Patterico's Pontifications

6/12/2013

How Is Obama’s Surveillance Different from Bush’s?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:39 pm



As public sentiment turns against the recent revelations of intrusive surveillance by the Obama administration, we are hearing even Democrat Congresscritters saying that there are other shoes to drop.

Meanwhile, I want to raise an issue that I just raised in pair of comments: what is the extant evidence that what Obama is doing is different from what Bush did? I compared Bush and Obama to one another in a post this morning, and got some blowback from folks saying that Obama’s actions are unprecedented.

I’d be willing to believe it. But what I want to know is: what is the evidence for that?

After all, the Glenn Greenwald article that broke the phone metadata story said:

The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had “been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth” and was “using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity.” Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.

And that seems to check out. According to this USA Today article from 2006, Bush did have such a program:

The NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA’s efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. “In other words,” Bush explained, “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.”

As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers’ names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA’s domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

Can anyone explain to me if this article was shown to be wrong, or if I am misreading it in some way?

Perhaps you could say the sourcing for the USA Today article was anonymous. Mr. Snowden has a name, but he also appears to have lied about his compensation, made implausible claims about his experience, and made absurd-sounding claims about his access.

The problem with this story is that there seems to be a lot we don’t know.

103 Responses to “How Is Obama’s Surveillance Different from Bush’s?”

  1. This is an honest question, asked for informational purposes, so hold your fire.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. The problem isn’t that this guy or that guy is doing it. The problem is that it is being done.

    I’m thinking we don’t need the NSA. They don’t protect anybody. They put us all more at risk.
    If the government would just refer back to the constitution, getting the eff out of determining what tools I may or may not use for my own and everyone elses defence, we would certainly be safer than anything the NSA could hope to provide.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  3. Salt the ground after they leave.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  4. Ah, another Judge Walker special.

    narciso (3fec35)

  5. Patterico – Don’t you dare criticize Edward Snowden or you will have a problem with happyfeet.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  6. Ok. So you think whats-his-face should be in jail.

    What about Greenwald? Is he culpable in any way? Complicit?
    What’s the legal word?

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  7. I don’t see the comparison. Under Bush, assuming the reporting is accurate, the NSA could use patterns of suspected terrorists, and with the assistance of other databases, could ID people, whereas under Obama, there is a general sweeping order to collect the metadata on every single cell call. I don’t get how they are remotely comparable.

    JD (b63a52)

  8. But they’ve stopped “X” amount of terrorist attacks

    Really? According to our president the war on terror has been over at least since Maj Hasan’s work place incident.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  9. I have the uncanny knack of posting at the tail end of a thread at the exact moment Patterico puts up a new thread on the same/similar topic. That’s why I reposting what I just said.

    This is certainly not the “proof” you seek, Patterico. But anecdotally there is no possible way that whatever domestic monitoring and data collection might have been secretly “put in place” after 9/11 under Bush can be at the same level as the current meta data scoop-up. That is because technology has changed and its forms increased so much since then. Think about it. Zuckerberg was still in college. Facebook was a small internal internet social group at Harvard. Twitter did not exist. Smartphones in infancy and held by only a few people. Android? uh uh. Google was still mostly just a search engine. Paypal and online banking in infancy. GPS not in all cars. On and On. It’s just a different technology world. And what “they” can know and connect together about innocent average citizens in 2013 is just so much more invasive now.

    elissa (e42687)

  10. Walker in Al Haramain, said they should have gotten
    warrants, using the same logic we’ve seen in Prop 8,

    narciso (3fec35)

  11. If somebody with better eyesight and more time could read this PDF of the government’s brief from the Bush-era surveillance …. It looks like Bush’s NSA was operating pre-FISA and pre-amended FISA, and Congress retroactively “legitimized” the back then surveillance. But it needs a better reading than I could give it at this time.

    nk (875f57)

  12. Is it fair to note ab initio that the Obama administration disregards the law vis-a-vis (1) private taxpayers info at the IRS, (2) when asking for warrants to eavesdrop on reporters, and (3) telling the truth about any of these things (and others too) when testifying about them before Congress?

    So why trust this administration now? Have they earned this trust?

    G Joubert (9e1ad2)

  13. Nk – pre-FISA would be around 1978, if memory serves.

    JD (b63a52)

  14. I think this is what he is talking about;

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/preemption/churchfisa.html

    narciso (3fec35)

  15. Patrick, there are two things different, very different. One is that this crowd has shown they have no limits to their willingness to bend, or break, the law. I saw that when they turned off credit card verification in 2008. Why would you do that ? To accept illegal contributions. Why else ?

