To Senators Feinstein, Levin, Mikulski and Rockefeller

Are Democrats on the Intelligence Committee crazy, or what? Four of them just voted to confirm a man as head of the CIA who SHUT DOWN AN EFFECTIVE DATA MINING PROGRAM THAT PROTECTED PRIVACY WHILE BEING BETTER AT TURNING UP USEFUL LEADS, and instituted a program that violates the Fourth Amendment while churning out garbage data. What in heaven’s name is wrong with Senate Democrats? Please, for the sake of traditional American rights and for the sake of reinstating the gathering of USEFUL intelligence, filibuster this incompetent and amoral sociopath.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051906K.shtml

The Baltimore Sun reported today that Bush rejected President Clinton's effective, legal surveillance program that did not invade privacy to adopt the current NSA spying program, which is ineffective, illegal and invasive of citizens' privacy rights. So, the question jumping off the page may be: Why would Bush use a program that does not actually assist the finding of terrorists, yet also has the disadvantage of invading Americans' privacy rights?

The Clinton surveillance program, called ThinThread, was created during the late 1990s to "gather and analyze massive amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws." Several bloggers provide excellent posts on the components and nature of the program.

The key to evaluating Bush's true motive for his NSA program is that testing of ThinThread showed it was far better in finding potential threats and protecting privacy than the current NSA program that Bush chose in its stead. "For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy." But, Gen. Hayden of NSA decided not to use these two tools or the monitoring feature to prevent abuse of the records. The problem is that not using the ThinThread program has "undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential threats." Moreover, "ThinThread could have provided a simple solution to privacy concerns."

Incredibly, the ThinThread program was far superior to the NSA program in place in 2004: A number of independent studies, including a classified 2004 report from the Pentagon's inspector-general, in addition to the successful pilot tests, found that the program provided 'superior processing, filtering and protection of U.S. citizens, and discovery of important and previously unknown targets,' said an intelligence official familiar with the program who described the reports to The Sun. The Pentagon report concluded that ThinThread's ability to sort through data in 2001 was far superior to that of another NSA system in place in 2004, and that the program should be launched and enhanced.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008835.php
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0518-07.htm
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

It's their JOB to know this, as members of the intelligence committee. So I have to ask myself, why would they encourage this appointment to the Senate floor? Either they were somehow convinced that the thin-thread program was insufficient ..(Who convinced them and how?)

or

They are afraid of something. (Who? What?)

nom.

Not sure about the other 3, but Feinsteins' husband does have construction contracts with the government, and he owns 75% of the company. This might have something to do with her decision?

eom