ah, Fitz…

Can we impeach him now?

do we have to stop with impeachment? Can’t we also imprison and then impale him on something tall and strong?
And do we have to stop with just him?

Sorry, Karl, it’s not my Fitz to bear . . .

Rah Rah Fitz Boom Bah …. !

EPU’d

This country’s political house is on fire, and the arsonist wants us to continue arguing about whether it should be painted red or blue. Meanwhile, the foundation is starting to crack.

Well, we already knew this stuff but it’s huge that it’s in USAToday.

Colbert, take me away!

My reading of the tech side is that ALL cell phone calls are considered ‘international’ because of how they are relayed.

We have all been waiting for the “big one,” the action of the administration that finally gets people out of their chairs and turns enough people against the administration so that something actually happens. We thought maybe that last 30% approval rating was the floor, but I think we’re headed for the 20s now, for reasons that Glenn outlines below.

I think this one has legs. I will admit for that for the first time, I’m not only angry, but scared. And I’m angry that I’m scared. This is totalitarianism, period. This is no longer America, or even close enough to it to hide with more slogans and spouting of “9-11, 9-11.” When you use a word or a phrase like that constantly, it begins to lose its emotional content. Had they only used it sparingly, it would still have power, but now they have to trot it out for everything, almost daily now.

Once he gets in the 20s, anything can happen. This administration is close to over, and the only question is how many more of our traditions will they take down before they are forced out. And how ugly is it going to be to push them out. My prediction: Nixon’s impeachement will look like a model of civility. I thank God, in a werid way, that they have alienated so much of the military, for obvious (Seven Days in May, anyone?) reasons…that fact may save the republic.

Glenn:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot…..d-for.html

But beyond that, when the NSA scandal first broke, the administration’s principal political defense was to continuously assure Americans that they were eavesdropping only on international calls, not domestic calls. Many, many Americans do not ever make any international calls, and it was an implicit way of assuring the heartland that the vast bulk of the calls they make – to their Aunt Millie, to arrange Little League practice, to cite just a few of the administration’s condescending examples – were not the type of calls being intercepted. The only ones with anything to worry about were the weird and suspect Americans who call overseas to weird and suspect countries. If you’re not calling Pakistan or Iran, the Government has no interest in what you’re doing.

That has all changed. We now learn that when Americans call their Aunt Millie, or their girlfriend, or their psychiatrist, or their drug counselor, or their priest or rabbi, or their lawyer, or anyone and everyone else, the Government is very interested. In fact, they are so interested that they make note of it and keep it forever, so that at any time, anyone in the Government can look at a record of every single person whom every single American ever called or from whom they received a call. It doesn’t take a professional privacy advocate to find that creepy, invasive, dangerous and un-American.

——————

Charles

I’d especially like to learn more about the emails. All the talk is about pen registers and phone # to phone # database (no content, supposedly). But the email database probably has all content — seems like wiretapping to me.

Lawyers? Is this true?

Bush drool transcript repost:
_____

SPEAKER: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

BUSH: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack.

As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaida and related terrorist organizations.

In other words, if Al Qaida or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying.

Today, there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down Al Qaida to prevent attacks on America. I want to make some important points about what the government is doing and what the government is not doing.

First, our intelligence activities strictly target Al Qaida and their known affiliates. Al Qaida is our enemy, and we want to know their plans.

Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.

Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat.

Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities. We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to Al Qaida and their known affiliates.

So far, we’ve been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil.

As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people from another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country.

Thank you.

END
____

I watched the video over on WaPoo. He looked REALLY pissed at having to deal with yet another disclosure du jour. It’s Hard Work.

The timing of this relevation was no accident. LMAO!

Christy,

A few weeks ago someone posted an internet address where you could send a free fax to your congressman/senator. I bookmarked it on another computer which I don’t have access to. It sure would be nice if someone would post it again…. (or even better, if there was a permanent place we could find it on the site). E-mails are OK, but faxes are better???

Next time I buy a printer I will get a fax… but alas, for now I do not have one.

I updated the post above to include links to find contact information for members of Congress. Just FYI.

From the previous post

But I’m also more than aware of what an abuse of power can do to the overall integrity of the process, having spent time in the middle of our judicial system throughout my legal career. When you have consistent abuses of power, over and over, unchecked and unquestioned, there cannot help but be damage done — long-term damage, which will take years beyond this Administration to ever begin to regain.

The damage was done before Bush, he is only a symptom, not the cause.

When did USA Today become the newspaper of record, and the NY Times become cat box liner?

BobbyG – Drool World Order

Christy -

Here is another suggestion, which you may have already considered: contact the ACLU as soon as possible.

Done, Done and Done Christy first thing this am! Though with Senators like Schumer and Hil, I am not particularly hopeful.

BTW – Salon’s Sidney Blumenthal has just posted a great article on Goss & the CIA: Killing the CIA.

The moment that the destruction of the Central Intelligence Agency began can be pinpointed to a time, a place and even a memo. On Aug. 6, 2001, CIA director George Tenet presented to President Bush his presidential daily briefing, a startling document titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Bush did nothing, asked for no further briefings on the issue, and returned to cutting brush at his Crawford, Texas, compound.

BobbyG:

“relevation”?

:-)

They have our voice prints, at least for the majority of people, think about all the times you call a company and they record your voice. Then data is provided to the government “to help fight the terrorists.” What, the company is gonna say no?

Then if you are a target, the computer zips through a large number of current phonecalls looking for your voice.

Datamining is done partly by the government and partly by contractors, who may or may not care about the legalities of privacy. Some of these contractors are outside the U.S., why should they care about our privacy?

While not a technical expert these are my conclusions from reading thru other material, sorry no link since it was a long time ago. YMMV

Just for fun, let’s assume that the NSA really is only using these phone numbers as part of a data-mining effort to identify “terrorist networks.” Well, the NSA does share plenty of information with other agencies, including the FBI. Now, recall that the FBI has been identified as actively monitoring a number of perfectly legal activist organizations because of their purported links to “extremist special interest groups.” So the next time I get an unsolicited call from Greenpeace’s fundraising people, thanks to the NSA’s data mining, my number is automatically linked to theirs, and by extension to the “domestic terrorist networks” the FBI apparently associates them with. Kind of makes the no-fly list look circumscribed and limited by comparison, doesn’t it?

Today is a sad day in America. Our country has been taken over by an evil dictator. We are no longer in control. Let’s hope today and everyday from here on is a very angry day that will spring the silent complacent citizens into action to take our freedoms back- by the courts, of course.
Let’s hope the courts do not fail us.
The alternative would be a shame.

I blazed a couple calls and emails off to Harman and Feinstein.

Enough is enough. What the fuck ELSE are they doing that we don’t know about, that’s the really scary part.

Q: When did USA Today become the newspaper of record, and the NY Times become cat box liner?
A: When they and Judy Miller became a propaganda outlet for BushCo, imho

They know this is trouble for them – no other reason for Bush to go on TV this morning to make a statement about it. Too bad he didn’t have his “inner voice†with him to tell us all what he was really thinking.

Do you think there is anything these people have told the truth about? Do you think they even know what the truth is?

Do we even have a government anymore? And if we do, where the hell is it?

What will be done about it? These people won’t even use their own Justice Department anymore, so as Glenn says, this president has usurped both legislative and judicial authority, and no one is doing anything about it!

I am so angry I can hardly see to type this.

Sophist 13 –

A Presidential Candidate who runs on a platform of rolling back the Bush Dictatorship will get a lot of traction — I’m not sure I’d trust Hillary to do more than pay lip service. Feingold, for sure — but does he have what it takes to win?

Save us, Al Gore — save us from the BushCo GOP criminals, and save us from the faint-hearted Democrats!

I’ve come to believe that whenver this Bush admin says ‘We’re not doing that bad thing, I reflexively believe the opposite. If they are stressing it, its because the accusation exists somewhere, and they are countering, rather than burying the question.

NSA wasting time

GrandmaJo -

Telephone Calls and faxes are ‘better’ than e-mails -

the fax link was for an outfit called efax

I wonder if telco cooperation with the NSA is some sort of quid pro quo on the net neutrality issue. ie. give us information and we’ll give you control over content.

NSA = no secrets anymore

It occurs to me that the leaking has become active sabotage. I wonder who.

Hey leagal eagles out there, but I was just curious – couldn’t the administration or the phone companies be prosecuted under the RICO act for this? I mean, it is a massive instance of lawbreaking, it is a pattern, it is ongoing, and there are people profitting from the lawbreaking – AT&T, etc.

I’m not a lawyer, but this is starting to sound like a RICO case to me, and I would love to hear imput from true legal eagles like Christy and Jane.

The silence is deafening– somebody better come out soon with some fire and brimstone or all is lost. Nothing but business as usual thus far.

Oh here’s Doktor Frist on cnn and his band of rethugs…

Fitz meets with GJ tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!

andy @ 11:06 am (#11) – As a technical person, I’ll give you a technical answer. E-mail is divided up into the same sort of information that phone information is: routing information and content. The routing information is what’s contained in the “header” – that’s the equivalent of the phone number, except there’s also a subject line that’s part of the header. The information is a separate field, or set of fields, in the e-mail. It can be left out. In fact, it would be possible, though I have no idea if they’re doing this, to strip the subject line from the header before storing it in the database.

