"All your data belongs to us".

FBI Wiretapping of Internet Users. "All Your Data Belongs to Us" A Seamless Global Surveillance Web By Tom Burghardt

Global Research, November 21, 2010

Antifascist Calling...

In a further sign that Barack Obama's faux "progressive" regime will soon seek broad new Executive Branch power, The New York Times disclosed last week that FBI chief and cover-up specialist extraordinaire, Robert S. Mueller III, "traveled to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to meet with top executives of several technology firms about a proposal to make it easier to wiretap Internet users." Times' journalist Charlie Savage reported that Mueller and the Bureau's chief counsel, Valerie Caproni, "were scheduled to meet with senior managers of several major companies, including Google and Facebook, according to several people familiar with the discussions." Facebook's public policy manager Andrew Noyes confirmed that Mueller "is visiting Facebook during his trip to Silicon Valley;" Google, on the other hand, "declined to comment." Last month, Antifascist Calling reported that the U.S. secret state, in a reprise of the crypto wars of the 1990s, is seeking new legislation from Congress that would "fix" the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and further curtail our civil- and privacy rights. When the administration floated the proposal in September, The New York Times revealed that among the "fixes" sought by the FBI and other intrusive spy satrapies, were demands that communications' providers build backdoors into their applications and networks that will give spooks trolling "encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype" the means "to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages." And with a new "security-minded" Congress set to convene in January, chock-a-block with Tea Partying "conservatives" and ultra-nationalist know-nothings, the chances that the administration will get everything they want, and then some, is a sure bet. More here ....

Rove Confronted With Second Attempted Citizen's Arrest

Rove Confronted With Second Attempted Citizen's Arrest

Karl Rove, allegedly a traitor and complicit with war crimes planning and election fraud, was the target of another citizen's arrest in Iowa. Rove is alleged to have been complicit with Nuremberg-like war crimes planning, illegal retaliation against prosecutors, and illegal domestic propaganda.

In written responses to the House Judiciary Committee, Rove provided incomplete denials to questions about his alleged complicity with illegal prosecutions. Rove's legal counsel are members of the President's domestic military analyst program.

DOJ OLC memos reminded civilian policy makers and advisors they could be subject to war crimes indictments. If convicted of these alleged war crimes, Rove could be sentenced to the death penalty.

In Rife, he Iowa Supreme Court reviewed the applicable Iowa statute:

"Iowa Code section 804.9 governs the arrest of persons by private individuals. . . .A citizen may make an arrest for any public offense if the offense is "committed or attempted in the [citizen's] presence." . . .

However, if the public offense is a felony, a less stringent standard
is imposed. If the offense constitutes a felony, the citizen must only
possess reasonable grounds to believe the person to be arrested
committed the felony." (Rife v. Corner,641 N.W.2d 761, Iowa Supreme Court, Filed 2002)

Earlier, in March 2008, Rove's arrest warrant was referred to as a "Citizen's Arrest Complaint" and specifically mentioned allegations of treason, fraud, and conspiracy. The written complaint had a typographical error, citing the US Code, calling it 19.371, instead of 18 USC 371.

COMMENTS

Oh brother. Be careful what you ask for.

The Clintonistas invented extraordinary rendition (torture), declared war and bombed Iraq, and indulged in domestic wiretapping via Carnivore. Whatever crimes you come up with can likely be followed back to them. Is that what you had in mind?

shooter,

Yes, it doesn't matter in the slightest which administration breaks the law and ignores the constitution. Whether it be democrat or republican, they should be prosecuted.

That's a lovely sentiment and all, but politics is the art of the possible. "Should" is not equivalent to "could." In a fantasy world all the men are handsome, the women strong, and the children, above average. It's nice to fantasize but don't confuse it with reality.

As for "breaks the law," you mean ALLEGEDLY breaks the law. Moreover, since the basis for Bush's alleged wrong doing is Article 2 of said Constitution - you are pretty much out of luck trying to wave the Constitution around as an indictment.