    Two, whatever Bush’s faults, and they were many, I just didn’t see the recklessness of this bunch. The biggest scandal was Abu Ghraib, which was mostly manufactured. Invading Iraq may have been, in retrospect, a mistake but the hysterical abuse heaped on Bush was far in excess of the facts.

    Another serious reason why this is more worrisome is that the press, which is reflexively hostile to Republicans the past 40 years, has abandoned all objectivity to support this black (sort of) president no matter what. They cannot be trusted to expose the facts of abuses. They can’t even get facts right, like calling George Wallace a Republican today.

    Mike K (dc6ffe)

  16. Bush went after terrorist, our enemy. Obama went after conservatives, his enemy.

    AZ Bob (c11d35)

  17. I did not read the brief properly like I said.

    nk (875f57)

  18. Obama has greatly increased the requests for records: 1000% more than the Bush years. To me it’s a matter of scope and degree; the Obama administration has been in what seems like a frenzy to gather information.

    Given their proven prior abuses of government power, yes, it’s worse than under Bush. And given the FBI’s and DHS’s willful ignoring of real terrorists, one with “soldier of Allah” on his business card, I think what they plan on doing with the data is CRIMINAL.

    Yes, I have gone to the dark side. They are criminals.

    Patricia (be0117)

  19. Maybe tomorrow. Now I’m jumping back and forth from my email.

    nk (875f57)

  20. Patrick, there are two things different, very different. One is that this crowd has shown they have no limits to their willingness to bend, or break, the law. I saw that when they turned off credit card verification in 2008. Why would you do that ? To accept illegal contributions. Why else ?

    Two, whatever Bush’s faults, and they were many, I just didn’t see the recklessness of this bunch. The biggest scandal was Abu Ghraib, which was mostly manufactured. Invading Iraq may have been, in retrospect, a mistake but the hysterical abuse heaped on Bush was far in excess of the facts.

    Another serious reason why this is more worrisome is that the press, which is reflexively hostile to Republicans the past 40 years, has abandoned all objectivity to support this black (sort of) president no matter what. They cannot be trusted to expose the facts of abuses. They can’t even get facts right, like calling George Wallace a Republican today.

    I can’t disagree — and I agree that Obama is a worse person than Bush. That’s not what I’m asking now; I’m just wondering what we know about the surveillance based on evidence.

    Patricia is moving towards what I am looking for with her assertion that Obama has made 1000% the requests that Bush did — but that makes me eager to see the link that provides the substantiation.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  21. “Nk – pre-FISA would be around 1978, if memory serves.”

    JD – Exactly. Fainting spells have been common on these threads.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  22. I mean, if Obama is doing precisely what Bush did, it’s worse because 1) Obama claimed he wouldn’t, and 2) Obama is a scumbag and Bush was not.

    But I see people claiming Obama is NOT doing precisely what Bush did, but worse. That’s where I am seeking links and quotes.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  23. The primary difference between Obama’s surveillance and Bush’s surveillance is that Bush’s surveillance was done under a guy who never claimed to not be Bush.

    You are correct that this has been going on for a long time, was known about by anybody who cared to know about it, was implemented in a more-or-less straightforward manner and that there is a lot of partisan point-scoring going on in the outrage expressed here – but I think Americans are waking up to the implications of Bush’s statement that the war on terror would be a long war. During wartime, you tend to cut the government some slack on their use of power. Are we now in a permanent state of war that allows for a permanent expansion of government power? Maybe we should discuss this a little more.

    Jerryskids (52368a)

  24. From what I can infer my friends on the left, they really don’t care: This type of kerfuffle only matters if a Republican is in power.

    Of course, it is not a kerfuffle and they don’t understand the power involved.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  25. Proper application of the Patriot Act for its intended purposes is one thing. That’s not the issue. Which one, Bush or Obama, has shown the propensity to illegally use the agencies he oversees to snoop, particularly on political opponents?

    Besides , we are still learning how many different ways Obama has abused his office. Be patient.

    G Joubert (9e1ad2)

  26. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) says Glenn Greenwald is a criminal trafficking in illicit information.

    Has the Huffers all up in a lather.
    Too many of them are guilty of the same.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  27. In an interview on CBS this morning Rand Paul said in passing that an ever increasing degree of monitoring has been going on through the last 5 administrations. The hosts of course did not ask more about that and it was unclear to me whether he meant 5 presidents or whether he meant 5 successive 4 year administrations. They were yelling at him, “they say you were briefed –why didn’t you DO something?” He reiterated how difficult it is even for those few in congress from the select committees who are supposedly “briefed” to talk about something that has purposely been put into a category of secrecy to prevent people from talking about it or asking any questions of the briefers.

    elissa (e42687)

  28. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC., says the U.S. intelligence surveillance of phone records allows analysts to monitor U.S. phone records for a pattern of calls, even if those numbers have no known connection to terrorism.

