Think The Domestic Spying Issue Is Something New?

Do you have any idea as to when the NSA's domestic data collecting program began?
I caught these little nuggets from a blog this morning and thought I would pass them along to those who may not otherwise find them.

The blog is at:

www.washingtonsblog.com...

There they give several links to past articles which discuss the program which as just been brought to light. Many of us have known, or suspected, it's existance for a long time. The last few days have just served to confirm our long held suspicions.
I have included a few exerpts here, but hope you will take some time to read through these articles for yourselves, to realize how long this has been going on.

www.wired.com...

Nacchio was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2007 after being found guilty of illegally selling shares based on insider information that the company’s fortunes were declining. Nacchio unsuccessfully attempted to defend himself by arguing that he actually expected Qwest’s 2001 earnings to be higher because of secret NSA contracts, which, he contends, were denied by the NSA after he declined in a February 27, 2001 meeting to give the NSA customer calling records, court documents released this week show.

www.bloomberg.com...

The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

rawstory.com...

"The officials, he said, discussed ways to duplicate the Bedminster system in Maryland so the agency could listen in with unfettered access to communications that it believed had intelligence value and store them for later review," Times reporters Eric Lichtblau, James Risen and Scott Shane wrote. "There was no discussion of limiting the monitoring to international communications, he said."

What he saw, Bruce Afran, a New Jersey lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told the Times, was decisive evidence that within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans phone usage.

And if we step back a little further we find:

web.archive.org...://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/ford_era_spying_1

An intense debate erupted during the Ford administration over the president's powers to eavesdrop without warrants to gather foreign intelligence, according to newly disclosed government documents. George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are cited in the documents.

The roughly 200 pages of historic records obtained by The Associated Press reflect a remarkably similar dispute between the White House and Congress fully three decades before President Bush's acknowledgment he authorized wiretaps without warrants of some Americans in terrorism investigations

And this can also prove interesting.

www.washingtonsblog.com...

Digging a little further, we found a 1999 article by leading European computer publication Heise which noted that the NSA had already built a backdoor into all Windows software:

A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA “help information” trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled.

This last link should be of interest to many who have not been paying much attention until now. I hope it will serve to further enlighten you.

www.washingtonsblog.com...

For those who say we have nothing to worry about, I say; that may be true today but what about tomorrow when these policies become accepted law and some future administration wants to carry things "just one step" further?

The FBI placed one of those antique bulky tape recorders under a hotel bed of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. back in the day....

Now they are doing the same to all of us...from a keyboard.

I am not opposed to the idea of "PRISM"...I just don't trust our government now or in the future to operate the survelience in an ethical manner absent strict over-sight and demonstrated consequences for consitution breeches.

We need to bring heavy safeguards to the NSA...and do it NOW...because technology is advancing rapidly.

One step away from a totalitarian government. It's shocking because I was brought up to believe the BS that the US was God's gift to the world.

Americans don't have democracy and they are likely too ignorant and dependent to handle a the system laid out by the U.S. Constitution. Willful ignorance of and reckless disregard for self-governance will end badly.

When immigrants no longer want to come here, you'll know it's over.

Anything outside of the US has been fair game from the beginning.

I'm pretty certain, just because of the ease of doing so, that you can bet: if it is electronic and has left the building, it has been captured. This has almost certainly been true for quite a few decades. If you want privacy, you must encrypt. If you encrypt at all, you will certainly attract attention. If you encrypt with a procedure that is currently unknown, you will certainly get a LOT of attention.

Just about anything which is electronic and is useful in simplifying your daily life or enables a technology to standardize so it can be widely used leaves signatures. There is little doubt that electronic medical records provide yet another piece of information which will be used for tracking identity.

I haved worked in telecommunications for over 30 years.
The public has no clue how its done or how long its been going on .
The feds ordered the phone companys to modernize all their equipment and use fiber optics and provide access points in the feds offices.The feds have access to every land line , cell phone and computer in the U.S. and more.

Originally posted by Indigo5
The FBI placed one of those antique bulky tape recorders under a hotel bed of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. back in the day....

Now they are doing the same to all of us...from a keyboard.

I am not opposed to the idea of "PRISM"...I just don't trust our government now or in the future to operate the survelience in an ethical manner absent strict over-sight and demonstrated consequences for consitution breeches.

We need to bring heavy safeguards to the NSA...and do it NOW...because technology is advancing rapidly.

I agree.
But....
We supposedly had oversight here already. Now we have idiots like Boehner coming out and calling Snowden a traitor.