Like it or not, no future President is going to criminalize a prior President for doing what they thought best for the country, no matter whether you agree with it or not. Why? Because it is entirely possible for the future President to find himself in exactly the same position when a new regime steps forward.

Politics is irrelevant, art of the possible or not. It doesn't take politicians to successfully prosecute a malfeasor.

Forget this faux realism you are waving as if it were an all-powerful solvent for the criminal difficulties the administration is in.

Nothing is required of the next administration other than allowing the courts to do their work.

Just sit back and watch what happens.

jimmie dean,
maybe what you do not choose to understand is that there actually will not be a polarized GOP base that will spring to the defense of turdblossom in the context of this upcoming general election . There are many ,many former gwb43 supporters who are now openly calling for criminal indictments for the Bushies. Witness the Ron Paul Revolution in the GOP primary - and now see Bob Barr appearing in Congressial Hearings calling out the gwb43 ongoing criminal conspiracy . Liberterian Presidential Nominee Barr is polling consistently in the 8% range for those who are disaffected with gwb43.
This is not about revenge jimmie this is about holding Rover and the rest of the criminals accountable-and yes we can - in the context of the general election . Go google what Bruce Fein has to say about impeaching gwb 43 - there will be no polarized base of the gop to save turdblossom et al ...
jimmie rant away your still stuck at the five & dime soda stool ...

Wow... This post hit the Tollfecta.

Bulldog, your continued persistence here at TPMCafe belies your flippant remark and shows just how serious you and the rest of your Republican gang take this site and its "nutjobs". Must be tough for you to keep coming back. But hey, a job is a job.

I also find it amusing that one would admonish the asking of a legitimate question by basically saying, shush... or you'll wake the sleeping Republican base and sweep McCain into power.

Bull shit... Some of our current and former "Public Servants" should be prosecuted and shown to be the miscreates I believe they are. And now is the time, not later. The greater public knows the distinction between a witch-hunt and true pursuit of justice. Though, I guess, the blurring of the line seems to be the role of some of the local trolls.

The pursuit of Rove and others isn’t about getting the Democratic Party into the White House. (Though that is an end that I will work my best to assists, because I believe in the social, economic and civil government that I think Obama and the Democratic Party BEST represents.)

No, this is about efforts greater than one party or the other. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but it seems that testing’s continued posts are about the rule of law and the Constitution over partisanship.

Dave Kahn ,
You are correct , testing seems to be getting "TROLLVILLE " riled up -especially the one troll that keeps saying don't wake up the scary Republican base ( jimmie dean are you reading this buddy ?) - . I agree with you - Dave - this is about defending the country and its values -we must have accountabilty for this lawlessness , we cannot let war crimes -such as starting illegal wars go unpunished .

Testing -please keep bringing these excellent post -maybe we can arrest turdblossom in some state jurisdiction soon ,,,

How to Make Your Phone Untappable

Law, Order & Protection

How To Make Your Phone Untappable

Andy Greenberg, 03.18.08, 7:00 PM ET
(to get the free download of this privacy protection program : http://zfoneproject.com/ )

In 1991, Phillip Zimmermann developed a humble-sounding electronic encryption technology known as Pretty Good Privacy. In fact, it was very good--so good that not even the federal government has been able to crack it, a fact that has made Zimmermann a folk hero to privacy advocates and a headache to law enforcement.

Now Zimmermann, the CEO of PGP Corp., has found himself back in the fiery debate between federal investigators and those who oppose their snooping--this time thanks to ZRTP, a technology for encrypting Internet telephone calls. ZRTP throws a wrench in the Bush administration's controversial warrant-free wiretapping program and its proposed legal immunity for the telecommunications companies. So far, not even teams of supercomputers and cyberspies at the National Security Agency have cracked ZRTP. That means anyone who uses Zimmermann's Zfone software, a ZRTP-enabled voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) program available for free on his Web site, can skirt the feds' wiretapping altogether.

Forbes.com spoke with Zimmermann about how his small company has been able to produce an encryption product that not even the U.S. government can break, what ZRTP means for national security, and why cutting off the government's access to our phones is necessary to keep out the truly malicious spies.

