Big Brother Is Watching

President Bush insists that his warrantless spying program (now with domestic fun!) doesn't target innocent Americans. Of course, as I noted in my last entry on the leak authorization, anyone who gives this President the benefit of the doubt is a fool. Besides the government's known efforts in spying on protestors and activists, we've had confirmation from FBI whistleblowers that the NSA sent "a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists" and that "virtually all of them... led to dead ends or innocent Americans". More and more information confirms this type of activity.

The facts continue to betray the President on this...

Wired: Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works...

Read it and weep.

And on the connection to what the President has told us, Klein insists-

Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.

"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."

Of course, if the White House is asked about this, I'm sure Scott McClellan will simply insist that this is one of those bad leaks that hurts America by informing Americans their basic rights are being stripped away terrorists that we utilize surveillance technology. This is in contrast to the President's secret, back-door 'declassifications' which make help America be informed (not by public disclosure, just ya know through anonymous leaks to friendly reporters). They will also state they can't comment on the constitutional abuses 'operational details' of any national security programs. And the Attorney General will issue a statement reminding us of the President's imperial inherent authority to do, well, anything he wants. Alberto Gonzales says you're getting sleepy, very sleeepyyy....

You can read Mark Klein's statement about this- here.

This sort of thing is not new, but this seems to represent the greatest abuses we've seen.

Think this story will get major press? Nah, I didn't either. Consider yourself depressed informed, though.
[reposted from 4/8/2006]