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The Three Big Lies: How The Federal Government Kept Its Post-9/11 Spying On Americans A Secret

Privacy

from the three-big-lies dept

Wed, May 14th 2014 7:47am — Mike Masnick
Last night, the first episode of Frontline's United States of Secrets aired, going deep into the history of "The Program," which is what the Bush (really Cheney) White House referred to the NSA program to spy on Americans based on incredibly shaky legal theories -- theories that were locked in a safe in Michael Hayden's office at the NSA, which almost no one was allowed to see. If you want additional background or summaries of the episode, Monday night's Fresh Air was great, including interviews with both the director of the program as well as Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe -- two NSA whistleblowers (who we've mentioned before) who had their lives turned upside down due to totally bogus FBI raids, which were clearly a response to their whistleblowing activities. Another great summary comes from PRI's The World.

Either way, the thing that stands out to me is how the administration tried, desperately to stop anyone from revealing "The Program" with three big lies, which are discussed in all three of the links above. Here's the short summary of what happened any time anyone sought to raise issues about the legality of "The Program":
  • It's completely legal and has been judged as such (though don't ask why)
  • It's "unbelievably effective." You wouldn't believe the threats we're stopping -- and that's why we can't talk about it.
  • If you reveal it, hundreds of thousands of Americans may die in a future attack -- and the blood will be on your hands if you reveal and/or stop this program.
Of course, at this point, we now know that basically all three of those things are untrue. The "legality" was from a (still secret) memo from Cheney's lawyer David Addington that was kept almost totally secret. Some of the people who have seen it (including Jack Goldsmith at the OLC), apparently found that the legal reasoning was insanely weak, which may be part of the reason it was kept secret. It also notes, as has been discussed here in the past, that eventually the DOJ figured out a way to get the FISA Court's Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to issue a very questionable ruling effectively authorizing the program.

As for the "it's working," we've seen recently what a huge and incredible lie that was. Similarly, while the NSA and its defenders love to throw around the idea that if anyone reveals anything "blood will be on your hands," that threat is always issued when whistleblowing happens, and it's always a massive exaggeration.

Either way, those three big lies were effective in scaring people off from doing anything about the program -- including Bill Keller at the NY Times, who spiked James Risen's big story about the warrantless wiretapping (a part of the larger program) for over a year (well past the 2004 Presidential election). And, of course, since the program became known finally when Risen was getting ready to publish a book about it (and thus Keller felt he couldn't sit on the story any longer), those "hundreds of thousands of deaths" were (once again) proven to be nothing but bogus FUD.

Of course, in the past year, Ed Snowden has revealed many more details of The Program and what it later turned into, and thus provided even more evidence that the three claims were just ridiculous lies all along. And yet, for over a decade now, those three big lies have been at the heart of the NSA's program to spy on Americans.
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Filed Under: david addington, dick cheney, fud, nsa, surveillance, united states of secrecy

27 Comments

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Reader Comments

The First Word

“
Why is there a constitution in the first place if it can be overruled by secret government memos?
—Peter
 ”

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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 8:20am

    Of course!

    If you reveal it, hundreds of thousands of Americans may die in a future attack -- and the blood will be on your hands if you reveal and/or stop this program.

    Means that "hundreds of thousands of Americans may die in a future attack" by the US Government against people rebelling!

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 8:28am

    the people who actually need to be prosecuted as traitors are definitely not the whistle blowers but those who have instigated and progressed these illegal programs, more than anything because they are so paranoid themselves, they think everyone else should be!!

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 8:32am

    It is interesting. The more I see our freedoms destroyed by the government, the more I believe Bin Laden's plan to destroy America was successful. His attack while serious was only one of the very few terroristic events in the USA. That event has caused our government regulators to overreact well beyond the actual threat. It is slowly destroying our economy and freedom. Either Bin Laden was either an evil genius or just had a lucky break for his grim plan. Either way, I have come to be far more fearful of our government they any terrorist attack.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 8:39am

      Re:

      It wasn't a "lucky break". It was the plan all along. Taking out a few airplanes and a couple of buildings and a few thousand people was a mere pinprick: completely unimportant and utterly negligible. It no more posed an existential threat to the United States than a single ant does to my house. BUT...the reaction it provoked, the panic, the fear, the cowardice, the something-must-be-done-let's-do-anything mindset, has led us to where we are today.

      "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. --- Abraham Lincoln

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 9:48am

        Re: Re:

        Yes, it is a long age old tactic to attack your enemies in ways that will get them to do all the hard work for you.

        This nation is filled to be brim with idiots and their fear!

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 11:07am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Yes, and unfortunately most of them are holding public office.

          [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    rapnel, 14 May 2014 @ 8:33am

    If there is no accountability then there is no integrity. If there is no integrity then there is no justice. If there is no justice there is tyranny.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    AricTheRed (profile), 14 May 2014 @ 9:15am

    Absolutly unbelieveable!

    "It's "unbelievably effective." You wouldn't believe the threats we're stopping -- and that's why we can't talk about it."

    -Because if we told you about the YOU we're stopping, you'd be found not guilty when the court found out, how we found out and told the prosecutor to jam you up.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Peter (profile), 14 May 2014 @ 9:20am

    Why is there a constitution in the first place if it can be overruled by secret government memos?

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 10:02am

    I want 10 of the enemy for every one of ours, but lets be realistic.