    Lindsey might pop up with a quote or two for you.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  29. Pat,

    If Bush was actually doing it, Obama would have used it for the 2010or 2012 election to take the house, and drive state chamber and governorships

    I think that’s the most overwhelming evidence we are ever going to get. Naturally in the 2016 election all this will have faded into nothing…

    E.PWJ (c3dbb4)

  30. there was some monitoring of terrorist sympathizers like CISPES by Reagan, but that was reversed under Bush, the post OKC Counter terror bill, included roving wiretaps.

    narciso (3fec35)

  31. If you don’t get John Batchelor where you live, you should try to catch the show either on internet streaming or via his iTunes podcasts.

    http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog/2013/06/china-snowden-quid-pro-quo

    crosspatch (6adcc9)

  32. So they weren’t entirely clueless, but why didn’t they use the database to see where he had gone off to;

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-security-snowden-hunt-idUSBRE95B1A220130612

    narciso (3fec35)

  33. Sorry. Pay wall.

    nk (875f57)

  34. I mean, if Obama is doing precisely what Bush did, it’s worse because 1) Obama claimed he wouldn’t, and 2) Obama is a scumbag and Bush was not.

    I share your curiosity about the specifics of what makes Obama different from Bush. Some are claiming that mining for data has increased over the past 4-plus years, and if that’s accurate, then that all by itself can be construed as worse than (and different from) Bush. After all, knowing that Obama and his ilk naturally gravitate in the direction of Nidal-Hasan-izing American society, the first suspicion has to be whether an IRS approach to filtering sensitive private information is the modus operandi in 2013 of the federal government in general.

    If the US military has been corrupted by the politics of liberalism, then that goes double, or triple, or quadruple, for anything 100% connected to the current White House. That all by itself is one big, crucial difference between Obama and Bush.

    Mark (cd1aee)

  35. I think Obama took it to the next level, probably mainly due to the growth of technology itself. But certainly I hold Bush largely responsible as well.

    Former Conservative (6e026c)

  36. it’s more likely the Booz Hamilton piggies are shaving the benefits and promised bonus off Edward’s compensation package to make him look like a liar I think

    that’s how Booz Hamilton piggies roll

    it’s a thing

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  37. Here is the same document nk linked in #35 in a non-paywall version, but it is a pdf document:

    http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/psp.pdf

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  38. Here is what I know: it is illegal for NSA to monitor domestic communications. In fact, if you are interested in the subject in any serious way, you should go on Amazon and get a book called The Puzzle Palace that was published back in the 1980’s. It is a very dry read, though, unless you are really interested in the subject matter. (the story of the USS Liberty, sister ship to the Pueblo, is interesting, though).

    NSA spends a lot of effort in purging their databases of information they aren’t supposed to have. This has actually come out several times in various hearings where NSA turns out actually had vital information but had to throw it away because by law they weren’t allowed to possess it, including communications with 9/11 hijackers with Pakistan.

    Before 9/11, NSA was only allowed to intercept communications that were purely foreign. After 9/11 that was changed to allow intercept of communications between a US entity and a foreign entity provided the US entity was not legally in the US or the foreign entity was not a US citizen.

    crosspatch (6adcc9)

  39. Yes, Bamford, who was friends with Felix Bloch, made a big deal about the fact that one of the Yemeni members of the Hamburg cell, were in contact with those back home in 2000.

    narciso (3fec35)

  40. Good work, daleyrocks. I already see what I think is one major difference — Bush had to reauthorize PSP every 45 days.

    nk (875f57)

  41. But certainly I hold Bush largely responsible as well.

    You and Teh One share the desire to blame Bush for Obama’s actions.

    JD (b63a52)

  42. On the morning of March 12,2004, Corney and Mueller attended the regular daily threat briefing with the President in the Oval Office. Corney said that following the briefing President Bush called him into the President’s private study for an “unscheduled meeting.” Corney told the President of DOJ’s legal concerns regarding the PSP. According to Corney, the President’s response indicated that he had not been fully informed of these concerns. Corney told the President that the President’s staff had been advised of these issues “for weeks.” According to Corney, the President said that he just needed until May 6 (the date of the next Authorization), and that if he could not get Congress to fix FISA by then he would shut down the program. The President emphasized the importance of the program and that it “saves lives.”
    The President next met with Mueller. According to Mueller’s notes, Mueller told the President of his concerns regarding the FBI’s continued participation in the program without an opinion from the Attorney General as to its legality, and that he was considering resigning if the FBI were directed to continue to participate without the concurrence of the Attorney General. Mueller wrote that he explained to the President that he had an “independent obligation to the FBI and to DOJ to assure the legality of actions we undertook, and that a presidential order alone could not do that.” According to Mueller’s notes, the President then directed Mueller to. meet with Corney and other PSP principals to address the legal concerns so that the FBI could continue participating in the program “as appropriate under the law.”