We can't trust the numbskulls that provide the oversight.

this is nothing new at all just open and under the news spot light for in the 80's FBI has it own way of finding drug king pins key words then where green blow grass lawn white yellow balloons China, Mile High SLC West Deseret Denver FLA, LA dirt weed big H, H. reco rico act seen herewww.justice.gov...-110.100 yep this is nothing new, just all of you, not the few, are now under the thumb of johnny long arm law, what you say will be used against you, er post, email, type, send,and text, face book, tweet, and y tube.

I agree that this has been going on for a very long time. VERY long time. Some sites around the net which carry a variety of grey area to declassified NSA material, such as their old newsletters, indicate the ability and intent has been there since about a week after they were chartered and given offices to start working out of.

I think what has changed to turn a serious annoyance into a 5 alarm outrage is the technology and what it now makes possible. At least for me, it was one thing to know they could tap into my voice and data lines at will and on a whim...or peek into my backyard in real time and catch someone sunbathing for their personal amusement if they so desired.

It's quite another to know that computing power and storage technology has now caught up to allow it to be done to everyone, all the time and without effort or conscious decision by any human being for a 'case by case' basis. This is the point where it's a crisis and long long past where ethics and legalities should have been the subject of public debate.

The public doesn't need to know the 'methods and tactics' to know the general scope and ability. The enemy sure knows that much, so why don't we?? That's all that's needed for meaningful public debate and what we should have had all along. IMO.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000
It is a ruse for we are the target , forget the real threat Terrorist Gun Drug dealers we the people are the real unknown threat , what you do and say will be used against you some day , you apposed Obama or this law or that law or that person for office you said this about that law or bill.

You believe in ET and UFO, but put down the F22 /F35 the Pact and wanted to close git mo. How dare you , you are not to free think, you are to conform you are not to be for the 1st 2nd 4th 5th amendments!!! think I am over the top think again.

There is no oversite. Its like your local police. They are granted authority to break the law to inforce the law.
Thats why cops get off on everything. The feds are authoritezed to break the law to enforce to the law.
The feds will find a straw man to take the fall to keep the people happy but nothing will change.
No one gives up power willingly.

...And yet....

With all this data aggregation and storage, somehow the Bush administration was able to "lose" millions of emails. Where was the NSA then?

Not sure what the angle is with this. Planned leak or a well placed MSM frenzy? But regardless. Complacency is worse than ignorance... (There are more than enough observable instances where this is shown to be true, and such an attitude has been spreading through society like a virus.)

From the replies so far, I can't tell if anyone has read any of the articles linked except for the last one.

www.washingtonsblog.com...

I think it is safe to say no one has read through it as yet.

Just as a teaser let me draw your attention to:

According to the Sunday Herald, two days before 9/11, Bin Laden called his stepmother and told her “In two days, you’re going to hear big news and you’re not going to hear from me for a while.” U.S. officials later told CNN that “in recent years they’ve been able to monitor some of bin Laden’s telephone communications with his [step]mother. Bin Laden at the time was using a satellite telephone, and the signals were intercepted and sometimes recorded.” Indeed, before 9/11, to impress important visitors, NSA analysts would occasionally play audio tapes of bin Laden talking to his stepmother.

I am not passing judgement one way or another on this, but now they want to do the same thing here at home.

reply to post by teamcommander


I did read the entire article. HERE is another thread discussing the long running surveillance programs.

(As an aside, truth or not, I have a hard time believing that the Super Duper Mastermind of All Things Evil would have such telling conversations with.... his stepmother, let alone have enough conversations with her to fill tapes (< plural)

reply to post by HolographicPrincipal


It is not the part about what OBL might have said, or who he said it too. It's the time line of this and other calls and callers which I had hoped would be noticed.
When this part is added to certain "other" narratives, previous explainations of certain events become suspect.

To those who are awake, I do not need to spell these things out.
To those who are still asleep, nice dreams.

Originally posted by butcherguy

Originally posted by Indigo5
The FBI placed one of those antique bulky tape recorders under a hotel bed of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. back in the day....

Now they are doing the same to all of us...from a keyboard.

I am not opposed to the idea of "PRISM"...I just don't trust our government now or in the future to operate the survelience in an ethical manner absent strict over-sight and demonstrated consequences for consitution breeches.

We need to bring heavy safeguards to the NSA...and do it NOW...because technology is advancing rapidly.

I agree.
But....
We supposedly had oversight here already. Now we have idiots like Boehner coming out and calling Snowden a traitor.

We can't trust the numbskulls that provide the oversight.

Right...So maybe if some of the lawsuits by the ACLU et al. make it through the courts, the Judicial Branch will do thier job and institute a Constitutional check with consequences.

With MLK Jr. ...the FBI and it's administration simply did not like his politics, the tapped his phones, bugged his home and hotels..all aimed at discrediting him.