Forbes: From a security and espionage perspective, what's the difference between traditional telephony and VoIP?

Zimmermann: In the traditional telephone system, Alice and Bob are connected by a single path. The simple thing is to wiretap that path in the middle at the phone company's switch. With VoIP, the packets take many paths through the cloud to get to their destination, so traditional wiretapping isn't nearly as easy. Instead, it's easiest to tap it near the endpoints. That, in fact, is very easy to do--almost trivial.

So unencrypted VoIP is less secure than traditional telephony?

Vastly less secure. The traditional public telephone system that we've been using for the last hundred years is fairly well protected. It's easy for the government to wiretap it by going to the phone company, but not easy for anyone else to wiretap it. If anyone else wanted to wiretap someone's conversations, they'd have to find a place close to his or her office, get some alligator clips, and try to find the right wire out of thousands to clip them onto, and hope that nobody spots you doing it.

With VoIP, it's not nearly so hard. All you just need is to take over a computer on the same network as the VoIP traffic with some spyware. That computer intercepts the VoIP conversations and stores them on a hard disk as .wav files that can be browsed later. A wiretapper could even choose to target the phone calls of a company's general counsel talking to an outside law firm, or the CEO talking to his counterpart at another company.

It's much easier because you don't have to physically be there. You can be in China or Russia and target a company without obtaining a visa or entering the country you're trying to infiltrate.

So unencrypted VoIP is vulnerable not just to government wiretapping but also to cyber-criminal spying.

With traditional telephony, our threat model was mostly government wiretapping. With VoIP, anyone can wiretap us: the Russian mafia, foreign governments, hackers, disgruntled former employees. Anyone.

Historically, there's been an asymmetry between government wiretapping and everyone else wiretapping that's been in the government's favor. As we migrate to VoIP, that differential collapses. The government itself is just as vulnerable. Wiretappers can reveal details of ongoing investigations, names and personal details of informants, conversations between officials and their wives about what time they pick up their kids at school.

So you're arguing that we have to encrypt VoIP to protect our calls from criminals, regardless of whether it defeats government wiretapping?

We have no choice. If we had the luxury of continuing to use the traditional phone system and not VoIP, we wouldn't be compelled to encrypt calls. The traditional phone system is well-protected enough that, although the government can wiretap it, organized criminals can't.

Everyone thinks that VoIP is the future of telephony. It's cheaper, more versatile, more feature-rich. So technological pressure herds us towards VoIP; we'll have to encrypt it. Wiretapping will become so easy that the criminals--not just governments--will be able to do it routinely. There will be insider trading, blackmail, organized crime spying on judges and prosecutors, key witnesses killed before they can testify.

What exactly are ZRTP and Zfone, and how do they work?

ZRTP is a protocol that defines how VoIP phones talk to each other in an encrypted way. Zfone is a program that we've developed for end users that employs ZTRP. They both use strong cryptographic algorithms to negotiate cryptographic keys between two parties without the participation of any phone company. The keys are strings of bits, and without them, you can't decrypt the conversation. They're automatically created at the start of the call, and destroyed at the end. Only the two parties know the keys, and the phone company isn't in a position where it can give the keys to a third party.

And that negotiation can't be intercepted?

It could be intercepted, but it wouldn't be useful. The keys are negotiated between the two parties using an algorithm known as the Diffie-Hellman algorithm, which makes it computationally infeasible for a third party to reconstruct the keys by intercepting the key negotiations. That's the beauty of public key cryptography. Your opponent can intercept all the packets of data in the negotiation, and yet he can't figure out what the keys are, unless he has nearly infinite computing resources. He'd need more computing resources than the human race currently has and the entire lifetime of the universe to work on it.

And with these shared keys, you can encrypt communication in a way that can't be unscrambled?

Once the two parties have keys, they can use the advanced encryption standard, which is in wide use today. It's a cipher that's very difficult to reverse without knowing the keys. And when I say "very difficult," again I mean that the computations would take millions of times the age of the universe.