    From dude”s link up there.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  43. Now Comey as FBI director, will be overseeing a much larger program, btw, that was one day after the trains exploded in Madrid.

    narciso (3fec35)

  44. So. Bush had to reauthorize every 45 days. Ongoing discussion and debate within the Bush administration about the intel agencies’ activities. Bush activities brought into compliance with FISA and FISC and PSP abandoned as no longer necessary before even FISA was amended in 2008. I think these are material differences.

    nk (875f57)

  45. As I said earlier, there isn’t as much there as the hoorah seems to indicate. At least, not in the initial reports. I suspect that this has been going on since just after 9/11 and is essentially the same program as was reported on in 2006. The reason it has caught on at this time is because of all the other information that has come out at the same time (i.e., IRS, reporter phone records, etc.). There was fertile ground as everyone was already sensitive to intrusions and bingo, this gets recycled. I don’t think it’s anything “new.” I wouldn’t be surprised that there has been “mission creep” as newer technologies have become available.

    Is it bad? Yes. Is it new? Nope. Is it necessary? Can’t determine without way more info. Is it too intrusive? Maybe, but we don’t have enough “real” data to make a determination. I think that accounts for some in Congress defending it as they are — they just might have access to more accurate info on this than is available in the open media. In other words, we don’t have enough info available to support all the hype.

    And by the way, I’m not an Obama supporter in any way, shape, or form. Voted against him twice and knew he wouldn’t measure up to his hype from the get-go. For gosh sakes, anybody who’d choose Joe Biden as a running mate can’t be the sharpest tack in the box.

    Bill M (c8f413)

  46. “The problem with this story is that there seems to be a lot we don’t know.”

    And yet, that doesn’t stop you from impugning Snowden and repeatedly calling for his prosecution.

    Kind of like how you impugned that 90 something year old black lady who was murdered by the cops in a botched drug raid before all of the facts were in.

    YOURE A F*&^ING GOVERNMENT STOOGE MONKEY PATTERICO.

    Derp (d7dbd5)

  47. Here’s an interesting distinction, Dar al Hijrah and the ISB Mosque in Cambridge chose not to comment;

    http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/061213-659753-all-intrusive-obama-terror-dragnet-excludes-mosques.htm

    narciso (3fec35)

  48. Get lost, Derp.

    So I think in Bush we had a President who gave a s**t whether he was always right or not.

    Bill M, Biden is Obama’s impeachment insurance.

    nk (875f57)

  49. A furor erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported …

    1) You just said… “a furor erupted…” Not a “let’s all defend the PotUS media party event…!”

    2) Teh One claimed that he would end all such activities. Now it’s clear he not only didn’t end them, he extended them from 10s of millions to 100s of millions.

    That’s a pair of significant differences.

    IGotBupkis, "Faeces Evenio, Mr. Holder?" (a2f645)

  50. So, pulling the threads together, the alleged differences between the Bush-run program and the Obama-run program are:

    1. Bush had to have one end of the phone conversation be outside of the United States (and not a US citizen). Obama, however, allows all parties to be in the United States, and all parties may be US citizens.

    2. Obama’s program is much more extensive. The number of searches is 1000 times more than they were under Bush. This is a difference of degree, not kind.

    3. Bush’s program was limited by the technology of the day. Obama’s program is more advanced, and so not as limited. This is a difference of utility, not intent. If Bush’s NSA had had the advanced technology, how do we know they wouldn’t have used it?

    I’m afraid I don’t find the claims that Obama’s program is bad because he’s not as trustworthy as Bush to be compelling. The whole idea of politics is that you don’t give the guy you like a power that you wouldn’t want a guy you don’t like to have.

    Am I missing anything?

    Jim S. (9916d2)

  51. Here’s an interesting distinction, Dar al Hijrah and the ISB Mosque in Cambridge chose not to comment;

    Per your link, I guess this is another difference between Bush and Obama…

    Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

    I’m so fed up with the socio-political trends in this country right now. We have become our own worst enemy. So if Edward Snowden has given us a kick in the butt, then who’s to say we don’t deserve it?