Now the legal folks can take it from there, but I see potential Fourth Amendment violations here, depending on how they’re processing the information they’re collecting.

NSA – Not Sparing Anyone

OK, we all need a momentary respite:
_____

A group of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, accompanied by two female teachers, went on a field trip to the local racetrack (Churchill Downs) to learn about thoroughbred horses and the supporting industry (Bourbon), but mostly to see the horses.

When it was time to take the children to the bathroom it was decided that the girls would go with one teacher and the boys would go with the other. The teacher assigned to the boys was waiting outside the men’s room when one of the boys came out and told her that none of them could reach the urinal.

Having no choice, she went inside, helped the boys with their pants, and began hoisting the little boys up one by one, holding on to their “wee-wees” to direct the flow away from their clothes. As she lifted one, she couldn’t help but notice that he was unusually well endowed.

Trying not to show that she was staring the teacher said, “You must be in the 5th grade.”

“No, ma’am”, he replied. “I’m the jockey riding Silver Arrow in the seventh race, but I appreciate your help.

_____

We now return you to your regularly scheduled BushCo outrage.

Oh yeah- the fact that the prez says our privacy is being protected is
the biggest bullshit so far…
A fucking garbageman just found a minute-by-minute schedule for the President’s trip to Florida in the garbage.
And we should trust this man to protect OUR privacy in any way?

http://www.wusatv9.com/news/ne…..ryid=49159

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Act NOW.

Now is the time for all good men (and ladies too) to come to the defense of their country… America, the Land of the Free.

JWR @31:

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..ment-98909

Darkblack is all over that.

Tis John Snow, Frist, Allen, McConnell, Santorum, Lott pushing the tax cuts.

blech

We don’t just need to kick these criminals out of office; we need to make examples of them. For the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our own – and the world’s – ability to ever believe again that America stands for its founding principles, we can’t stop with removing them from power. They need to be investigated, tried, and imprisoned, every one of them – up to and including the Vice President and the President. The fantasy that America is always right, and its leaders above reproach, must be repudiated if we are to survive as a democratic nation.

Captain at #34

I really hope you are on to something there, that could tip things tremendously if some sort of high visibility legal proceedings were launched on Telco/NSA meddling.

Could tip the scale on Net Neutrality as well. Would love to see the cozy Gov’t/Telco trysts get shaken up.

The ACLU is organizing a chapter in our town tomorrow night. By George (no pun intended), I’m going!

As the president dismantles a genuine intelligence agency (scores of disgusted operatives quit under Goss) in a fit of political pique, he turns his ire on the American public … if anyone can’t imagine that the NSA domestic spying isn’t for the purposes of setting up a mechanism to suppress political dissent is living in a bubble. These people are not going to relinquish power easily. I would love to know what they are cooking up for the Nov ‘06 elections. Now that they have managed to steal two elections (we are living in the embryonic phase of a facist dictator folks) it is unimaginable that they aren’t certain that they can do it again and again and again.

Blumenthal ends his excellent article with this:

Regardless of anodyne assurances offered in his forthcoming congressional testimony, Hayden will preside over the liquidation of the CIA as it has been known. The George H.W. Bush CIA headquarters building in Langley will of course remain standing. But the agency will be chipped apart, some of its key parts absorbed by other agencies, with the Pentagon emerging as the ultimate winner.

The militarization of intelligence under Bush is likely to guarantee military solutions above other options. Uniformed officers trained to identity military threats and trends will take over economic and political intelligence for which they are untrained and often incapable, and their priorities will skew analysis. But the bias toward the military option will be one that the military in the end will dislike. It will find itself increasingly bearing the brunt of foreign policy and stretched beyond endurance. The vicious cycle leads to a downward spiral. And Hayden’s story will be like a dull shadow of Powell’s — a tale of a “good soldier” who salutes, gets promoted, is used and abused, and is finally discarded.

No president has ever before ruined an agency at the heart of national security out of pique and vengeance. The manipulation of intelligence by political leadership demands ever tightened control. But political purges provide only temporary relief from the widening crisis of policy failure.

A note to my provider … feel free to reuse

Most providers, including mine, have internal customer email which I think can be treated as official customer communication. I did this … you might want to do something similar:

Dear Sir or Ms:

USA Today credibly asserts (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA) that Verizon has made records of my telephone conversation destinations available to the National Security Agency without warrant or compliance with relevant FISA law.

If this is the case, Verizon is in breach of our service agreement and privacy agreement. Please acknowledge the breach and terminate service on all my Verizon Wireless accounts without cancellation charge or penalty of any kind. On your notification I will provide my new carrier. Do not release my numbers until I provide the new carrier for transfer.

If this is not the case and the records have not been released to NSA without warrant, please immediately provide me with a statement from an authorized company official to that effect, and take no further action.

I look forward to your admission of breach and request for my new carrier without cancellation or transfer charge, or alternately your certification that you are in compliance with the privacy agreement and law in a timely manner, preferably within the week.

Thank you.

NSA-
Nothing’s Sacred Anymore

I see potential Fourth Amendment violations here, depending on how they’re processing the information they’re collecting.

Fourth Amendment? The Cheney Administration don’t need no steenkin’ Fourth Amendment, and they don’t need no steenkin’ Constitution either.

Dear the captain,

I think so too!

Let’s sue the bleedin’ bastards and while we’re at it, WHY CAN”T WE SUE THE MONSTER WHO SOME CALL THE PRESIDENT.

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

He’s a freakin lyin monster baby killer

Tech stuffabout domestic spying.

I remember as a young person horrific stories of the KGB. This was in the days of “duck & cover” when everyone feared incineration by Russian ICBM’s and bomb shelters were vogue. We thought “How unfortunate those poor Russians have spies snooping into everything they do, reading their mail and listening in on their phone calls. What a bunch of, bunch of, well, Soviet bastards!!”. Now we have our own KGB. At least I don’t fear nuclear annihilation, it’s the rest of the world that needs to be digging shelters.

As a follow-on, I made the point here months ago that one motivation of collecting so much data is to compare “normal” traffic with “suspicious” traffic. This is how many e-mail spam filters work, for instance. Give them a good sampling of normal e-mail and spam, and they’ll generally be able to tell the two apart automatically. My e-mail client does an excellent job of such filtering – I only need to occasionally feed it new spam, and it is able to separate this stuff reliably.

The NSA has a big data problem in tracking any form of suspicious traffic. There is a tremendous amount of data. As the USA Today article points out, just keeping track of the call records has produced what may be the biggest database on record. Sifting through all that crap to find something suspicious or threatening takes computers and effective filtering software. Thus, the NSA is collecting all sorts of traffic in order to try to figure out what the “normal” traffic is.

Or, that’s what they’re saying. Of course, with no technical or legal review of the program, we have only a few tidbits of information to go on.

I’m not trying to excuse this program, BTW, which I think is wrong on several levels, but I’m trying to point out the apparent motivation.

“…Democrats reacted angrily to the USA Today article and its description of the program’s vast size, including an assertion by one unnamed source that its goal was the creation of a database of every phone call ever made within the United States’ borders.

“Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with Al Qaeda?” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee’s ranking minority member, asked angrily…”
____

Well, that had been MY immediate reaction.

a friend of mine, born and raised in Kansas is planning to call me on saturday from Pakistan where she is now living. I wonder what the NSA will do with that one?

W.’s thinking: God spies on ordinary Americans, why can’t I?

The 4th Amendment, a product of such a quaint, pre- 9/11 worldview.

We don’t need a Constitution. We have George W. Bush to protect us.

Democrats and patriotic Repubs, campaign ideas:

Pro-Constitution

Article 2: CONGRESS is the ‘Decider’
4th Amendment: COURTS review domestic spying

Pro-Geneva Conventions

No wars of aggression

No torture and secret prisons

……….This is truly the minimum. If we can’t even agree on these basics then we have lost all of our moral authority as a nation. Some beacon of freedom.

[EPU’d from previous thread, but elevant here, as well.]

Over at the WaPo blog, Andrew Cohen has written about today’s NSA story:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com…..efines_abo ve_the_law.html

While not as critical as we’ve been, he takes the Administration to task for having lied about this program and having tried to cover it up. He makes this point about the program’s legitimacy and the phone companies that cooperated:

Meanwhile, how about those telephone companies — AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon were the ones mentioned by USA Today — that cooperate with the NSA in its domestic spying? Think they have some explaining to do as to why they have entered into contracts to provide the information? Think it’s interesting that Qwest has reportedly refused to go along with the program? That tells me that there is no law that requires companies to provide such material to the government without even the formality of a warrant. So, why would those other companies so willingly give up their customers’ privacy rights?

As a commenter pointed out, the motive may have been money. The NSA offered to compensate the companies for their efforts. How profitable that compensation might have been, like everthing else in this case, is yet to be determined.

#48 – great letter.