So you've created a protocol that not even thousands of NSA agents working for years could unscramble?

Well, they're using computers, not people. In fact, they're using supercomputers that attempt every possible key. But they wouldn't be able to guess the key to decrypt a ZRTP-encrypted conversation.

In fact, they're using the same kind of encryption for their own classified data. If they knew how to break it, they probably wouldn't trust it enough to use it themselves.

Plenty of Americans believe that government wiretapping--even without a warrant--is legitimate. But encrypted VoIP calls could mean the end of that kind of wiretapping as well.

Yes, it would. But if you think about how intelligence agencies fight al-Qaida: they get almost as much information from traffic pattern analysis as they do from the content. There'll be a phone call from Pakistan to a cellphone in New York, and that phone will call six other cellphones. And so they're interested in who's calling whom. They look for the patterns, which will still be visible even if the content is encrypted.

Those patterns often tell them more than the contents of the call. The contents might be "The wedding cake will be ready on Saturday." Well, it's probably not a wedding cake, and it's probably not really Saturday either.

From the point of view of law enforcement, traffic analysis can be quite useful. But for a criminal trying to get information for insider training, he's only interested in the content. So encryption actually hits criminals harder than it hits law enforcement agencies.

The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) mandates that telecommunications equipment provide a backdoor for interception by law enforcement. Does that mean that ZTRP is illegal?

CALEA imposes requirements on service providers like phone companies. But Zfone negotiates the keys between end users, where CALEA doesn't apply. The phone company doesn't have access to the keys--only the users do. CALEA is rendered moot.

What's your take on the debate over the Bush Administration's program of warrant-free wiretapping and what it means for civil liberties?

If the government has a court-ordered wiretap against someone who they believe has probable cause, there's still a legal place for that. The driftnet fishing approach, where anyone can be wiretapped at any time, however, raises some constitutional questions.

The objective of ZRTP is not to stop the NSA from doing its job. It's to protect society from organized crime and foreign governments. We have to encrypt VoIP to do that. That may have effects on lawful interception of telecommunications, but those effects have to be weighed against the terrible effects of not doing it.

The government claims it only wants to wiretap a tiny fraction of a percent of all phone calls. To let the government keep wiretapping those phones, we'd have to expose all of our phone calls to organized crime.

As the debate heats up over immunity for telecommunications companies that have enabled government wiretapping, is interest in your products growing?

Interest is growing, but it will be mainly driven by the growth of VoIP. For now, VoIP isn't the dominant way that people make phone calls, but in a few years it will surpass traditional telephony. And when VoIP grows big enough to hold an attraction for organized crime, they're going to be all over it--just like they're all over the rest of the Internet today.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/03/18/zimmerman-hacking-voip-tech-security-cx_ag_0318voip.html

Can Bush avoid a war crimes invesigation??

There's a crack in the President's efforts to thwart a war crimes investigation. Former and currently assigned legal counsel have a major problem. Evidence developed supports the allegations the NSA did rely on illegally captured information to violate FISA, target Americans, and render innocents in violation of the laws of war.

The CIA and NSA appear to have worked with the OVP to destroy the link between Geneva violations, unlawful FISA violations, prisoner abuse, and warrantless interrogations of US citizens, in breach of domestic and international law.

There is no statute of limitations for war crimes. The alleged evidence destruction appears well connected from concerns the JAGs well raised in re Geneva. The penalty of war crimes evidence destruction could include the death penalty.

The WH e-mail destruction is not linked with a sole event, but the broader effort to hide the use of unreliable information to justify bypassing the Congress and Courts. The basis for the state secrets claims have less to do with national security, and more to do with hiding evidence of war crimes, impeachable offenses, and violations of the Supreme Law including the Bill of Rights.

The President, Congress, and US Courts have been complicit with illegal US government activity to hide from public view evidence of the US government official's illegal conduct. They've been turning a blind eye to illegality to avoid paying attention to their complicity with the illegalities.