    The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…

    Mark (cd1aee)

  52. I’m afraid I don’t find the claims that Obama’s program is bad because he’s not as trustworthy as Bush to be compelling.

    Yea. Uh-huh. Not compelling at all.

    In the words of the close spiritual adviser, Jeremiah Wright, who Obama was embracing until the bitter end, “Goddamn America! Your chickens are coming home to roost!”

    Mark (cd1aee)

  53. 1. Bush had to have one end of the phone conversation be outside of the United States (and not a US citizen). Obama, however, allows all parties to be in the United States, and all parties may be US citizens.

    That STILL requires buy-off from Justice. That is the law, Obama doesn’t get to make laws, but he has a pal named Holder at Justice who will buy off on whatever he is told to.

    crosspatch (6adcc9)

  54. I believe at this point that AG should be an elected position considering the power that it now has.

    crosspatch (6adcc9)

  55. Biden is Obama’s impeachment insurance.

    nk – Damn good point. But at least if Slo Joe did become prez, nobody would mistake him for a “Lightworker.”

    Bill M (c8f413)

  56. Interestingly enough, under Obama, mosques are off limits to monitoring by either NSA or FBI:

    http://weaselzippers.us/2013/06/12/fun-fact-of-the-day-mosques-are-off-limits-to-obamas-snooping/

    crosspatch (6adcc9)

  57. @ Comment by crosspatch (6adcc9) — 6/12/2013 @ 11:51 pm

    And the IRS commissioner. They could have an election every two years – just like a seat in the House.
    Or maybe we could have it mandated the commish comes from the party not holding the White House.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  58. I don’t think there is evidence of that. The only unprecedented thing about Obama is his stunning incompetence as a chief executive.
    What Bush and Obama have in common is the tendency of people to shield their boss from the details.
    What is different, I think, is that Bush was a competent leader and had the tendency to ask intelligent questions because he could grasp the subject at hand. When one is this type of manager the underlings do their homework and there is less temptation to overreach.
    Obama doesn’t see that as part of his role which will almost always result in underlings pushing limits because they are reading the tea leaves of his remarks.
    The comparisons to Bush don’t take into account that technology advances in leaps and bounds and capabilities increase with each new version.
    In Bamford’s “Shadow Factory” he talks about Wiretapper Conventions held in Crystal City where businesses promote their systems and applications that do more and more with each new version of tools.

    If you read “Top Secret in America” by Arkin and Priest you will see how deeply DHS is into the surveillance game. Combine that with Bush/Obama admins pushing to share more intelligence amongst agencies and it is likely that there are several shoes waiting to drop. DHS is supposed to stick to domestic protection. What if they are allowed to get access to the NSA databases?
    The agencies use the classification process to wow congressional reps/senators and stifle public discussion. Brief them on something that is caveated with “Top Secret double delta diamond eyes only sigma pi” stamps and they are now part of the people in the know. They don’t question the classification and leave the meeting as a person in the know with terribly important secrets they must protect. If only they could share the information with the voters but alas it is “TS DD SI PI” and they are not allowed to comment. So people just need to trust them….

    vor2 (038a8c)

  59. Is there any evidence that Bush requested blanket cell phone records for all domestic calls?

    JD (129489)

  60. Is there any evidence that Bush requested blanket cell phone records for all domestic calls?

    Nothing that I am aware of. Problem is that when wiggle words like metadata are used to describe a process senior leaders are more likely to think it is acceptable. “No sir, we are only tracking the metadata – not the content of the phone calls.” “okay do it”.

    Eichenwald’s book “500 days Secrets and Lies in the Terror wars” paints a good picture of what was happening at senior levels in the days leading up to 9-11 and afterwards. The section on decisions to use enhanced interrogation techniques is surprising.

    vor2 (37e26e)

  61. JD

    People also forget 3000 americans died (not here but in general) on his watch. I was one of those overseas, and in the middle east. My phones were tapped, our mail from West Point intercepted so much that DOD made an exception. For years I walked without any notice form the police then after Haley was in the news was followed constantly.

    Of course that’s from our fun loving “safe” allies! So if my government heard me getting yelled at on the phone by my father for taking his grandchildren to the middle east – I feel sooo violated……

    E.PWJ (c3dbb4)

  62. British Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere. More than a heh! It’s how it really works, it seems like.

    nk (875f57)

  63. So in essence Snowden (as of now) did nothing that was not already done. Two days ago he was helping harm Americans and needed to be jailed. Today he is just repeating what the USA Today already published 7 years ago.

    With respect to Snowden’s Compensation, in three months you don’t get a bonus. That adds up to and I am sure BAH is trying to cover as much as possible by smearing the witness with as many half truths as possible.