Is there a cell phone provider out there who didn’t supply the records? Quest doesn’t operate where I live (The Southland). Curious as to my alternative choices.

BobbyG @ 11:30 am (#58) – We don’t need a Constitution. We have George W. Bush to protect us.

Personally, I think an old piece of parchment is better protection.

Dr. Bong @42 – Thanks for that. You too, Darkblack.

GOP
KGB
Whats the difference?

They are just phone numbers. Why do we care?

Do we really think that they are going to start modelling the behavior of known criminals and try to figure out from their calling patterns to identify other people who have those same calling patterns, kind of a virtual fingerprint?

Do we really think they will use those highly correlated calling records to start monitoring that person for criminal activity — based soley on correlation of calling patterns?

Do we really think that some of those people monitored would be innocent?

Do we really beleive that the government would put someone in jail, prosecute them, or hold them incommunicado for years just based on their calling patterns — because they are convinced that pattern recogniti9on works?

(Do we really believe that congress and the courts would stand for such behavior?)

Do we really believe the conspiracy theory that the neoCONs would use this information to identify people involved in political action in order to supress or discourage political involvement?

Do we really think the BushCo and operations would use such a program, if deemed legal, to scare the public at large by modelling their behavior and knowing each person’s personality type and predictable behavior?

Do we really think Bush is that bad?

And one last question, partially off topic: Does Bush have the constitutional authority to suspend the truth?

a girl just wants to know…

JWR: My pleasure… Hope you didn’t have to look too hard to find the comment I was referring to – I tried the linky and it just took me to the top of the page rather than directly to the comment…

WaPo has a video of Bush’s little speech up. It is really worth a watch. Not only is he obviously pissed, but every time he tells a flat out lie his eyes shift to the left – a classic indication of lying.

particularly just after 1 minuute in “the governement does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.” Watch his eyes veer hard to the left. Blinking frequently is another indication of obfuscation.

(I heard a fascinating interview with a guy who had written a book about how to read faces a couple of years ago and I remember the bit about lying – he said it is a great excercise to turn off the sound and just watch the face).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00819.html

Since the President says that he was only spying on Al-Qaida when he collected data on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, I don’t know why Al-Qaida bothers to attack us. With millions of voters in this country, Al-Qaida could take over by winning elections.

Oh,oh!

EPU’d

Shouldn’t Corporations be really, really worried about this too? There are no boundaries. What can be construed as supporting or undermining “National Security†is in entirely the eye of the beholder.

Is it in America’s interest that domestic corporations should have an advantage in bidding on global contracts? To a GOPer, that’s a no-brainer – it makes perfect sense to provide the US company with a bit of inside information about their international competitors. (And for added value, of course, once a company compromises itself by accepting such “helpâ€, it will be in the government’s pocket forever).

And now we know (as opposed to just *knowing*, as we did before) that the government knows about domestic calls as well. To these people, National Security concerns would justify fostering the growth of loyal, patriotic companies run by right-thinking, loyal and trustworthy (GOP) people. A little heads-up now and again about who their flaky, traitorous, liberal, unionized competitors have been in discussions with. What’s the harm in that?

cujo359 @ 54 –

What is your email spam filter? I use yahoo mail, and while it used to be good, the spam has gotten totally out of control lately.

It’s web based email, which I like — but it delivers a hundred spams a day to the bulk folder, and another 20 or 30 to the inbox. Plus, it’s not very good at learning what is and what is not spam.

LOL just heard a commercial on the radio for Verizon (unfortunately my cell phone co.)—the tagline is, “Verizon: always working for you!†It immediately makes one think, “Verizon: always spying on you!â€

I just hope this comes back to bite them in the a$$!

I’m very impressed that Qwest stood up to the guvmint on this one. I think they’ll be getting my business.

Charles (#10), I agree. This seems big, and it seems like it has legs. I heard people talking about it at work today, and I can’t remember ever having overheard a political conversation at work before.

When you worship the political philosophy of Leo Strauss and thereby contend that deception of the masses is necessary — even a virtue, then every public statement you make is tainted.

They way I see it, Mr. Bush has successfully challenged the veracity of his own statements.

OT – but I am reading ‘Before the Storm’ about Barry Goldwater’s rise to fame, and the people surrounding him. This book should be entitled ‘History is Prolog.’ An early Karl Rove type named Stephen Shadgg wrote a book entitled “How to Win an Election” working on the Indifferent voter and how to make him vote against his very own beliefs.

And more on topic, that many conservatives even in the 1950s would be willing to give up freedoms due to the threat from communists (now known as terrorists). And many were advocating small nuclear weapons for wars against the ‘communists’, or … well like I said, history is prolog.

They have long been planning this take down of our Constitution. Does our side having any long term ‘thinkers’ equalling Brent Bozell and Buckley?

I read the book for a while, and then come to read here, and the topics are so joined — no wonder this book is on the book club agenda.

Sorry for the interruption — now back to the thread — as it just keeps threading along.

FWIW and OT:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..an_nuclear

Iran ready to negotiate.

I spoke to Verizon in NJ earlier and they claim they do not sell our records to anyone. When I brought up the article in USA Today I got silence, and when I pressed for answer I got “We do not comment on National Security matters”

When I said this has nothing to do with national security, this has to do with Verizon willfuly breaking the law, I got the national security line again.

Tomorrow I switch to Vonage and I told them so.

dead last @ 11:34 am (#65) – Read my (#54) for a short explanation of what they might legitimately be up to with this information.

Unfortunately, they just went ahead and did this. The Congress rejected a similar database effort, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), a couple of years ago, so I suspect that they may have decided to just forget all those icky legislative and judicial issues and do what they wanted.

The problem, of course, is that you’re right. It doesn’t have to stop there. They could do many, if not all of the things you suggest with that data later, or could start collecting all the data – phone messages, e-mails, web accesses – and keep the stuff they find interesting for whatever reason. When there’s no review there’s no way of knowing what they’re doing.

I’m sure I’m stating the obvious to most folks here, but I’m continually amazed at how many people don’t get this.

NSA: Now Spying on Americans

I just watched the video at Wash Post, did you see the last visual they had at the end, his eyes squinty and his tounge slightly out??? Was that an accident? Maybe just my connection? It stayed that way until I linked back.

BTW, Google is great. I found that free fax service and my Senator’s fax number. Irate letter sent.

ck (#50): your post leads me to this:

(to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”)

We don’t need no constitution……..

somebody want to run with that?

Bush is misunderstood. He really has a cunning plan: The terrorists hate us for our freedom. Now if we didn’t have those freedoms the terrorists wouldn’t have a reason to hate us. So actually he’s doing us a favor.

#61 Siasl

this is a link to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several cases they have pending against cell phone companies – probably links in here to some of the good guys

celltracking

OT: I missed yesterday’s gender dialogue, & wanted to add 3 more names:

Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers Guild at Truthout — not a blogger, but always an essential read/wrap-up

janinsf- peace & social justive activist, filed lawsuit against TSA no-fly list: happening here

Elaine Cassels – civil liberties issues (inactive since Nov 05)

“I am naive enough to hope the truth will out. History may be a record written by the winners, but don’t forget Nixon taped himself for posterity. If you are a woman, archives hold perpetual ironies. Because the gaps & silences are where you find yourself.” (Susan Howe, The Birth-Mark, Wesleyan University Press, 1993, p. 158)

#67: Did you see the interview on Colbert with the poker champ woman who described the actions of people who are lying . . . it was a blow-by-blow description of GWB in his finest moments, no joke! Especially the constant blinking! It’s NOT HARD to see him lying through his teeth, once you start paying attention . . .

Careful with all this anger, people, Richard Cohen might be shocked and offended.

My silver lining in this disgusting cloud. Most of the Rethugs are in this game for the money. They could care less about Civil Rights one way or the other. As to Bush, he’s too stupid to understand what they are, like most other Americans. So this takes us to the true believers, who are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton and I fear, Ms Rice, all of whom would be quite happy with a dictatorship for its own sake, and theirs too, of course.

Although these people have been surprisingly successful in mounting a security state, mainly because the press has been complicit in it and the Democrats supine, they don’t have the Hitlerian ruthlessness to follow through and actually intern and murder enough people to make the rest of us very afraid to speak out. And now it’s too late to pull the revolution off.

Even the forthcoming attack on Iran won’t do the trick any more.

Cujo359 (#62)

personally, i think an old piece of used toilet paper is better protection………

ck @ 11:40 am (#70) – I use an e-mail client called evolution which runs on most modern Unix and Linux systems. It has several different spam filters, including something called “spamassassin”. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent program for Windows, but if you have a Mac you might be able to use it.

Dead Last,
Do you really think we’re going to take your stupid questions seriously?
Get a life and go back to your republican hideout.

Dr. Bong @66 – Link went right to Darkblack’s comment. With all this refreshing and scrolling and reading, I missed that one. My overtaxed dial-up internets sure are movin’ slow today.

fahrender #80

slight correction… “to the tune of ‘Another Brick In The Wall’”

:-)

OT: Paul Keil has an interesting take on Duke Cunningham’s recent lack of cooperation:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000609.php

Here’s Trey Ellis over at HuffPo:

>>>>>>
Today Senator Leahy bravely said, “Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.” He also said, “Where does it stop?â€

It stops when the opposition opposes. It stops when Democrats defend American citizens against an administration so dangerously incompetent that it can find no other way to go after the terrorists who are trying to destroy our liberties than by destroying those same liberties themselves.