This misconduct and malfeasance spans all three branches, including legal counsel, court officers, and legislators. The alleged malfeasance relates to failures to enforce the laws of war, investigate, and enforce the law as required by oath.

Information developed suggests the NSA did rely on illegally captured information to violate FISA, target Americans, and render innocents in violation of the laws of war.

Guest blogger!! Cheney to Congress: "Make warrantless wiretapping permanent", Matt Janovic

My comment: Bear in mind when you read this that everything Hitler did was perfectly LEGAL.
And muchas gracias, Matt! I spent the day researching what to say on FISA and the Protect America Act - after watching Cheney and his nazi supporters on c-span I dissociated and couldn't put the article together that I wished to write.
It's make or break time, America!! Harry Reid says that he is forcing this to fillibuster to get the democrats attention - this is NO TIME for partisan politics. And this entire issues should been part of a serious impeachment process, handled by parties not subject to maipulation by the telecoms. Now isn't everyone subject to manipulation by telecoms? Guess so!!
Way to go Congress!! Wade through the muck you've already created. Smelll the stench as you wade, get used to it - as there will be PLENTY more.
Veeger

Cheney to Congress: "Make warrantless wiretapping permanent", by Matt Janovic

"While EFF appreciates the attempt by Senator Specter to craft a compromise to save the litigation, the bill contains serious flaws that undermine the goal of allowing the courts to decide whether the carriers and the president broke the law when they engaged in over five years of warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans." --Electronic Frontier Foundation press release, December 5th, 2007.

Washington D.C.--Today's rare glimpse of the vice president all appears to have begun over a letter written by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) urging the White House to allow for more time to consider provisions of a bill to extend the government's abilities to wiretap domestically. Reid and others want oversight provisions and more. In an unsurprising move, the ever reclusive Vice President crawled-out of his secret bunker and issued an ultimatum to Congress today demanding that spying on American citizens--as well as foreigners--be made permanent. What the vice president and president want is the addition of a feature in the sunsetting "Protect America Act" (Public Law 110-55), a bill that was rashly passed by the 110th Congress at the end of August of 2007, and against the will of the public.

The White House has vowed to veto any version of the renewed act that doesn't include specific provisions. What does Cheney want? The Bush administration (Cheney) wants a provision that gives retroactive immunity to the telecoms (all-but-one complied without warrants) over aiding in perhaps thousands of FISA violations under an illegal NSA wiretapping program that failed to obtain warrants from the oversight court. Blah-blah-blah, "9/11," blah-blah-blah, "war on terrorism," and more blah-blah-blahs, were the reasons given to offer law-breaking communications corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Southern Bell (SBC), MCI, and many others (some unknown at this writing). Does haste make waste? My Grandmother always said it did:

"We're reminding Congress that they must act now," Cheney told the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The law, which authorizes the administration to eavesdrop on phone calls and see the e-mail to and from suspected terrorists, expires on Feb. 1. Congress is bickering over terms of its extension. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to extend the stopgap Protect America Act without expanding it, raising stakes for an expected showdown in the Senate later this week on a new version of the law. (AP, 01.23.2008)

And so, we've established that Richard Cheney didn't have such a great Grandma and that it actually does appear that Democrats in the Senate are trying to kill the Protect America Act (or make it reasonable). Sunsetting the PAA would be the traditionally American thing to do when a law threatens the liberties of its citizens and so clearly violates the Constitution of the United States, but Congress appears to be taking-its-time. This is acceptable. At least the Democrats are finally beginning to understand what a threat this all poses to them and the rest of us. Yet, somehow, Cheney seems to think he can operate without any mandate--he should, he's been doing so for almost eight-years now.

The 2008 elections loom large on the horizon. Is Senator Reid just trying to give Democratic incumbents the appearance of an opposition party, or is this a real shift from their timid and co-conspiratorial behavior from 2000-on? Nonetheless, the vice president's speech is being heavily-hyped by our corporate media in an attempt to drown-out all other voices on the issue, just as they did to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

As usual, Cheney's speech was made on unconsecrated ground, where nobody with any sense would laugh or balk at the vice president's statements today: the Heritage Foundation, where expressing common sense and reason are career-liabilities. None of this matters, action speaks louder than words. Congress is likely to capitulate on this issue unless we nearly break-their-hands forcing them to let the Protect America Act sunset and die after February 1st, 2008. Will they, or won't they? Regardless of the desire to scratch the immunity provision on-the-part of the Democratic majority, they still want to extend the program of spying on Americans, just with oversight by Congress.