    Right out of the Clapper mindset. Tell as little truth as possible. Even better yet, lie as little as possible.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  64. #60 And funny enough it should be just the other way.

    Instead of targeting likely population pools with terrorists and monitoring every step they ignore them while boiling the ocean on the rest of us.

    And therein lies the entire problem with the program from an efficacy perspective. You miss the problem when it is staring you in the face because you are busy looking infinity wide and 1 centimeter deep.

    The people defending this program miss that point, as well as the 4th Amendment.

    And i don’t give fuck what the SCOTUS says. I can read as much as they can and interpret plain English as well as they do. So spare me the front of the envelope analogy, it sucks. Once the letter gets delivered, you have no shits clue what the content is. To boot without a return address you have no idea who delivered it. Electronic communication is not comparable from a Privacy Perspective.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  65. yes you are right Mr. Spirit he would’ve netted more than the $122 that Booz Hamilton claims once he got his bonus for the year

    plus he had probably a 7% 401K match going on

    plus whatever else – cost of living in Hawaii is enormous, so it’s likely his salary would’ve deviated to the upside of what is “average” for his position as an “infrastructure analyst”

    and given that Booz is probably lying there’s no reason to think that the figure of “roughly 200K” that appeared in the article is wrong –

    but also you can note that in the video interview Mr. Snowden himself never makes the claim of $200K, and he’s not directly quoted saying that in the article – so it appears to have been an estimate made by Greenwald

    and if it’s a question of credibility, the pasty fat-assed NSA piggy boys have already lied lied lied – we have them on camera

    granted they mostly lied to congresswhores, but that still counts

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  66. How did Arkin and Priest, not fall under the DOJ dragnet, after they mapped out every company, and organization provided support on the WOT, Eichenwald is one of those who was repeating long debunked claims about Gitmo, Iraq, et al.

    narciso (3fec35)

  67. #69. I worked at BAH long long ago in their Commercial Division before they divorced themselves from the Government Division. $200K is easy to get to. The folks saying he lies have no idea WTF they are talking about. And funny enough, to your point, he did not say it.

    He did not leak (as of yet) anything new or dangerous to an American Citizens. I can be convinced otherwise but this kid is a Patriot in my book.

    Talk to me about Bradley Manning and I have very different view points b/c what he leaked actually did do harm b/c it was specific to people.

    When he crosses the lie, I am all for prosecution but so far …..

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  68. lie = line.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  69. yes hawaii is the mostest expensive state to live in

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/48058145/page/11

    fun fact if you make $122K in Los Angeles, you need $145K in Hawaii to keep your same lifestyle…

    The cost of living in Honolulu, HI is 19.1% higher than in Los Angeles, CA. Therefore, you would have to earn a salary of $145,350 to maintain your current standard of living.

    http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_start.aspx

    Conversely that means a salary of $122 in Hawaii is equivalent to a salary of $102 in Los Angeles.

    I’m dubious Edward would’ve sold himself so cheaply just for to work with the pasty corporate whoreboys at Booz in an ethically scummy job.

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  70. He’s basically repeating Binney’s claim, but Snowden is not a 30 year lifer, one notices that signature events like Hasan and the Tsarnaev’s have been more frequent, the bigger events didn’t go off
    mostly because of bad tradecraft, the Times Square bombing, same for the Underwear Bomber.

    narciso (3fec35)

  71. This was the outfit, that began opposing our policy in Central America, and coordinated with John Kerry,
    on his CIA conspiracy theories;

    WaPo’s Dana Priest & her husband William Goodfellow the Executive director of the Center for International Policy.

    narciso (3fec35)

  72. Bush’s program looked for terrorists.

    obama’s looks for patriots and tea party and excludes mosques and islamist groups where you might expect to find terrorists. So, obama spends a lot of money uselessly.

    Jim (823b10)

  73. How much he made, or did not, is irrelevant noise.

    Being in China should be a concern. Where does he get money from should be a concern. What data did he download should be a concern. What did he give the reporter should be a concern.