I am heartened by Senator Leahy joining Senator Feingold in urging his fellow Democrats to leap out of their foxholes and fight. Unfortunately, another hero of mine, Senator Obama, recently echoed the more prevailing Democratic conventional wisdom when he said that a rule of thumb in Washington is that when your opponent is failing you should do nothing, just simply get out of their way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..20828.html

for sick of it all @ 89, dead last is a regular here. The questions were angry ones designed to get us to think.

#82 cbl – thanks. I see Vonage mentioned above and I’ll be researching them too.

I bet when the phone companies agreed to this, they begged the government to keep it secret. I’m hopeful (but not optimistic) those who chose to play ball will feel it in their pocket once this story gets more traction.

ck 16 – Exactly what I thought. And it has happened several times now – USA Today and two comedy shows are more reliable, in-depth, expositive reporting than NBC and Meet the Press? Strange times.

(DISCLAIMER – Dear Mr/Ms NSA/FBI/CIA person: The following is a JOKE, an attempt at HUMOR, lame and feeble as it may be. In no way should it be construed as representing the opinion or intentions of its author, nor of the wonderful and talented owners of this blog, nor any of the fine and patriotic people who comment upon it. Thank you for your understanding./DISCLAIMER)

SUSAN (#51) I like it better this way:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the President FLMBK of the United States, and, by so doing, will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.â€

What do the Republicans have on Nancy Pelosi– why won’t she join the the amicus brief seeking to end the warrantless NSA eavesdropping? Same with Hoyer. Where is the Dem leadership, I’d really like to know. See below from Raw Story:

“Seventy two members of Congress filed papers late Wednesday seeking to end President George W. Bush’s warrantless NSA eavesdropping program, RAW STORY has learned.
The filing came just before a report Thursday in USA Today which revealed that the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program had collected call records on tens of millions of Americans through agreements with AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

It also comes a day after lawyers looking into the NSA program abruptly closed their probe after the Bush Administration refused to grant them clearances.

The 71 Democrats and one independent filed an amicus brief in two federal courts reviewing challenges to the warrantless wiretapping program in Detroit and New York, joining the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Both suits demand the program be stopped.

Top Democrats did not sign the call. Neither House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) nor House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have joined the brief.”

Sick of it All @89

I would venture a guess to say that Dead Last was being just a tad snarkastic (?)

Sick of it all – #89

Is that you, ghostman?

Sick of it: You were right about one thing, I am a troll. Not politically, but I am really a 45-year-old father of two. :)

We were young then
We were together
We could bare fire , floods and bad weather
We all had that sublime green light then that’s eluding us now – but that’s no matter.
Tomorrow we’ll run faster – stretch out our arms farther.

I mentioned this above, but has anyone considered that this could fall under the RICO statute?
Also, what kind of class action lawsuit would this look like against the government and the telcos.

The Court will now hear the case of Every Single Person in the Entire United State vs AT&T, Verizon, Bellsouth, and the U.S. Government

CNN.com headline: “Bush: We’re not trolling your personal lifeâ€

Oh SURE, Mr. President!

MSNBC headline: “President Bush says any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he’s approved are “lawful.”â€

I do not think that word means what you think it means!

ck @ 11:08 am (#16) – I think that Gannett just saw an unexploited market for real news, and jumped on it. The Times still does good reporting, but they’ve been so eager to please the wingnuts, and so ready to fold, spindle and mutilate the truth on their behalf, that it’s hard to take them seriously as a news organization anymore.

A google search on the Stephen Shadegg book,“How to Win an Election†came up with some interesting hits. It is a recommended text by the Leadership Institute, which is Morton Blackwell’s wing-nut-bot factory. If Karl Rove is Darth Vader, Morton Blackwell is the Emperor.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

By Richard Hofstadter — Harper’s Magazine, November 1964

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/c…..style.html

Leadership Institute — about us

http://www.leadershipinstitute…..utmain.cfm

One-of-a-kind programs produce amazing results.
If you want to be a winner in politics you’ll want to attend the Leadership Institute’s programs.

No other organization can give you so many skills for public policy and personal success.

Since 1979 the Institute’s unique seminars and workshops have enrolled more than 48,000 students and taught them how to win. Each year hundreds of Institute graduates obtain positions of influence in public policy because of their Leadership Institute training.

The Leadership Institute is the premier training ground for tomorrow’s conservative leaders.
Conservative leaders, organizations and activists rely on the Institute for the preparation they require for success.

Employment Placement and Internships
In addition to nationwide programs, the Institute wants to help you launch an exciting career. The Leadership Institute’s Employment Placement Service and Intern Program open doors for you which would otherwise remain shut.

If you are ready to achieve public policy success or would like more information regarding the Leadership Institute call (800) 827-LEAD today.

So EPU’d

I called Sprint today to see if they are participating in the NSA telephone spying operation and when I stated my question, the operator informed my that I needed to stay on the line for one minute while they loaded a required “software update†to my phone and she was immediately cut off. Way tinfoil hat. I hung up immediately and now am afraid to use my phone.

Now I know what it was like to live in the Soviet Union.

“MSNBC headline: “President Bush says any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he’s approved are “lawful.â€â€”

It’s a misquote — there’s an extraneous “L” in the last word.

Once upon a time I was the general counsel of (and a co-founder – ego demands I put that in) a public traded internet company with a relatively large ISP (which we sold at some point in time to Earthlink before the crash).

Anyway, we would at times get requests from the police for subscriber information (names and addresses for the most part, but also more detailed information on use). I would always tell the police that I would get them any information they wanted if they sent me a subpoena requesting the info. They invariably complied – police for the most part don’t waste their time on fishing expeditions.

Now, as much as I would like to believe that I was motivated by concerns of user privacy or my own views of privacy, my main motivation was covering our corporate ass. I didn’t want the company exposed to claims of violations of privacy – whether based on statute, common law or the Constitution. A subpoena was my get out of liability free card.

That is how corporations think. And if I was a lawyer, either in house or outside counsel, for any of the large telcos, ISPs or portals, I am sure I would be spending a lot of time thinking about the potential liability of my company for giving the gov’t access to user information (or turning it over) without a subpoena (from any court, secret or not). And I certainly would put very little faith that I am not exposed to liability b/c the Chimporer “claims” to have the right to such information without a subpoena.

Qwest’s lawyers got it right. Whether for the better reasons I don’t know, but CYA is a good enough reason. My bet would be it is a combination to both. But not only will the companies need to answer lawsuits (I am sure they will come), but they will also need to answer to shareholders.

Chimpco ain’t making a lot of friends, but, since alienation works for them (and us), I’m all for it.

OT, but worth noting.

Bill Clinton cannot be a spokesperson for the Democrats on anything right now as long as his wife is running for president. Hil has made it clear after the Dubai ports goof up, that he has to clear all policy statements through her office first.

So please hold off on that suggestion.

1) Working Assets not only will NOT knuckle under to the NSA, they also back Net Neutrality: http://phoenixwoman.blogspot.c…..s-and.html

2) Visualize John Conyers. I sure am!

OT but worth tuning in. Michelle Goldberg (of Salon) is on Fresh Air talking about her new book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and how an “alternate reality” is taking over the country, via Bush et al.

deadlast @65:

How dare you, you dubious Trotskyite kneebiter. ;-)

No, the Total Information Awareness boffins would never countenance to scrutinize calling patterns in order to build predictive Bayesian network heuristics. They would never filter audio through Hidden Markov Model recognition algorithms. And they would never compress and store conversations digitally because optical disks are so expensive. Finally, even if the NSA wanted to do things as unthinkable and anti-American as you suggest, they couldn’t find any scientists who would help them, because (as everyone knows) scientists would never stoop so low.

Called and e-mailed my Congressmen and Senators. I let them know that the very phone call taking place was being monitored, logged, etc. in violation of the 4th Amendment and everything American stands for. When I asked the staffer how they felt about having all their personal communications monitored all I got was a lot of hmm and hawwing.

I am now going to go chop some wood.

First, I don’t mean to, in any way, diminish the importance of the legal issues, but–it would be great fun to encourage everyone to begin using PGP encryption for all email. It’s a pain for people to use, but it would make life much more difficult for the geeks at NSA. If the volume of encrypted mail went up by, say, several hundred thousand percent, it would likely tie up their computers in ways they’d never unsnarl. As well, whenever they tried to mine the data for patterns, they’d pull up stuff that would make no sense until going through cryptanalysis. Time-consuming, that, especially with 140-bit or so keys. They certainly have the computer power to do it, but even the NSA has a finite amount of processor time.

Think of it as patriotic civil disobedience. :)

BTW, the photo on Christy’s post is of the Very Large Array (VLA), which is located in SW New Mexico. It’s actually not a listening post, but, rather, a novel radio telescope.

