been unprecedented, at one point citing anonymously an alleged former national security official who claimed: "This is really a sea change. It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."
1 comment:
There's no comparison between Clinton (Democratic Administration), and Bush (Republican Administration).
Any time that right-wingers talk publicly about their spying, they are doing so with the _deliberate_ purpose of terrorizing us.
That's the purpose of these surveillance and counter-intelligence programs after all. Keep everyone so terrified that they can't see through Republican lies.
Yes, Clinton, as the President, inherited a whole worldwide apparatus of spying and subterfuge.
That whole apparatus is filthy, and looking at the post-9/11 ramp up by the spy/military community, you can see the kind of scum he was fighting off.
The decisive point, however, if that Clinton's overall purpose is helping people to the extent that he can; as all Democrats and liberals.
The overall purpose of Republican spying, lying, and power is to harm people and take from them whatever you can (especially maps of long term security).
That's the difference.
All this legal chit-chat is moot.
The Republicans don't obey the law anyway. Silly Democrats.
Once 911 truth comes out, the Republicans will go down, and then we can actually sort out what is best for everyone.
Until then, it's just one terror hit after another from Bush Co.
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