    Stripper girlfriends. His previous jobs in Japanese Anime. Over-the-top claims of self-importance, etc are not important.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  74. Well we’ve seen how such figures, move from leaking policy papers. like Ellsberg to the SIOP, same with Manning, he didn’t stint at leaking government informants, in his dragnet.

    narciso (3fec35)

  75. Stripper girlfriends.

    I’ve seen her picture. She would keep me in America.

    nk (875f57)

  76. #79 She is single now NK.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  77. I’m a monogamist, Rodney. Dang it!

    nk (875f57)

  78. How is Obama’s Surveillance Different from Bush’s?

    George W Bush was trying to stop terrorists before they kill more Americans, and Barack Obama is succeeding in preventing terrorists from being detected and protecting them from retribution. Major Nidal Hasan is Obama’s poster boy.

    ropelight (80be4e)

  79. one notices that signature events like Hasan and the Tsarnaev’s have been more frequent, the bigger events didn’t go off mostly because of bad tradecraft

    That’s why I don’t worry about the leakers, or Snowden — at least so far — as much as I worry about the current, prevailing “goddamn America” ideology that is corrupting so much of the federal government and society in general.

    nationalreview.com: Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, who introduced the PATRIOT Act on the House floor in 2001, has declared that lawmakers’ and the executive branch’s excuses about recent revelations of NSA activity are “a bunch of bunk.”

    In an interview on Laura Ingraham’s radio show Wednesday morning, the Republican congressman from Wisconsin reiterated his concerns that the administration and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court have gone far beyond what the PATRIOT Act intended. Specifically, he said that Section 215 of the act “was originally drafted to prevent data mining” on the scale that’s occurred.

    Sensenbrenner, the current chairman on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, suggested that the secret nature of the FISA court has prevented appropriate congressional oversight over the NSA’s activities.

    There’s a bit of ideological flip-flopping occurring throughout the country right now, in which one’s political sympathies are coloring one’s opinion on these various controversies. But adding everything together, far too much of the left, once again, beclowns itself.

    I’ll take Sensenbrenner at face value, since he’s privy to far more of the details and insider revelations than what we in the public are aware of, and his comments indicate that, yes, Obama’s surveillance is different from Bush’s. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the Nidal-Hasan-izing of the system, including the US military.

    Mark (cd1aee)

  80. Oh, yes, Glenn Greenwald is not trustworthy at any level, at any time. But diamonds can be found in mud. Or is it rubies? Anyway, you know what I mean.

    nk (875f57)

  81. #84. One thing is how FISA works and if it just a rubber stamp. A valid concern.

    Another thing is as the bill’s c-author says … the Executive Branch went way too far.

    But if may ask on the BOLD … is this not what Conservatives have been saying for 50 years? Now what, this point is moot b/c it involves National Security?

    Dear god, everything is National Security. Paying welfare to the poor in National Security b/c if not some of those poor will turn to terrorists … right?

    On this issue, I see as much hypocrisy on the Right as the Left. And a recent poll quantifies it from Pew I think.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  82. #85 Jose Canseco. Enuff said.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  83. And yet, that doesn’t stop you from impugning Snowden and repeatedly calling for his prosecution.

    Kind of like how you impugned that 90 something year old black lady who was murdered by the cops in a botched drug raid before all of the facts were in.

    YOURE A F*&^ING GOVERNMENT STOOGE MONKEY PATTERICO.

    I STILL CAN’T HEAR YOU! COULD YOU SHOUT LOUDER?

    Actually, if you go back and read the posts, you will see that I was the one asking people to reserve judgment until all the facts were in. I was merely making the point that old people can be dangerous criminals. (There was, at the time, a video of a guy in his 80s murdering a police officer during a traffic stop.)

    Once the facts were in, I called for the corrupt police officers to be prosecuted for murder.

    As for Snowden: is there any doubt that he broke laws against revealing classified information? Any doubt at all?

    Patterico (7d6a02)

  84. he extended them from 10s of millions to 100s of millions.

    Can I get a link for that?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  85. Gotta see this. Not only do they know the whereabouts and contents of every device connected to the internet (including bluetooth), as well as being able to plant and activate any code within the device(s), but the information is available to the highest bidder.
    http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/

    Chris (654abf)

  86. I keep thinking there’s some backchatter amongst bloggers that the NSA spying is set to boomerang against Obama’s opposition somehow.

    Ace has been framing that spying as unlikely to raise the anger of the masses – that, paraphrasing, no one’s going to be mad they went too far to stop terrorism. Almost as if he is wishing that to be true.

    WHen indeed, the opposite is true about the masses being okey dokey with a surveillance state, and not the least because it seems to be crap a stopping terrorism and appears to be directed at the domestic population in the form of a right to poke around at will – a sore of general warrant.

    Snowden’s reliability or lack of it doesn’t signify. If he is nuts, dupe, a spy, a laid trap it hardly matters.

    There is one thing that matters and that is preventing the concentration of government power through spying on the domestic population that will inevitably, if it has not been already, abused and misused.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  87. Constitutionality issues totally aside, the (taxpayer?) money it takes to develop, staff and maintain an ongoing massive covert surveillance operation in near total secrecy (and with questionable oversight) should also be of some interest to the American people and to the media don’t you think? There have been issues raised about the source, method and means of funding covert intel services and activities in any and all eras.

