Times gets Bush again: NSA officials say domestic calls were tapped, too

Times gets Bush again: NSA officials say domestic calls were tapped, too
RAW STORY

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say, the New York Times reports Wednesday.


The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."

Eavesdropping on communications between two people who are both inside the United States is prohibited under Mr. Bush's order allowing some domestic surveillance.

But in at least one instance, someone using an international cellphone was thought to be outside the United States when in fact both people in the conversation were in the country. Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified, would not discuss the number of accidental intercepts, but the total is thought to represent a very small fraction of the total number of wiretaps that Mr. Bush has authorized without getting warrants. In all, officials say the program has been used to eavesdrop on as many as 500 people at any one time, with the total number of people reaching perhaps into the thousands in the last three years.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Times_gets_Bush_again_NSA_officials_1220.html

phones, too?

and transmitted, and have been for years, so it wouldn't be hard for NSA to pluck them out, and that's assuming they had to do it the hard way (as opposed to the FBI setting up a Carnivore system to burn through your email transmissions by requiring ISPs to install it). There's no reason to assume the NSA can't get at the traffic.

Once it's digitized, which it pretty much all is nowadays, not that it would matter if it wasn't (thanks to d/a converters), it becomes a matter of speech recognition.

The NSA is under a directive to attempt to stay at least 10 years ahead of "public" technology, although given the current pace, I'm not sure how achievable that is, but I'm pretty sure they can harvest all the phone calls.

On the bright side, no organization is big enough to personally monitor every call in the country "by hand", so computers do the bulk of the work. Unless you're on a hotlist, and unless you say the word "bomb", "president", or "assasinate" or whatever else they look for, your call probably gets discarded.

Once someone makes it onto the radar though, I presume they have people evaluate it, but if it's obviously innocent, they'll move on - they've got other stuff to deal with.

What I don't like is the precedent. Whereas my phone calls are innocent (mainly limited to my current wife, my ex-wife, and my mother, and the occasional pizza store), and even if they got picked up, I trust they'd get dumped, I'm worried about the precedent that if I was on the wrong side of someone's naughty/nice list, that I could be eavesdropped on without cause, and that is the crux of this whole complaint.

I'm concerned that it's the Peace Makers who are on he naughty list..they could give a fuck about real terrorists..witness 9/11.

it's just getting better and better.

"Oh yeah, we forgot about those few calls"; sort of reminds you of KRove eh?

Any one have any doubts that * has not used this to follow political enemies?

The unmitigated depth to which our government has sunk is staggering. Wow. Hard to remember a United States where freedom reigned, if ever I guess. But this is really ugly.

GWBushbot must make his daddy proud and his momma beam.

THEY ARE CRIMINALS!!!

They are criminals in power.

That makes a difference as to who - (they or we) are fucked or not.

So far it's been we.

Believe me I want the worst for them, but they didn't get here by playing nice, and there's no reason to assume they'll get ethics now.

Anyone who calls terror alerts to take the edge off of potentially embarassing news has no ethics, and so I wouldn't jump to any conclusions.

I'm hoping they're fucked.

But they might just be more dangerous than ever, now that they might be cornered.

It depends on whether the Democratic pack has the nerve to go after the animal that's snarling in the corner.

They ARE in a corner. They are fucked. These tyrants must be contained, NOW, in their corner.

WE ARE STRONGER AND MORE RESILIENT AND A HELLUVA LOT MORE PASSIONATE ABOUT DEMOCRACY THAN THOSE ASSHOLES!!!

They are criminals, presently with SOME power. They ARE NOT ALL POWERFUL. They are criminals and they are required to face the consequences of their actions, in this country,...one way or another,...and they WILL pay for their crimes.

I think 60 Minutes did something on this program BEFORE Bush took office. The NSA was already monitoring conversations domestically. The right will merely say Bush's stuff was a continuation of President Clinton's policies.

Bush being bail out.....gee accidental intercepts......new talking point......

Bush being bail out.....gee accidental intercepts......new talking point......

and strictly "accidental" domestic spying cases.

Suuuuuurrrre. But then this is an anonymous source, so we don't know what the facts are who who leaked this to what purpose.

I'm betting that political surveillance and also collection of blackmail material were involved, and that domestic surveillance on a MASSIVE scale has been going on, whatever the Bushies may claim.