Hi fdl’ers -

Let’s send our phone bills to Congress – well, most of Congress. (All but 72.)

I’m glad 72 Congress people signed the amicus briefs in Federal court proceedigs askig to stop the illegal NSA wiretaps.

I guess the other Reps are OK with the NSA knowing every call we make – so let’s help them.

My congress person just happens to be the House Minority Leader. Silly me, I thought Nancy Pelosi might lift up a layer or two of Botoxed flesh and reach out to support the Constitution, or even just fight for Congressional prerogatives.

Nancy couldn’t be bothered to sign the amicus brief. At first I thought maybe she just didn’t have the right pen – I offered her a pen over on dKos, but no luck.

Well, I’m just a dumb citizen with an outmoded affection for the Constitution. Who am I to reject the studied wisdom of the person the House Democrats feel best represents their position?

So I guess – if Nancy Pelosi thinks so – it really is OK for the US Government, via the NSA, to know every phone call I’ve made.

But with all the other unmet needs – you know, limosine contracts and infinite corporate subsidies – the Government needs our help on the home front during the endless emergency our President has created.

Why should the US taxpayer have to pay the NSA to go get a bunch of records? We, the people, have our own phone bills – and we know the right and patriotic thing to do with those big ‘ol fat phone bills.

Send them to our Congresspeople and Senators. I’ve read and heard for years that – save for a personal visit – a personal letter is the best* way to influence Congressional opinion.

Exceptin’ of course poker games, spousal employment programs, or outright bribes.

Well, I’ve got nothing to hide from my Congresswoman. After all, she is there to protect me and the Constitution, and she’ll be getting around to doing so any decade now.

In the meantime, if Rep. Pelosi wants the US Government to have my phone records, why I’ll just offer up to Nancy. Nancy will know how to pass them on to The Right People.

Now, should I send the phone bills by mail – they are rather bulky, you know – or just make a habit of dropping them off every month in my Congressperson’s office?

[of course, no reason to send the phone records to the 72 amicus signees or the few Senators who actively oppose the illegal NSA spying …. but that still leaves a lot of Congressional mailboxes for our old phone bills.]

Glenn Greenwald’s book comes out May 15. Perfect timing.

Color Me Curious in Canada…..

I read a question posited over @ Orin Kerr’s blog which I thought was interesting….

Paul Gowder wrote:

Is the NSA going through USA Today reporter Leslie Cauley’s telephone records right now to find out which NSA staffer called her?
Does that violate the First Amendment?

Does anyone know the answer to these questions?…And isn’t it time to do so?….

Just curious in Canada….

As for Captains question above concerning the application of RICO to certain event….I have mentioned RICO on a plurality of occasions and have always been met with comments of ‘it (RICO) is too hard to prove’ mantra….I for one would be interested in an analysis (brief) of the pertinent elements to a RICO case being brought….

I’m not a lawyer, but it sound to me like they are breaking the law:

Section 222 of the Communications Act includes:

(c) CONFIDENTIALITY OF CUSTOMER PROPRIETARY NETWORK INFORMATION.–
(1) PRIVACY REQUIREMENTS FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS
CARRIERS.–Except as required by law or with the approval of the customer, a telecommunications carrier that receives or obtains customer proprietary network information by virtue of its provision of a
telecommunications service shall only use, disclose, or permit access to individually identifiable customer proprietary network information in its provision of (A) the telecommunications service from which such
information is derived, or (B) services necessary to, or used in, the provision of such telecommunications service, including the publishing of directories.
…
(f) DEFINITIONS.–As used in this section:
(1) CUSTOMER PROPRIETARY NETWORK INFORMATION.–The term ”customer proprietary network information” means–
(A) information that relates to the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, and amount of use of a telecommunications service subscribed to by any customer of a
telecommunications carrier, and that is made available to the carrier by the customer solely by virtue of the carrier-customer
relationship; and (B) information contained in the bills pertaining to telephone exchange service or telephone toll service received by a customer of a carrier; except that such term does not include subscriber list information.

Well score one for the Central Texas Housewife !

Just got off the phone with Senator Cornyn’s office – Apparently plenty of my fellow Texans are concerned about their privacy

Was still quite angry but polite and was given the usual GWOT, 911, Whaddaya have to be worried about song and dance

but then the fun started -

I said ok, I don’t expect a traitorous shill like Senator Cornyn to be concerned about my privacy, but I am getting off this phone and googling his ten largest contributors and ask them how they feel about being monitored -

oh my, “Can you hold please Mam ?” Then another staffer came on the line and identified himself as spokesperson, and what exactly were my concerns today –

I reiterated my opinion on Senator Cornyn’s indifference to civil liberties, but wondered what his corporate donors and their customers were gonna feel about being all safe b/c of what NSA was doing

Lots of sputtering and pronouncements about it all being new in the post 911 world, blah, blah, but I got the distinct impression he was concerned about the implications of what I was saying -

I believe his name was Don Stewart, but I was so po’d I didn’t write it down

but that is the name of a chief spokesperson, someone within the Chief of Staff’s orbit

I was harping on it this thread and last – they don’t give a flying fig about us, but these pukes have Corporate Masters to answer to and it wont be pretty (something about immutable forces of nature and atoning, I don’t know)

I finished with a variation of my usual sign off

Oh young man one more thing, Ralph Reed, Ralph Reed, Ralph Reed!

Up Next – Kay “Perjury Is A Mere Technicality” Hutchison

Cujo – thanks for the simplified info for non-techies like me. Explaining is not defending – facts almost always go pro se. *g*
Too funny dead last. And one last question, partially off topic: Does Bush have the constitutional authority to suspend the truth?
Nah – just “classify†it. :b
More seriously -
Do we really believe that the government would put someone in jail, prosecute them, or hold them incommunicado for years just based on their calling patterns — because they are convinced that pattern recognition works?
No. They would, however, take them into secret military custody. DOJ helped establish the precedent for that (Padilla) and all the CIC has to do is find a way to whisper enemy combatant. The only part that was not *eptly* incorporated into the plan – “câ€-s are hard to whisper.

BTW – what would a Democratic Congress look like? Read it and weep (some good quotes from Matt Stoller though).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12675876/

And apparently Dean is giving Emanuel fits:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12729892/
You have to love the description of Rahm in the story: Emanuel, a recreational ballet dancer with the vocabulary of a longshoreman,

EPU @ 108 –

1) Can we assume you bought your Parallel Universe with the gazillions of internet bucks you raked in before the crash?

2) Would you like to adopt me?

Well, that’s interesting. My fax machine got a busy/no response signal from Congressman Latham, and Senators Harkin and Grassley. Busy day at the office?

RE: NSA Spying, From the DailyKOS article posted earlier on this thread.
…
Remember that semantics is not just the data, but rather the meaning of the data. It looks at the the data in a more comprehensive way than looking for keywords. Each NarusInsight machine does this at 2500 million bits per second, in real-time.

You really wonder why BushCo doesn’t want to talk about this stuff? It’s the biggest invasion of privacy in history by several orders of magnitude.

This is the money quote.

I just called my Congresslady Julia Carson to thank her for joining in on the lawsuit against the NSA warrantless-wiretapping. She’s now upset at the govt for acquiring & retaining records of all phone numbers she calls — she’s a total phone freak with 3 cellphones and also 2 landlines at her home plus 1 at her DC apartment.

cbl 118
lmao
What an absolutely splendid idea.

dead last #169:
They are just phone numbers. Why do we care?

And why do you believe it’s “just phone numbers?” They’ve only admitted to tapping international calls. The phone numbers are what we know they’re collecting, it’s the minimum, not the totality. In law enforcement, phone records are subpoenaed to establish a pattern as a basis for wiretapping, not to take the phone records to court.

We care because, if they’re ignoring the law and the Constitution to spy on every American in this way, there is no reason to believe they won’t spy on us in any way they find advantageous. And since their primary concern in every instance is perpetuation of their own power and rewarding their cronies, why would you believe they wouldn’t use this for political purposes?

We care because we’ve had unrestrained spying in this country in the past, before we had the technology we do today. Read about J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King. They decided he was a Communist and a threat, so they used information from his tapped phone calls to try to break up his marriage and drive him to suicide.

We care because the knowledge they’re listening is intimidating. Now all of us here may be tough enough that we’re not going to watch what we say or back down from political activity because of that, but I can tell you, there are plenty of other people who aren’t as committed. After 9/11, my mother-in-law gave us flag stickers and practically begged us to put them on our cars, because she was afraid something might “happen” to us if we didn’t. You think people who felt that way aren’t going to think twice about working to throw these bastards out?

We care because this is Un-American. It’s a totalitarian nightmare that is contrary to everything this country stands for.

So the real question is, why don’t you care?

WaPo – Dana Priest asking interesting questions

apologies if already posted

IloveDanaPriest

cbl,

Re Don Stewart

It looks like he’s the head honcho. Good one!

http://search.yahoo.com/search…..p;ei=UTF-8

Christy,

You’ve got to be kidding me. Are they listening?

Uh… yeah.

