Former NSA Insiders Ask President Obama To Let Them Brief Him On Everything Wrong With The NSA
from the that-would-be-interesting dept
As pretty much everyone has been sending over, a bunch of former NSA and intelligence community insiders who later went on to become whistleblowers (many of whom were then attacked or even prosecuted for their whistleblowing) have written quite an astounding open letter to President Obama, requesting that he allow them to brief him on the problems of the NSA. The letter goes a bit overboard on the rhetoric (which actually pulls away from its important underlying message, unfortunately), but the key points are clear. From what they've seen, they know that not only have the NSA's efforts violated the 4th Amendment and been ineffective, they have actually made it more difficult for the NSA to do its job properly.What we tell you in this Memorandum is merely the tip of the iceberg. We are ready – if you are – for an honest conversation. That NSA’s bulk collection is more hindrance than help in preventing terrorist attacks should be clear by now despite the false claims and dissembling.Much of the letter repeats things that were reported in the past, specifically in Jane Meyer's incredible New Yorker story about Thomas Drake (who signed this letter) from nearly three years ago. It talks about THINTHREAD, the program developed by William Binney (also signed on to the letter) as a system for sorting through information without violating the 4th Amendment, or the NSA's mandate. As was detailed both in Meyer's article, and again in this letter, THINTHREAD, which was developed prior to 9/11 for just a few million dollars, had built in a bunch of privacy and anonymity controls, but would also ease information sharing when necessary and appropriate. However, rather than use it, the NSA director at the time, Michael Hayden, chose to go with a plan from some outside defense contractors, costing billions of dollars, which didn't bother protecting the 4th Amendment or people's privacy. When the folks behind THINTHREAD reported this level of waste to the Inspector General, they were investigated, leading to various bogus charges against Drake (almost all of which were eventually dropped).
In the letter, Drake also discusses how, as the NSA exec in charge of figuring out the beset technology to fight against terrorism, he tried to get THINTHREAD reinstated. He also was asked to prepare a briefing for then head of the House Intelligence Committee, Saxby Chambliss (who's now a staunch NSA defender on the Senate Intelligence Committee) about why 9/11 happened. His initial report noted that the NSA knew all about the hijackers, but failed to share the info. He wasn't allowed to give that report.
At a SIGINT Leadership Team meeting in February 2002, SIGINT chief Maureen Baginski directed me to lead a NSA Statement-for-the-Record effort for a closed-door hearing scheduled by Sen. Chambliss for early March to discuss what NSA knew about the 9/11 hijackers and their plotting before 9/11.The letter goes on in great detail about the misleading claims by NSA defenders -- which we've discussed in the past -- that 9/11 could have been prevented if the bulk metadata collection was in use at the time.
As indicated above, the highly embarrassing answer was that NSA knew a great deal, but had not shared what it knew outside of NSA.
After a couple of weeks Baginski rejected my draft team Statement for the Record report and removed me from the task. When I asked her why, she said there was a ‘data integrity problem’ (not further explained) with my draft Statement for the Record. I had come upon additional damaging revelations. For example, NSA had the content of telephone calls between AA-77 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar in San Diego, CA, and the known al-Qaeda safe house switchboard in Yemen well before 9/11, and had not disseminated that information beyond NSA.
It is unlikely that President Obama will respond to this in any manner. Over the past decade, the government worked hard to try to discredit Binner, Drake and the two other signatories, Edward Loomis and Kirk Wiebe (who both worked on THINTHREAD with Binney). Still, it's a powerful letter highlighting, yet again, how dysfunctional the NSA and the intelligence community are, how much of what they do seems to be driven by the corporate interests of defense contractors, and how little they seem to care about privacy or the Constitution.
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Filed Under: barack obama, edward loomis, kirk wiebe, michael hayden, nsa, thinthread, thomas drake, william binney
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This level of surveillance and espionage can be for one purpose and one purpose only: population control.
This sort of data collection is only necessary if you feel threatened by your own population (meaning you are no longer actually a free and open government) and worried about large scale resistance at some point.
They can put whatever spin they want on it, but that's the *only* reason, period.
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As much as he protests that he didnt know...
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I am only at Preventing 911, but this is a must read:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/
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Re: As much as he protests that he didnt know...
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The media and other "guests" just give him a rhetorical blowjob so to get more access.
Good luck to these guys in actually getting access. Malala telling the truth was unexpected( a sneak, stealth confrontation). With these guys, it's expected so I doubt the NSA will let them near Obama.
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Of course the problem is...
Ultimately, it will be about behavior modification - -quelling dissent is just the tip of the iceberg and is not a side-affect, it's part of the agenda.
Why does everyone believe the NSA when they say it's about terrorism? They've said nearly nothing truthful since the start of this.
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Re: Of course the problem is...
What makes you think that most people believe them when they say this? I don't think they do.
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Re: Re: Of course the problem is...
the kabuki theatre that is 'our' (sic) gummint in action, is only as deep as the stage; but its all the audience sees...
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Re: Of course the problem is...
"premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents", with several other varying, and just as vague, definitions spread around US legislation. Definitional inconsistency and vague terms like "politically motivated" are huge red flags if you want to implement preventive measures.
What needs to be observed, if you want the less intrusive preventive surveillance, is a pool of potential future threats. If the future potential threats are indistinguishable by definition from dissenters, the preventive steps force a surveillance of all dissenters.
Quelling dissent is a scarily logical next step in escalating "preventive steps against terrorism"...
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Ed Snowden really has pioneered the most effective way for future whistleblowers to expose corruption, wasteful spending, treason, and unconstitutional lawlessness in the federal government.
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They need to become banksters first
Rinse and repeat with members of Congress.
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Re:
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Why?
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Former NSA Insiders Ask President Obama To Let Them Brief Him On Everything Wrong With The NSA
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