NSA 'No Such Agency' apparently continues to operate as there is 'No Such Thing' as a 4th Amendment ...
NSA Whistleblower: Wiretaps Were Combined with Credit Card Records of U.S. Citizens
By Kim Zetter - Wired - Jan 23, 2009
NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program Thursday evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the National Security Agency spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as "tens of thousands" of other Americans.
Tice said on Wednesday that the NSA had vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.
Today Tice said that the spy agency also combined information from phone wiretaps with data that was mined from credit card and other financial records. He said information of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens is now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.
Keith Olbermann's outrage about the Govt's Disregard of the 4th Amendment, did not begin yesterday. Perhaps you will recall these startling revelations from a fired NSA Analyst, who spoke to Keith as soon as Obama was 'offically' in power (when he finally "felt safer" about speaking out, about the Constitutional abuse he saw first hand.)
If you were busy then and missed these, they are definitely worth watching now.
Countdown - Russell Tice - NSA Domestic Spying Targeted Journalists (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/...
According to that interview:
NSA monitored ALL Americans' communications. (Even Keith's phone calls to his Nephew.)
Tice has volunteered to help the Obama Administration on cleaning up this Domestic Spying, and as of that late January Interview, his offer to help had not been accepted.
Countdown - Russell Tice - NSA Domestic Spying Targeted Journalists (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/...
Here is a summary of what Russell Tice discovered before he was "fired for asking too many questions":
NSA whistleblower Russell Tice reveals true extent of illegal wiretapping
Collin Czarnecki -- 01/28/2009
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice recently revealed in an MSNBC interview that the agency "tracked millions of e-mails and phone calls of everyday American citizens,"
...
"The NSA had access to all American’s communications, faxes, phone calls and their computer communications," said Tice who also added that it didn’t matter if you had never "made any foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
Although the NSA wiretapping program was propelled after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and originally meant to specifically target people with known links to al-Qaeda, the program had morphed into what Tice called "unlawful and unconstitutional acts."
Tice spent 20 years working for the NSA in "special access programs," but was fired by the agency after taking it upon himself to investigate suspicious data collecting of American’s personal information.
"What I was finding out was the collection on those organizations was 24/7, 365 days a year and it made no sense. And I started to investigate that and that’s about the time they came after me to fire me," said Tice.
And who falls under the category of these "organizations" besides everyday American’s? It’s the whistleblowers and muckrakers themselves that have been spied on, with Tice revealing that "organization[s] [included] US news organizations and reporters and journalists," who broke the stories in the first place.
http://www.collegenews.com/...
In that 2nd clip, Tice said he thinks this record-everything-sort-out-it-later NSA program, has its roots in another in-the-shadows Op started by DARPA, called:
Total Information Awareness
This article appeared on cato.org on January 20, 2003.
John Poindexter, head of the Pentagon's Office of Information Awareness, is developing a vast surveillance database to track terror suspects. The Total Information Awareness (TIA) system will, according to Poindexter, "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing OIA access to citizens' credit card purchases, travel itineraries, telephone calling records, email, medical histories and financial information. It would give government the power to generate a comprehensive data profile on any U.S. citizen.
http://www.cato.org/...
for more background on this emerging high tech field:
Introduction to Data Mining
Russell Tice spoke to Amy Goodman a few years ago. He is apparently one brave soul, as former NSA employees are EXEMPT from normal Whistleblower protection.
As he explains at the end of this excerpt -- he has his reasons for coming forward:
National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program
Democracy Now! - Jan 03, 2006
AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect you are being monitored, surveilled, wiretapped right now?
RUSSELL TICE: Yes, I do. As a matter of fact, in -- you know, sometimes you just don’t know. And being, you know -- what they’ve basically accused me of, I can’t just walk around thinking that everybody is looking at my heels and are following me around. But in one scenario I turned the tables on someone I thought was following me, and he ducked into a convenience store, and I just walked down there -- and I saw him out of my peripheral vision -- and I basically walked down to where he ducked into and in the store, I walked up behind him. He was buying a cup of coffee, and he had a Glock on his hip and his F.B.I. badge. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on there.
...
AMY GOODMAN: And your colleagues at the N.S.A. right now, their feelings, the National Security Agency?
RUSSELL TICE: Boy, I think most folks at N.S.A. right now are just running scared. They have the security office hanging over their head, which has always been a bunch of vicious folks, and now they’ve got, you know, this potential witch hunt going on with the Attorney General. People in the intelligence community are afraid. They know that you can’t come forward. You have no protections as a whistleblower. These things need to be addressed.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean you have no protection?
RUSSELL TICE: Well, like I said before, as a whistleblower, you’re not protected by the whistleblower laws that are out there. The intelligence community is exempt from the whistleblower protection laws.
AMY GOODMAN: So why are you doing it?
RUSSELL TICE: Well, ultimately, I don’t have to be afraid of losing my job, because I have already lost my job, so that’s one reason. The other reason is because I made an oath when I became an intelligence officer that I would protect the United States Constitution, not a president, not some classification, you know, for whatever, that ultimately I’m responsible to protect the Constitution of the United States.
http://www.democracynow.org/...
Those are some good reasons for speaking out -- if only all citizens were so brave -- no matter their walk in life ...
Some things are just WORTH PROTECTING ... still ...
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. ... The amendment specifically requires search and arrest warrants be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. Search and arrest should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Some things are worth protecting, especially "Constitutional things" -- people have died to protect these principles.
This is why -- MORE THAN EVER -- we STILL Need Transparency and Accountability in OUR Government, and the Freedom of the Press to pursue and protect those Ideals too!
Time will tell how this all shakes out ... it always does.
In the meantime, Watch what you say, because you never know what Database you'll end up in -- OR on which "Watch List"!
Remember, that 'No Such Agency' ... 'Never Sleeps At-all' either.