But is the threat that bad, is it real? How could you even prove it was until there was an attack? It's all about instilling fear, and most incumbents are thinking on the same level as the White House: milk the war on terrorism for political-points. In-addition, the public isn't taking Congress or the White House at their word as they did in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, which a simple glance at the polls has made clear since as early as late-2004 (about the time that the NYT discovered the warrantless surveillance programs).

Economic woes are only going to exacerbate the dislike for incumbents, especially if they don't start delivering broad-based reforms. The next sweeping-out of Congress could very well mean an end to this political generation and the rise of a new one. Several interconnected DC-scandals could finish the job. The Democrats understand this dynamic of the mandate better than the GOP, and the pressures must be immense at this writing. Preserving Democratic-gains made from the 2006 midterms will require giving the public something, and something will have to go.

On this note, Senator Harry Reid seems to be leading-the-charge against the immunity provisions, so we must assume that it's becoming a mainstream issue within the Senate itself. The reality is that it's been senators like Russell Feingold (D-Wi.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.), who have been keeping this issue alive. Other than Arlen Specter, there have been no progressive voices coming from GOP incumbents on this issue. Surely, civil libertarians of all-stripes are pelting Congress with angry e-mails, phone calls, and letters as this is being written. If they aren't, they'd better start doing it immediately, criminals cannot reform themselves. For that matter, they cannot be trusted to investigate or arrest themselves. Going widely unreported by the mainstream press are the actions by Sen. Christopher Dodd who is threatening once again to filibuster the bill in the Senate. What are his chances of succeeding? Not bad:

Efforts to pass the Senate FISA bill stalled in December when Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) pledged to filibuster any measure that provided phone companies with immunity. Reid pulled the bill from the floor so the Senate could finish its other work. Dodd on Wednesday again said that he would work to defeat any efforts that included such protections. “I’m just not going to give them a free pass,” Dodd said. Before filibustering, he said he would support an amendment that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) plans to offer that would strengthen the FISA court and does not include immunity for the carriers. Leahy’s amendment is based on the bill passed by the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs. He would not say on Wednesday whether he would support a filibuster by Dodd. (theHill.com, 01.23.2008)

If the Democratic Party wishes to retain the Congress after this next election cycle, they must stand firm on this issue and block any attempts by the GOP to force passage of this legislation. As Republicans aren't in the majority, it will be the fault of the Democratic one if this legislation is renewed in a form acceptable to the White House. The rule of law has been thwarted long enough by the GOP and her operatives within the State. Predictably, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is calling for a 'compromise' that replaces the telecom carriers as the defendant in all of the telecom lawsuits (nearly all alleging unlawful and unconstitutional violations of privacy) with the government. Ask any honest former-prosecutor if this is acceptable (meaning, 'not Arlen Specter, Rudolf Giuliani or Thomas DiBagio').

Retroactive immunity is like letting the primary accomplices to a major crime off-the-hook so that they can commit the same crimes again-and-again for a future administration, presumably Republican. Granting immunity will absolve this administration and her allies of an unknown number of high crimes, possibly even treason, and it will create dangerous precedents. It should be clear to anyone that Sen. Specter is acting-on-behalf of his party, doing his best to protect the GOP from a long-delayed justice. This is un-American in every respect.

Are Senator Reid and others in Congress starting to listen to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)? EFF's contention back on December 5th, 2007 was that Congress shouldn't rush things--exactly the opposite of what the White House is calling for. This mess has been ongoing since December of 2005 when the existence of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program was revealed in The New York Times. They had been sitting on it for a year. We can wait to pass this bill until it resembles something Americans can be proud of.

