Rood: How Big Is Big Brother? Assembling the Pieces of the Domestic Spy Op

By Justin Rood - May 26, 2006
I'd like to share some speculation about the domestic surveillance efforts we've heard about, in bits and pieces, over the last couple of years. Here's the thing: I've pulled a bunch of old articles on various aspects of these programs, and they seem to fit together.

In short, looking at stories over the last year or so by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the latest entry from USA Today (plus a bit of my own research), I get the following picture:

After the 9/11 attacks, the federal government assembled a cross-departmental effort to comb the United States for possible terrorist activity. Using massive databases and largely untested analytical techniques, the NSA generated thousands of false "leads" which were passed to the FBI. There, agents issued thousands of secret warrants for personal information, and spent thousands of man-hours chasing the results -- which were negligible. And you and I paid for it.
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I'll start at the beginning.

Two years ago, White House budget documents showed that the FBI in 2003 had 23,785 open terror investigations. For a country that hadn't seen a terrorist attack in two years, that was a lot of terrorist investigations! The previous year, 2002, they had something like 12,000 open terror probes; the stat was around 9,000 in 2001.

That's odd, isn't it? Despite the absence of terrorism, the FBI was continuing to open thousands of new terrorism investigations every year. What to make of it?

......MORE.......

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000721.php

If the only thing BushCo can demonstrate competence in is theft and surveillance, why don't they go work somewhere that appreciates and wants that kind of thing?

I remember reading about FBI agents complaining about all the wild goose chases, but these numbers are staggering. There hasn't been any return on all the data collection. It's a wasteful drain on resources and there's nothing they can really point to and say, "see! this is why we had to do this. Here's how this helped us keep you safe"

snip>
For numbers to land line telephones, the bureau could look up identifying information over the internet. But agents would probably need to ask the telcos directly for the "subscriber information" -- the identities of cel phone and internet service subscribers fingered by the NSA.

How? The FBI had no evidence of criminal behavior associated with the NSA's numeric "tips," so they couldn't get a criminal warrant for the information. The alternative, a FISA warrant, might be possible the first few hundred times -- but the court would likely tire of issuing thousands of warrants when not a single one generates a successful terrorist investigation.

But if you look at it as a benefit to BushCo, you see that it's a great program of blackmail, intimidation, draining and destroying the government, clouding the issues, and annoying the hell out of people like us.

saying, doing, buying, transacting and thinking 24/7, 365 days/year . . .

necessary for "homeland security?" . . .

or a way to eventually weed out anyone who doesn't agree with them? . . . (remember those detention camps) . . .

It's that simple. That way the leader can reach out and touch some oneone anytime.