I guarantee you, as soon as the liberal blogs started to be a thorn in the side of the GOP, we were all marked. I guarantee it. Especially for me.

Young, liberal, ethnic minority that is pissed off at the administration (and rails it countlessly).

If I stop blogging all of a sudden and you don’t hear from me, it has been nice knowing you. Maybe I’ll see you in Uzbekistan.

#80, Send that to Driftglass.

…..after the Preznut’s speech……

Then the president said thanks and marched out the room, ignoring this shouted question from a reporter: “Sir, how is collecting phone calls not an intrusion on privacy?â€

On Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a previously scheduled meeting to take up some judicial nominations.

But right out of the box, moderate Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the committee’s chairman, said he intended to call the involved telephone companies up to a hearing to have them explain what exactly they’ve been up to with the NSA, especially since the administration has been less than forthcoming with the committee on the NSA’s activities.

“When we can’t find out from the Department of Justice or other administration officials, we’re going to call on those telephone companies to provide information to try to figure out exactly what’s going on.†It’s been done before, he said. Such hearings led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

After Specter, partisan feuding broke out in earnest. “The press is doing our work for us and we should be ashamed of it…†said Sen. Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.,) the committee’s senior Democrat. “Shame on us, being so far behind, in being so willing to rubberstamp anything this administration does, the Republican-controlled Congress refuses to ask questions and so we have to pick up the paper to find out what is going on. We ought to fold our tents and steal away.â€

http://newsblogs.chicagotribun…..recor.html

Let’s hope Dana Priest’s husband is not a covert CIA agent working on Iran WMD.

IF the President is telling the truth –
WHY are they trying to shut down the EFF v. AT & T litigation? If they are “only listening to al-Qaeda†in all the illegal, felonious programs, then what do they have to worry about?

Btw – WHY bother to classify the info on who in Congress was briefed on the programSS and when? Haven’t they gone on the record about briefing the “gang of eight� So? Is it possible that partisan Republican who were not a part of the gang of eight were briefed? Provided info? That the gang of eight were not all briefed on the same info or the same programs? What is so scarey and classified about “who†and “when†on the illegal, felonious, some disclosed some from the EFF litigation sounds like not, programs? Why “classify†if it was just the revolving 8s? Inquiring minds.

NSA listening in on everything – including investigations into Delay, Cunningham, Abramoff, etc.?

Pssst – Are we EVER going to get more info about the Bolton intercepts?

Here’s a legal question…if the NSA has denied security clearance for Justice Dept investigators, effectively killing the investigation into the legality of the wiretapping program, how can ANY evidence those wiretaps result in EVER be used in a court? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine any circumstance in which it could.

So, unless a program of extraordinary rendition of suspects from US soil is in place, or if Congress rubber-stamps the legality of these wiretaps, they are of no legal use of this evidence in prosecuting terror suspects.

If the American public can make that simple connection in their minds, then I cannot imagine even the most foaming-at-the-mouth conservative not seeing the incredible danger this program poses…

for sick of it all @ 89, dead last is a regular here. The questions were angry ones designed to get us to think.

I kinda thought that might be the case. Take my response as the result of that thinking, then. *g*

Gee, I wonder how low Bush’s ratings can go when the libertarians abandon him? This is what you call a bold initiative to really “identify the base”. it has already been mentioned that we already knew this was going on. All you had to do was parse Alberto Gonzalez statements about “the program that the president has confirmed”. In Bush-speak, that means that there is another program that we aren’t talking about right now. I brought this up with Dana Priest in an on-line chat right after the NSA exposure. I asked her how plausible it was that the NSA was willing to tap “hot” numbers without a warrant for international calls and then stop listening when a domestic call was made. No answer. “Totally implausible” is the answer, in case you’re still asleep. I had another debate with Richard Posner in which he advocated data-mining on phone calls because “honest folks have nothing to hide” and because, of course, those groovy computer programs ensure that nothing is ever seen by human eyes unless the algorithm picks out a definite Al Queda operative (or maybe a Quaker, but what’s the big difference?). If there is one thing that I can absolutely guarantee you, it is that I know a whole lot more about computer programs than Richard Posner, and his reasoning is fundamentally flawed, since the programs are written by humans and the keywords, etc. are specified by humans. Just another good example of how people can allow themselves to be misled when they aren’t really interested in the truth. Well, there just aren’t any big surprises here, so I’ll run along. Any body hear anything about an escorts lately? Oh, I did (sort of excort-related)! Seems like Dusty and Brent Wilkes liked to go on family vacations together. Sometimes Wilkes would “pick up the plane fare” and sometimes Foggo would pay. Plausibility alert!!! How often do any of you go on vacations with other families where somebody else pays for your family’s plane tickets. Never? That’s what I thought. Me too.
Check it out at
Ex-CIA Official Defends Ties With Contractor
peace,
jim

cbl 118 – glad you got some attention, although I am disturbed that you had to raise the specter of corporate anger in order to get it, individual constituent anger apparently not being enough.

Blood still boiling…am wondering at what point it will have boiled down to the sludge that will give me a stroke…

A very interesting article in the WSJ about how Judge Luttig lost faith in Bush…The Judge Luttig, darling of the rightwing.

http://online.wsj.com/article_…..zE0Wj.html

Now excuse me while I vomit at hearing Bush delivering cheap applause lines to a bunch dolts.

-GSD

This Tellco Treason should be a mantra for everyone in opposition to Internet2, the proposed internet T(r)oll Highway.

The perpetraitors have given away their position…
~

ck @ 119 – If you have followed my previous posts (which of course being me I assume you have), you will note that I have stated that I was involved in the Internet both pre and post bubble.

Was an amazing ride beginning in late 1994. I did well (which of course might mean different things to different people).* But we never did it for the money, we just wanted to build a company. And, what I am truly proudest of, is that unlike most other companies from that era, we are still around with a bright future (although I am no longer a part of it).

_______________________________________
The irony of course is that the company is now heavily involved in the American military-industrial complex, with 3 star generals in management and on the Board. And, unlike that idiot (was it the Paste Eater) who, although not owning Google shares thought people who did should sell on principal b/c of China, I still own a fair amount of stock and will not sell it for a while b/c I believe it has a great deal of value. Does that make me a hypocrit? Perhaps to some, but at least I’m honest about it.

Not to be lost in the shuffle – Kavanaugh has been cleared to go to vote.

http://tinyurl.com/nhosu

After Democrats cleared the way, the Judiciary Committee approved Kavanaugh in a 10-8, party-line vote,
. . .
Democrats appear to have backed away from a threat to filibuster Kavanaugh, but still question whether Kavanaugh, 41, is seasoned and objective enough to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Yep, that’s what I want. Dem’s who will back away and “question†bc, after all, DOING is “hard work†(where have I heard that before?).

The Kavanaugh vote came after Democrats stepped out of the way for the first time since Bush nominated his staff secretary to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia two years ago.

Majority Leader Bill Frist wants a Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation before Congress breaks May 25 for a weeklong Memorial Day vacation

BTW how would that “cower from the dazzling powers of LEADER FRIST †change to filibuster rules work if Dems did take control of the Senate in 2007, even by one vote? T Is that what Frist wants and what the GOP wants to bet on? Comeon Congresscritters – it’s time to sit at the high stakes table.

NPR’s Talk of the Nation is covering the NSA stuff starting now.

Let’s hope Dana Priest’s husband is not a covert CIA agent working on Iran WMD.

Oh, we’re way past that. Let’s hope that they don’t find bits and pieces of the poor guy in various DC area landfills with the Coda of Layla playing in the Background. These guys are desperate and they’re not too bright.

Dearest and Most Evil EPU @ 109 -

your comment really informs the discussion – IANAL, and can’t help but think Qwest’s due diligence will really help the plantiffs in the inevitable litigation shit storm this will bring

Note to my 141 – Unlike say MZM and the Wilkes and Wades of the world, I have no doubt as to their honesty, they are honest, or how they get contracts, or anything else.

I’ll kill the bold, although I don’t think it was me.

Is that better?

I don’t think I buy that this is an unplanned leak. I wonder if the administration, confronted with the imminent release of the Risen book, has choreographed a staged release of infor to disarm public criticism. That would explain Gonzales’ hint that domestic calls might be affected too (a couple weeks ago). sorry, no link. And I don’t believe for one second that the intelligence agencies could stay away from the ‘internals’. That’s the Holy Grail for them. might as well ask a cat to smell the catnip from a distance but not play with it. Something’s wrong here. And how could FISA be “too slow” if all they are doing is doing pattern analysis over time. Maybe Russell Tice knows the answer to these questions. We sure don’t.

jim preston @ 12:30 pm (#137) – What we knew prior to this was that something beyond what we already had been told was going on. This really is additional information. What more there will be, I’m almost dreading to find out.

As for the libertarians, if they were half as smart as they’re always claiming to be, they would have abandoned him years ago. The signs were there in 2004 for anyone who was willing to pay attention.