    Is there even a budget? If so, approximately how big is the secret budget?. Does any individual or oversight group know for sure? If so, who might these people be? Is there any record of it kept anywhere for posterity? Where does the money come from? Where does it go? Who are the benefactors and how are they chosen? How and by whom are the bills audited for legitimacy, accuracy and paid? Who makes the decisions and who is responsible for specific program allocation, granting and disbursement? To whom and through whom does the money flow? Thinking for example back to the horror of the F&F guns, does anybody know if this money even winds up where it’s “supposed to”? Is there any tool at all to try to gauge and measure effectiveness of any operation beyond “trust us, it’s working”?

    I dunno. Thinking about this likely money sieve kind of makes arguments about sequester “across the board cuts” even more laughable in context.

    elissa (cbe588)

  88. As for Snowden: is there any doubt that he broke laws against revealing classified information? Any doubt at all?

    That brings to mind the concept of whether the letter of the law, or its spirit, has been violated. Snowden may have turned that notion on its head, by violating the letter but not the spirit. After all, if classified information to protect the US and the means to gather it are being infiltrated by “goddamn America” biases and sentiment, then the original spirit of the law is now lost in purgatory, or an even worse place.

    This makes me ponder the way that various people in Mexico who gravitate towards a law-and-order ethos have to deal with the harsh reality of their nation and its corrupt-laden system, and the electorate that nurtures such never-ending dysfunction. Perhaps a window into America’s future—and that future may be here sooner than originally assumed.

    Mark (cd1aee)

  89. Well, it appears it’s not just phone record metadata they’re vacuuming up, but email headers and browser history logs also.
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589078-38/nsa-chief-drops-hint-about-isp-web-e-mail-surveillance/

    Chris (654abf)

  90. The wired.com article reveals how willing (eager) they are to go beyond the bounds of constitutional limits, and then lie about it. And that was under Bush.

    Chris (654abf)

  91. #94 Any Government whistle-blower with gravitas is a criminal.

    And if Sandy Burgler can steal documents with nary a peep, ff Richard Armitage can leak and face no consequences …. then Snowden releasing “stuff we already know” into the Public Realm is specious legal nonsense.

    Again Lawyers really do suffer Forest v Trees Disease.

    Nevertheless, let us see what the kid leaked but so far big fat yawn.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  92. Also, the more we learn the more the “it is illegal crowd” and “national security crowd” loses face.

    The trend is not their friend.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ae12ec)

  93. I covered it at the linked post, but here’s the short version. its the difference between some, many and ALL.

    Bush took many records. Here’s what the article says:

    A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had “been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth” and was “using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity.”

    So how many? “Tens of millions.” So that is probably more than 20 million and less than 99 million, because that is normally how language is used. If Bush used over 100 million, you can bet that they would have said “over 100 million.”

    By contrast, Obama is taking in all of the records. And this was verified in other reports that he was taking data from all the other phone companies, too. There are 300 million Americans, so there is probably at least 200 million phones he is tracing.

    Same with the data collection. They are seizing and then searching all of the data on the internet, not just specific accounts. If Snowden is to be believed.

    The S.C. has long held that the cornerstone of reasonable searches is that they have to be based on individualized suspicion. That is the difference and that is the difference between an ordinary warrant and a general warrant or a writ of assistance that sparked America’s rebellion from England.

    I will add that another comment that is unfair to Bush and the patriot act is that this is legal. I have read the law and it is not. The law requires individualized suspicion and also forbids the collection of data on a person merely for exercising rights protected by the first amendment. Last time i checked, merely talking on the phone was protected under the first amendment. So in fact it was not legal.

    So as far as we know, Bush didn’t do the same thing. Given the nature of the issue, we can’t be 100% sure he didn’t. But the burden is on those who claim he did, not the other way around.

    Aaron "Worthing" Walker (23789b)

  94. allabit is how many food stamp is taking

    edward tried to warn us nobody listened

    he gave his life that we might be free

    thank you edward

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  95. If he is nuts, dupe, a spy, a laid trap it hardly matters.

    if the smear machine wins the chilling effect will keep other edwards from coming forward

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  96. So as far as we know, Bush didn’t do the same thing

    And if had enlisted the support and advice of an anti-US-spouting preacher — right up until the bitter end, until controversy ensued — and said things about his political opponents of “they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” I’d have been as worried about him too.

    Mark (cd1aee)

  97. If people want to go Nazi that’s on their own heads.

    But don’t be giving anyone in power the benefit of the doubt or fail the draw the line that marks their limit.

    SarahW (b0e533)


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