    We have sent 6000 to their deaths
    We have directly and indirectly caused the deaths of millions in multiple countries
    We have returned home over 100,000 severely hurt solders
    We have destroyed our reputation around the planet
    We have destroyed our constitution
    We have created far more terrorists than existed prior to 9/11
    We have damaged the future of millions of Americans
    We have put monsters in charge of our government and its agencies
    We have thrown away what it meant to be an American to get revenge for the deaths of 3000.

    In comparison:
    -over 1/2 million die of cancer each year in the US
    -approx 30,000 die each year in the US in car accidents
    -approx 38,000 die each year of suicide in the US

    Were these people not worth as much to our government as the 3000 in the towers?

    Our leaders are absolute failures and need to be removed from power, not just talked to.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jelene, 14 May 2014 @ 10:02am

    Lies

    A one of spy is now guarded by Russia :))

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    pegr, 14 May 2014 @ 10:11am

    Really doesn't make sense

    The intelligence community should know, better than anyone else, that secrets ALWAYS become public. The whole concept with encryption and OpSec is not to keep your secrets forever, but to keep your secrets long enough to be effective. The Nazis put a lot of faith in their Enigma machine back in WWII. Now school children are decoding actual encrypted Nazi military communications from that time with papercraft Enigma machines. Secrets cannot be kept forever, period.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 10:22am

    While it reinforces vindication for Snowden's disclosures about domestic spying, his and Greenwald's additional disclosures surrounding tactics applied to foreign countries really taint the sheen of altruism. Had the disclosure been limited to the "Program" as it was with other employees who attempted to whistle blow, this would have remained a selfless act. It has instead evolved into theater fueled by Snowden's recklessly wide information heist and Greenwald's veritable giddiness over opportunities to command attention, with the continued consequence of invalidating years and decades of developments that enabled insight into foreign countries, all of whom attempt the same towards us.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2014 @ 10:38am

      Re:

      I disagree. The problem is not that Greenwald et.al. have published too much: it's that they've published too little, and much of it is redacted. The correct course of action is to publish it all. Immediately. Unredacted.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sorrykb (profile), 14 May 2014 @ 11:24am

    "Frontline" does it again

    All I want is nice quiet evening distracting myself with something mindless and uncomplicated, but while channel-surfing I happen upon PBS, and I can't stop watching, even though it's depressing and infuriating and I keep wanting to throw things at Hayden every time he's on screen.

    Damn you, Frontline. And thank you, too, I guess. grr.

    P.S. The Frontline website (linked in the article) has some good additional reading and links, including a guide to the major news stories revealing the NSA abuses as well as government reports going back to 2004.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      fjpoblam, 15 May 2014 @ 11:36am

      Re: "Frontline" does it again

      While channel surfing, we stumbled upon the season finale of Person of Interest, with the Machine that surveiled us all and prevented 54 terrorist attacks. At the end, its evil twin Machine was awakened to surveil us all: the evil twin, named Samaritan. With the last line, from the villain addressing Samaritan, “We await your orders.” /sarcasm

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    KRA, 14 May 2014 @ 12:46pm

    Congress

    Congress has abdicated all of its meaningful power to the Executive branch, which is precisely what Cheney wanted. No president is going to give that back, and Congress doesn't seem inclined to take it back. It would rob them of the time they like to spend posturing and arguing over total bullshit.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Zonker, 14 May 2014 @ 1:31pm

      Re: Congress

      Which is precisely why his party is so furious that they lost control of the White House to the other party, twice, and is so desperate to do whatever it takes to get it back. This includes stonewalling any proposal made by the other party or even opposing their own ideas if the other party decides to adopt them.

      Neither party represents their constituents (the people) anymore, they only ever represent their own party and whoever pays enough to materially support them. We would be a lot better off if we could drop the political party system, the left vs right ideology, the us vs them mentality, remove money from politics and work together to build a better nation.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Pragmatic, 15 May 2014 @ 6:03am

        Re: Re: Congress

        The trouble with banning parties is the tendency for people to gravitate towards those who share their values. That is why there are caucuses in the Houses. Getting rid of official political parties would create lots of unofficial ones, many of which would continue to vote along old ideological lines.

        Meanwhile, political players would continue to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt among the people and sooner or later we'd be back to where we started, but with more targets to shoot at. The call to arms would still be along Red/Blue lines, though. People like simplicity, after all.

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 14 May 2014 @ 1:02pm

    I watched it. Disgusting. Keith Alexander out to be tossed in jail, among others.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    stencil, 15 May 2014 @ 1:41pm

    John Ashcroft, an unlikely hero

    Even though I have no love for John Ashcroft, he partially redeemed himself by refusing to authorize domestic spying by the NSA and Bush Administration, even in the face of a bed-side ambush while he was disoriented and near death suffering from acute pancreatitis. I didn't know that before the program; I do now. Perhaps won't freeze in the lowest rung of Dante's Inferno.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      KRA, 15 May 2014 @ 3:27pm

      Re: John Ashcroft, an unlikely hero

      You know, I despised Ashcroft before I learned about that. Goes to show what I know.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous, 15 May 2014 @ 3:35pm

        Re: Re: John Ashcroft, an unlikely hero

        There are still plenty of other reasons to despise Asscroft.

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

The Last Word

“
If there is no accountability then there is no integrity. If there is no integrity then there is no justice. If there is no justice there is tyranny.
—rapnel
 ”

Another Improvement To The Star Wars 'New' Trilogy Torpedoed By Copyright
Florida Lawmakers Aim To Restore Childrens' Rights To Openly Carry Pop Tart 'Guns' On Campus
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