'NSA Class Actions': http://www.eff.org/cases/att

'EFF Calls on Senate Judiciary Committee and Full Senate to Take More Time and Not Let Telephone Companies Off the Hook: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/12/05

The Hill (yes, the Hill) on the wiretapping battle, 01.24.2008: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/battle-over-wiretapping-is-heating-up-on-the-hill-2008-01-24.html

The sound of our liberties dying, 01.23.2008 (AP): http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jRICMUBI8QvePywA5BLklcJJApcAD8UBQAT80

IMPESheldon Whitehouse tapes re FISA now on youtube

Sheldon Whitehouse Establishing Grounds for Prosecution [Part One]

via Daily Kos - “Yesterday’s speech by Sheldon Whitehouse on the floor of the US Senate was the first salvo in the accounting of the criminality of the Bush Administration in Warrantless Wiretapping of US Citizens in contradiction of existing FISA law.”



Part Two

Excerpt from, "Katrina and the Politics of Disaster"

But do NOT forget that FEMA is under the Department of Homeland Security, folks.

http://www.dubroom.org/articles/137.htm

"However, several researchers have recognized that FEMA has little to do with emergency relief. One such individual was deceased researcher Jim Keith. In his book, Black Helicopters Over America, Keith noted the following concerning FEMA:

FEMA is intended to assume the powers of government during "emergencies," even to the extent of taking over the powers of the President, if the situation is believed to warrant it. The organization is located in the top secret National Security Agency facility in Fort Meade, Maryland. In its more benign aspects, FEMA is seen as an "umbrella" agency that, during times of disaster or natural cataclysm, will step into to throw the stricken populace life preservers. But there are aspects of FEMA which have some worried, one being that only a small percentage, less than 10% of FEMA employees according to a Congressional investigation, is engaged in anything having to do with disaster relief. So what the hell is FEMA doing behind those closed doors at Fort Meade? Among other things, the agency is engaged in compiling computer records on millions of Americans, to provide a database for CAPS, Crisis Action Programs, to be deployed whenever the non-elected bureaucrats of FEMA anticipate something which might compromise almighty COG, what they term the "Continuity of Government." (108)

Was Keith merely being an alarmist when he penned these words? In his book The Triangle of Death, former DEA agent Michael Levine records a conversation he had with a CIA agent that reinforces Jim Keith's contention:

"How can you be so good at what you do and have so little understanding of what really pulls your strings? Don't you realize that there are factions in your government that want this to happen - an emergency situation too hot for a constitutional government to handle."

"To what end?" I asked.

"A suspension of the Constitution, of course. The legislation is already in place. All perfectly legal. Check it out yourself. It's called FEMA. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'Turn in your guns, you antigovernment rabble rousers. And who would be king, Michael?" (353)

In an interview with William Norman Grigg, Levine made it clear that this account was not fictitious:

According to Levine, this shocking exchange is not the product of an imagination fed by alarmist myths. "That scenario…came from a specific conversation I had with a CIA officer in Argentina in 1979," Levine informed The New American. "There was a small group of us gathered for a drinking at the CIA guy's apartment. There were several Argentine police officers there as well; at the time, Argentina was a police state in which people could be taken into custody without warning, tortured, and then 'disappeared.'"

"At one point my associate in the CIA said that he preferred Argentina's approach to social order, and that America should be more like that country," Levine continues. "Somebody asked, 'Well, how does a change of that sort happen?' The spook replied that it was necessary to create a situation of public fear - a sense of impending anarchy and social upheaval…"(11)

The lack of response on the part of the government to hurricane Katrina created a situation just like that described by Levine's CIA acquaintance. An August 31, 2005 WWLTV news report seems to suggest that the situation had the desired effect:

Disgusted and furious with the lawlessness of looters who have put fear into citizens, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared Martial Law in the city and directed the city's 1,500 person police force to do "whatever it takes" to regain control of the city.

Nagin said that Martial Law means that officers don't have to worry about civil rights and Miranda rights in stopping the looters.