If this program stands "unchecked", we create that potential for all of us. The fabric of country will change at the pace of storage technology. Put another way, our civil liberties will be eroded in an exponential inverse relationship to "Moore's Law"...Moore's Law says computer processors double in complexity every two years.

The new 2 Billion Dollar NSA Data center in Utah...Can store 5 Zettabytes..Until now no facility on earth has been able to store even ONE Zettabyte.

At 5 Zettabytes the facility is capable of storing all survellience video, pics, emails, books, phone recordings etc. etc. etc. everywhere in the world for decades. think about that....Wrap in some facial recognition...some algorithims centered on writing composition nuances (they can identify you by your writing style and composition)...emails...FB...texts,,,friends..phone contact logs and directories...GPS cell signals to track origin...family..for decades...all automated and instantaneous....They are capable of things you cannot imagine..

Big Brother is here...I am all for tracking and stopping terrorists, but if we are ever going to make sure that "we the people" have a firm grip on our government, it's now or never IMO....

reply to post by teamcommander


I have no doubt that the PRISM program has and will save lives.

I also know that the NSA/CIA has culture of psuedo-lawlessness that is encouraged. In the shadows, otherwise good men and women, sometimes do bad things.

I am for the PRISM program in principle, but never has an intelligence operation warranted strict and absolute over-sight as the PRISM program does. It is the Nuclear Option of information gathering...and the NSA is unaccustomed to sincere oversight. We need to reconcile this now for future generations. Information is power, and we need to check the NSA's exponentially growing power.

reply to post by teamcommander


And here is some information on AT&T Bedminster. Nj underground bunker.

How about emergency exercise. What happens when we get hit with a nuclear or biological threat? AT&T puts on there suits and go make sure the government still has there communications.

www.corp.att.com...

You don't think AT&T is putting those suits on so you can call Grand Ma do you?

web.archive.org...://www.att.com/network/gnoc.html

The striking new structure on the AT&T Bedminster, New Jersey, campus houses one of the world's premier command-and-control centers, the AT&T Global Network Operations Center. This facility is staffed 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week, and it coordinates and manages the flow of all data, voice, and wireless "traffic" across the AT&T Worldwide Intelligent Network. In addition, the new building includes a state-of-the-art Corporate Briefing Center, a Visitors' Center for business and government customers, and additional office space for AT&T employees. The Global Network Operations Center consolidates the network management of data services (ATM, Frame Relay, and Internet Protocol), domestic long distance, global long distance, local service, and wireless service into one centralized facility. It officially began managing the AT&T Worldwide Intelligent Network on 12/15/99, less than 21 months after the 03/31/98 groundbreaking ceremony. A mere 16 days later, its coordinated AT&T network operations during the rollover to the year 2000. The Visitors' Center for business and government customers hosted its first guests the in late January, while the Executive Briefing Center opened for business in February. The new structure, which was built into a hillside, includes four levels, two of which are above ground. The new building provides 198,000 square feet of floor space. Total cost of this construction project was $91 million. AT&T's Bedminster campus covers more than 200 acres and was first occupied in 1977. The existing structures and the new facility occupy some 15 percent of the total campus. When fully populated, the new building will house approximately 500 employees who are relocating from existing work sites. The Bedminster campus currently provides parking for 2,320 motor vehicles. This project will add 792 more parking spaces. Hellmuth, Obata, & Kassabaum of New York City designed the new facility. HOK is one of the world?s leading architectural, engineering, interiors, and planning firms. Turner Construction of New York City, the nation?s leading general builder and construction management firm, coordinated and supervised the project.

The Global Network Operations Center (GNOC), opened in 1999, continues Bedminster's role as the nerve center of AT&T's telecommunications network into the 21st century. AT&T no longer maintains a web page for the facility, but an archived copy from 2004 can be viewed here, and AT&T still provides an interior image.

web.archive.org...://www.att.com/network/gnoc.html

And how about these photos. Notice the stars on the guys shoulder? This is a meeting at Bedminster.

www.dvidshub.net...

We had Prism. The next installment with be called "Jism". Really folks...our government spying on us? Come on now...you wouldn't be some type of "conspiracy nut" would you?

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE


A technical question for you. Could intercepting text messages and voice mail cause a delay of those messages for hours or days at my end?

Originally posted by Witness2008
reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

 

A technical question for you. Could intercepting text messages and voice mail cause a delay of those messages for hours or days at my end?

Having worked in telecom, no it probably would not. Considering they are directly plugged into the network of the major telecoms they would intercept the data as your SIM Card/Network Profile registered the content as being received.

Duplication of these files, which are really really small, in most cases much less than a 1MB would not take hours or days or even a few minutes to do.

~Tenth