I said ok, I don’t expect a traitorous shill like Senator Cornyn to be concerned about my privacy, but I am getting off this phone and googling his ten largest contributors and ask them how they feel about being monitored -

cbl — whoa, that’s a brilliant idea.. maybe watch how this shakes out over the next couple of days and for those senators/congressmen who fall in line with fredo, maybe something could be organized along those lines.

NSA – Nobody’s Safe Anymore

EPU #141,

A Hypocritical Evil Parallel Universe?

The mind boggles.

Matt O. at 130 — I’m feeling particularly snide today. Can you tell? *g*

FirePups have been getting so very BOLD!

EPU at 109

Thanks for posting this. The question this begs is, if QWest counsel got it right, what happened to AT&T, Bell South, and Verizon counsel?

Maybe the counsel for these companies DID get it right but were overruled at the executive level? (kinda like counsel for Zacarias Moussaoui)

I can’t kill the bold. Are any powers that be around? Although, I sorta like it, like we’re all screaming.

Die! bold

Rawstory banner–no link yet.

Washington on edge over Rove, again… Networks plan to stake out courthouse Friday… Developing….

-GSD

One thing that I forgot to mention in my earlier post was this: Anytime you put anything in an e-mail, you should assume that you have just put it in the public domain. Trust me on that. I don’t want to get into techie arguments here, but it would be very foolish of anyone to assume otherwise.

On the Kavanaugh vote that was mentioned in 142: Yes, it is a shame that the Dems probably won’t pull out all the stops to stop Kavanaugh, but it is true that you have to pick your battles, and this battle has almost no short-term upside. Does it have long-term upside? Yes, if Kavanaugh could be stopped, but I can definitely see the Democrats deciding that they can skip this fight and the “obstructionist” distractions and go for the jugular on more immediate issues such as illegal wiretapping, corruption, Hayden, the Interior Secretary nominee, etc, etc, etc, etc….
peace

Paltry Fitz news today. Only headline I can find is this at Raw Story:

“Washington on edge over Rove, again… Networks plan
to stake out courthouse Friday… Developing…. “

superfly’s strong tag appears to have started this.

How’s that?

Here we go, folks!

Rawstory: US aircraft carriers move toward gulf

US military, intelligence officials raise concern about possible preparations for Iran strike

Concern is building among the military and the intelligence community that the US may be preparing for a military strike on Iran, as military assets in key positions are approaching readiness, RAW STORY has learned.

According to military and intelligence sources, an air strike on Iran could be doable in June of this year, with military assets in key positions ready to go and a possible plan already on the table.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0511.html

I think I need to mention this. The “Justice Dept investigators†being referred to in the “NSA shut down†are actually folks from the DOJ Professional Responsibility office only. IOW – this program(s) was not going to be investigated for criminal violations, period, ever, not as a part of that investigation definitely.

Only whether or not the actions of any DOJ lawyers (other than the AG) involved in or with the program(s) were “unethical.†Reviewing whether or not the program(s) were illegal had already been taken off the table by Inspector Gen. Fine et al – who deciderated that no one within any of the IG depts. had “jurisdiction†to investigate the President and AG with respect to the programs – even the dedicated IG that Congress established specifically to investigate violations and abuses of the Patriot Act (which includes FISA under its umbrella now) SO the IG that Congress specifically designates to make sure that FISA is not being violated — can’t investigate if the violations are ok’d by the President an AG according to Fine. Lack of *jurisdiction*

IOW – what it boils down to is not only is the program off limits (per Fine’s early position) bc of the President and AG, but whether or not our DOJ lawyers are acting within the constraints of their Prof. Responsibility obligations is “classified.†Think about that a minute.

Btw – read Luttig’s denial of transfer – read the DC District Court’s admonishments to the various DOJ lawyers involved in various and sundry of the detainee cases, in particular the feeding tubes case and see if maybe the issue has already been addressed and answered.

148 – other Tim

I think you’re on to something.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the WH is behind the USA Today story.

At the risk of repeating myself THEY THINK THIS ISSUE WORKS IN THEIR FAVOR.

They think it makes them look like they’re protecting America.

Yes, they are desperate. They forgot to factor in that no one believes them any more.

Nice piece by Peter Daou in HuffPo

>>>>>>>>>

We Are Frogs in Slow-Boiling Water

Here we go again: a story that could bring down any administration, especially considering the fabrications we’ve heard about the scope of the NSA’s activities and the legalities thereof. But part of me suspects we’ll be seeing the same old thing, a scattershot effort from Dem leaders, no genuine crisis coverage from the press, lockstep Republican apologists, and an eventual yawn as this fades into the Bush memory hole.

Remember: this is not about fighting terrorism, this is about honoring those things that make America the great nation it is. This is about honesty in government, about liberty, about our rights as Americans. This is about standing up to those who will run roughshod over the values our framers held dear, the values they enshrined in our binding document.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..20812.html

Christy -

Indeed I can tell. Kep up the good work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ed n S @155 – My guess would be the lawyers (whether inside or outside) got it right, and that the CEO (or other very senior exec) acquiesced.

Although inside counsel are usually more willing to take on business risk than outside counsel (who really only ever tell clients “No,” b/c then they can’t be held responsible if things go badly), something like this is a no brainer b/c there is no real business benefit (and no, I don’t think getting get clandenstine gov’t work is even close to being enough of a carrot to change the equation – even for Qwest, which is a very small company compared to the others and could use the work).

In case this has not already been mentioned on this or the prior thread, here is a link to Talkelft’s comments (via Raw Story) about the NSA phone record program:

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014808.html

Bush said:

“The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities.” “We’re not mining or trolling though the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.”

Excuse the hell out of me, but collecting the telephone numbers of the calls I make and receive is NOT “fiercely†protecting my privacy.

We have finally landed in the middle of Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky, with Bush in the starring role, and speaking the language.

new rawstory banner: Bill introduced to force NSA to ‘comply with law’… Soon

everhopeful #161:

a couple of weeks ago, a comment posted at du said her cousin, who is serving on a carrier with nukes, had a long-planned leave cancelled and was shipped out to the middle east.

General Hayden appeared on the hill with McConnell an hour ago (acc to cnn) after the WH had cancelled his meetings today and took one ? defending his lawful program.

And there’s this l’il blast from the past, May 27, 1999:

http://tinyurl.com/7j32r

“Last week, the House Committee on Intelligence requested that the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency provide a detailed report to Congress explaining what legal standards they use to monitor the conversations, transmissions and activities of American citizens.

The request is part of an amendment to the annual intelligence budget bill, the Intelligence Reauthorization Act. It was proposed by Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican and was supported by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, a Florida Republican.”

–

Hm, that explains those reports of BushCo’s displeasure with Porter Goss from the git.

DiFi said this may be heading to a Constitutional confrontation and may prove an impediment to Hayden’s confirmation.

well, DUH!

Oops (post 168) – In case this has not already been mentioned on this or the prior thread, here is a link to Talkelft’s TalkLeft’s comments (via Raw Story)

Cliff Varnell says:
May 11th, 2006 at 1:08 pm

Speaking of Bob Barr, I would like to see his comments about the NSA phone records program.

new thread

New thread

CBL @120

I totally agree with BKNY @150. What a freakin’ brilliant idea! Done in an organized way, the netroots could actually mobilize DONORS. Politicians always take calls from donors and do whatever it takes to make ‘em happy.

A PO’d donor calling to tell you to change your vote is very powerful. Having a plain old constitutent call SHOULd be powerful, but I am reported to be politically niave.

MSNBC headline: “President Bush says any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he’s approved are “lawful.â€â€

104#: but msnbc forgot to mention that fredo’s decree is that anything he designates as lawful is, in fact, legal.

Methinks the wingnuts are truly going off the reservation!

According to redstate (get this!), because the American people are starting to turn on chimpy and the GOP, it means that THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE NOW UNFIT TO GOVERN – UNFIT TO VOTE!

“Reading this morning’s New York Times article exploring, in excruciating detail, the results of their latest polling on the President has led me to an inescapable conclusion: The American people themselves are unfit to govern.”

(snip)

“Sigh. It’s looking pretty grim, folks — at least if you believe the Times and the people they selected to provide quotes for this article, which to my mind constitutes prima facie evidence that the American people may just be too stupid to be trusted with voting. And the Democrats are going to laugh all the way to the bank because of it. They love it when a plan comes together. No wonder Rupert Murdoch is raising money for Hillary: he’s a smart man who knows how to hedge his bets and pick winners.”

Their new obsession: REPEALING THE 17TH AMENDMENT!

http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/5/10/94332/9323

RE:158 jim preston (# 158)
One thing that I forgot to mention in my earlier post was this: Anytime you put anything in an e-mail, you should assume that you have just put it in the public domain. Trust me on that. I don’t want to get into techie arguments here, but it would be very foolish of anyone to assume otherwise

If you want to thwart the NSA take Wayne Madsen’s advice. From WMR:
April 20, 2006 — Beating Bush’s NSA e-mail surveillance simple. According to NSA sources, there is a simple method to avoid having one’s e-mail captured by NSA Internet filters that have been installed within major Internet exchanges, such as the AT&T facility in San Francisco, which is the subject of a class action suit against AT&T. By typing “Viagra” or “Cialis” in the message text, the filters will automatically identify the e-mail as spam and ignore it. The e-mail could contain the words “Al Qaeda” or “Bin Laden,” but as long as Viagra or Cialis are also contained in the text, the e-mail will pass through the filters without being intercepted.