With the proper pretext now in place, FEMA could enter the scene. Lieutenant-general Carl A. Strock of the Army Corps of Engineers informed the press that FEMA was heading up the federal response: "Ultimately, the corps is directed, along with 15 other agencies, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

'It is FEMA who is really calling the shots and setting priorities here,' General Strock said"

Indeed, FEMA is calling all the shots in New Orleans. In the event of a larger crisis, the agency's powers could be further augmented by Executive Order 11051. This Executive Order would allow FEMA to enact other Executive Orders, extending the organization's control over numerous state and federal functions. This control would overarch education, welfare, and health services (Executive Order 11051, no pagination). In addition, FEMA would wield substantial authority over America's financial institutions. The agency would regulate wages, credit, salaries, and the flow of capital (Executive Order 11051, no pagination). The nation's means of production and distribution would also be commandeered (no pagination). In short, the infrastructure of the United States would be effectively controlled by one omnipotent governmental entity. FEMA is a dictator's wet dream, and with Katrina it is starting to be given teeth."

FRONTLINE tells the story of what's formed the views Dick Cheney -- the man behind what some view as the most ambitious project to reshape the power of the president in American history.

Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush.

For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review.

Now, as the White House appears ready to ignore subpoenas in the investigations over wiretapping and U.S. attorney firings, FRONTLINE examines the battle over the power of the presidency and Cheney's way of looking at the Constitution.

"The vice president believes that Congress has very few powers to actually constrain the president and the executive branch," former Justice Department attorney Marty Lederman tells FRONTLINE. "He believes the president should have the final word -- indeed the only word -- on all matters within the executive branch."

After Sept. 11, Cheney and Addington were determined to implement their vision -- in secret. The vice president and his counsel found an ally in John Yoo, a lawyer at the Justice Department's extraordinarily powerful Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). In concert with Addington, Yoo wrote memoranda authorizing the president to act with unparalleled authority.

"Through interviews with key administration figures, Cheney's Law documents the bruising bureaucratic battles between a group of conservative Justice Department lawyers and the Office of the Vice President over the legal foundation for the most closely guarded programs in the war on terror," says FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk. This is Kirk's 10th documentary about the Bush administration's policies since 9/11.

In his most extensive television interview since leaving the Justice Department, former Assistant Attorney General Jack L. Goldsmith describes his initial days at the OLC in the fall of 2003 as he learned about the government's most secret and controversial covert operations. Goldsmith was shocked by the administration's secret assertion of unlimited power.

"There were extravagant and unnecessary claims of presidential power that were wildly overbroad to the tasks at hand," Goldsmith says. "I had a whole flurry of emotions. My first one was disbelief that programs of this importance could be supported by legal opinions that were this flawed. My second was the realization that I would have a very, very hard time standing by these opinions if pressed. My third was the sinking feeling, what was I going to do if I was pressed about reaffirming these opinions?"

As Goldsmith began to question his colleagues' claims that the administration could ignore domestic laws and international treaties, he began to clash with Cheney's office. According to Goldsmith, Addington warned him, "If you rule that way, the blood of the 100,000 people who die in the next attack will be on your hands."

Goldsmith's battles with Cheney culminated in a now-famous hospital-room confrontation at Attorney General John Ashcroft's bedside. Goldsmith watched as White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card pleaded with Ashcroft to overrule the department's finding that a domestic surveillance program was illegal. Ashcroft rebuffed the White House, and as many as 30 department lawyers threatened to resign. The president relented.

But Goldsmith's victory was temporary, and Cheney's Law continues the story after the hospital-room standoff. At the Justice Department, White House Counsel Gonzales was named attorney general and tasked with reasserting White House control. On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied Congress for broad authorizations for the eavesdropping program and for approval of the administration's system for trying suspected terrorists by military tribunals.

As the White House and Congress continue to face off over executive privilege, the terrorist surveillance program, and the firing of U.S. attorneys, FRONTLINE tells the story of what's formed the views of the man behind what some view as the most ambitious project to reshape the power of the president in American history.

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Cheney's Law

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