Beating NSA e-mail surveillance — use the “blue pill” and your e-mail will not go down the rabbit hole

Spam filters rule!
~

Mary @ 142

Say it ain’t so! Not even token opposition to Kavanaugh? They couldn’t even keep him on the hot seat for a few weeks anf just bitchslap him until maybe he decided to withdraw. He coulda been borked, he mighta folded like estrada.

Sheez!

Mary again @ 163

Not givng security clearences to the professional integrty unit = there are still honest professionals left in the unit.

I think it is a standoff. Keep the unit clean so it can do it’s regular work and divert it from this work.

Somethin’ tells me there have been some epic battles in the corridors at DOJ. I think/hope we will see more on this story as well. DOJ has always been very leaky. Lot’s of lawyers gossiping with law school classmates or people they used to clerk with who ae now out at firms they’d like to work for one day. Federal practice is a very clubby part of the law. Everybody talks to every body else.

We may see this develope. I’m glad you think it is as pertinent as I do. I hope the backstory comes out.

Wow. Not only is this the first time I have commented on a blog (after lurking for years), it is also the first time I have ever contacted any elected official. For all of you out there wondering if this has legs, know that I am not alone. All of my friends have done the same. I really do believe that this could be The Big One.

O yeah, great work on this blog. Keep it up.

Tim

CBL: I said ok, I don’t expect a traitorous shill like Senator Cornyn to be concerned about my privacy, but I am getting off this phone and googling his ten largest contributors and ask them how they feel about being monitored -

Can somebody go suggest this at Kos, C&L, etc? (I’m just a lurker…) Imagine if thousands of enraged constituents started threatening to bother campaign donors. That would get some attention…

“By typing “Viagra†or “Cialis†in the message text, the filters will automatically identify the e-mail as spam and ignore it.”

ROTFL!

Please. Give the career professionals over at NSA just a little credit. If you’ve attracted their attention for any reason, a little Viagra is not gonna save your butt. Your marriage? Well, maybe. But definitely not your butt.

What’s strange to me is that two weeks ago I called my cellphone provider and complained that someone was continually calling me and spoke in what sounded like a middle eastern accent. I asked how did this person get my number and that were call they were calling at leasst twice a week and that I wanted my phone number changed. I joked and said I would hate to think that the govermment is planting calls on my phone. After today I don’t look at it like a joke. I’m mad now. Maybe some of you have had similar encounters.

#168

Note he qualified his statement with the word “innocent.” My guess is.. Democrats., activists, liberal bloggers, people with foreign-sounding names.. not so innocent… in that permanently swelled head of his. What he seems to have absolutely no clue of, is the concept of the rule of law. Now that we’ve despensed with such niceties, as pretending that we still have a constitution in place, we can start to plan who WE want to surveil once we run things again… Diebold executives, people who homeschool their kids, professional lobbyists, the families and relatives of defense contractors, Focus on the Family donors.. they will reap what they sow

Yea Tim E #183!! You go guy!

I hope there are lots more out there like you, as you say! :)

The only down side is, now you will feel the irresistible pull of the blogoverse and be hopelessly addicted…

I’ve already noticed one way they’re trying to spin this.

They’re claiming “Oh, don’t worry, we can’t possible go through all this data *now.* Just because we know every person you’ve communicated with doesn’t mean we care…”

Remember, your laptop would have been a supercomputer not too long ago. Even if they can’t completely search all of their database now, not too long from now they’ll be able to easily.

Anyways, secondary arguments are part of the smoke and mirrors- What’s the NSA doing with the communication-connections of the entire US population in the first place? When did we debate giving *anyone* the entire connections-records of 300 million people?

I’d also like to call attention to the EFF- the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a small non-profit that sued AT&T in January because of this NSA giveaway. The EFF lawsuit is where the first whistleblower came out to give additional support to the lawsuit, which in turn led to all this additional press attention.

Because the EFF works at the intersection of law and technology, their issues may seem obscure. What the EFF does is make sure all civil rights get upheld in cyberspace, and they’ve been doing this before most people were online.

I think this case proves exactly how important the EFF’s work over the past 16 years has been, and I encourage people to read what they do and then donate. They get an amazing amount of important work done for a small non-profit. Disclaimer: I’m a long-time supporter of the EFF and friends with people there.

Remember, the NSA is a Pentagon agency. It is the military that is spying upon us.

(Regarding the photo you used…).

C’mon: please don’t use our telescope (the Very Large Array) as if the neofascists use it to spy on us. It looks, it doesn’t listen. It looks at the far end of the universe, not the USA.

It’s bad enough that CITI blares commercials constantly on (supposedly) public TV, acting as if their ‘worldwide financial expertise’ made it possible. It was NSF (Natl, Sci. Foundation), not NSA funded; neither CITI nor NSA ever had/have anything to do with it…. grrr…..

A lot of hardworking astronomers made it, and still make it work; not a corporation, not a spy organization. It only uncovers secrets of the universe. Please go make your own power objects; thanks.

dk
National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Verizon is denying USA Today Report

FYI, received the following from my Verizon rep:

However, since your inquiry is a general one, I can provide information.

Recent stories suggest that the Federal Government has been collecting the phone records of potentially millions of Americans as part of the war on terror. The stories specifically reference customer records of landline companies, including AT&T and Verizon.

This is NOT a story that affects Verizon Wireless customers.

Verizon Wireless is not involved in this situation.

Of course what she says might be true. It’s more of an assertion than I really expected at this stage of the game. However if it proves to be false, which strikes me as easily possible, I think we may have an interesting class action here. Aspiring attorneys?

Sincerely,
(Verizon rep’s name removed to protect employee’s privacy)
Verizon Wireless
Customer Service

“We never stop working for you!”

Clarification … Verizon Wireless is saying they aren’t involved, not that Verizon Landline is uninvolved

Sinking ships? Quadrapedal mammals with scaley tails?

Uh, I’m as outraged as everybody else, but using a picture of the VLA in New Mexico, which isn’t even tuned to be able to listen to anything on the planet (it’s aimed at space folks) is wrong. If we get something simple like this wrong (and it’s called fact-checking, folks) then our enemies on the right will assume we’re wrong about other things, too.

So, get a picture of NSA spy dishes, but don’t use images of radio dishes that have NOTHING to do with the spy-on-Americans program.

D.King at 191 — Sorry, I was in a hurry and couldn’t find the pix I wanted on deadline. Trust me when I say that the VLA holds a special place in our household — I’m still holding out hope for “Contact” and all our computers run the SETI-at-home software. I just shortcutted the pix, that’s all. (And, frankly, it’s only because I didn’t have time for the usual lengthy search due to it being Fiona’s day home from preschool day, and spending time with her is more important.)

For what it’s worth (and it may not be much), there’s something very curious about the “get it all” approach that the NSA is going for (pushed by the Bushies). Something about it keeps nagging at me, this weird sense that it’s really about this panicked self-protective mechanism of certain types in the administration. Today, I read about a former Bush insider, Morgan Reynolds (he was the Labor Departments Chief Economist during 2001-2002) and how he’s jumped on the “9/11 truth” bandwagon, believing that it was an inside job designed to give support to a mid-east “long war”, increase military spending and dissolve constitutional civil liberties. As he tells it, some of the players in the plot are on the verge of stepping forward, that they hadn’t realized how extensive the attack was going to be due to the compartmentalization” that the cells of the plot worked in.

Needless to say, if this is true, it would trigger a constitutional crisis (how in the hell hasn’t it been triggered yet?) and the Bushies are losing their minds trying to keep things together. I’ve often wondered about the whole “secret prisons” thing, just why these guys felt they had to make a move like that…..and it could be that some of these guys they’ve kidnapped (maybe all of them?) have information, maybe gained inadvertently, accidentally, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, if you actually take a little bit of time to look into it, the whole “official story” of 9/11 is ridiculous and it’s highly likely that there are plenty of ordinary people who know (for a fact) that some part of the story is complete bullshit, because they were there! Add to that the people who were involved, some of them following orders that made no sense at the time, watching how everything has unfolded, well, some of them might decide that being a true patriot is worth more than their life (which was likely threatened after the fact) and they want to step forward and tell what they know. The Bushies would be watching them, looking for them to contact others (safety in numbers) so that they could step in front of the cameras together.

There’s some really interesting explanation as to why these clowns are going so far off the deep end with surveillance like this. My guess is that it doesn’t have a thing to do with the “safety of the nation”, rather, the safety of people in power.

Christy Hardin Smith says:
> D.King at 191 — Sorry, I was in a hurry and couldn’t find the pix I wanted on deadline.

Yeah, that’s cool; thanks. Just blowing off steam….

CITI’s unauthorized use of the VLA on public TV commercials (or is it ‘cit’? — my own fact checking is not too good) really gets to me a lot more, but that’s all rather off topic…
Good article.