Mull on this...

F

ferdinand

First time out of the vault
For all you proud american citizens out there:

FIRST OF ALL:
There were two real reasons for Bush to go to war: 1: to be seen doing something about Osama bin Laden and Sep 11, etc. and get re-elected.
2: oil, and a foothold in the Middle East (in order to 'liberate' other countries when Iraq is sucked dry).


NOW:
The CIA, the proud protector of the American way, has been corrupted and bent to the whims of corporate greed. (oh the drama!)

Before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush Administration went to the CIA for information on Iraq that would justfy going to war. The CIA duly handed it over, and the Bush Administration said "Good, this proves out point, we're going to war."
At which point the CIA duly pointed out "Uhh, no it doesn't." Because the CIA doesn't lie to the president, even if its not what he wants to hear. (They learnt their lesson from WW2, FHW, Alexis Von Roenne and Hitler.)

To which Bush said "Shut up. Of course it proves our point."

So they make their merry way to war, which merrily turns pear-shaped, and you know how.

SO:
To save face Bush blames the CIA, and removes it from the top position of the American intel ladder.

Now the biggest intelligence organisation in the world, with its 250,000 undercover agents (spies) no longer has clearance to access top level American information.


Scary, aint it?




While you're at it, check out this page on E C H E L O N.
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html
It's scary too.
 
No, I mean, it's not that it's been posted before, it's just kind of stating the obvious.

In my opinion.
 
wow politix..mull on some toxic garbage while you are at it. Just sit back, relax, and watch , right? And buy a family size bag of potato chips and cola to go with that
 
Ferninand- An interesting attachment. The FBI had been playing with something similar in Carnivore. Didn't know about the NSA thing.

Interesting.

From what I could tell, it sounded like most of the intel was going to DIA. In a sense that's not too surprising. For example in World War 2, a lot of foreign policy was actually being done by the War Department (predecessor to the Defense Department) and not the State. At one point, the War Department planned to invade the Canary Island (I think) to establish a forward base- regardless of what that might mean for both Portugual and our alliance with the UK.
 
First post in a long time

I'll just go straight to a quote...

"If the Citizens of these United States knew how the international bankers were manipulating us, there would be revolution before the morn"

-Andrew Jackson (the only pres. to ever balance the budget)
 
ferdinand said:
1: to be seen doing something about Osama bin Laden and Sep 11, etc. and get re-elected.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. Total nonsense.

Not only is the Iraq wae totally unrelated to 9/11 and/or the War on Terror (except maybe in the sense that it's creating more terrorists), Bush was well-aware that post-9/11 the American people would be willing to go to great length to actually stop terrorism.

It was his own, concious, choice to haul over from terrorism to the fight for great world freedom. It was a bit of a gamble and it never really paid of, but no way Bush was stupid enough to expect his people to buy that the Iraq war is related to 9/11. Definitely not on a sociopsychological level.
 
I actually don?t mind a bit that he got his fight. If the French would have attacked irak and gotten Saddam nobody would argued with them (well the greenies always say something...), but it happened to be the americans and now they are getting the piss.

I?m not saying Bush is wise or anything (I frankly think he?s stupid, but not a moron). Nor do I think americans are the brightest people...hell no.

They picked a fight in Irak. Oh my.
________
Alaska Dispensaries
 
Brilliant post.

Like the French or any European country could afford a full-scale intercontinental war.

Sheesh.
 
I thought this was kind of interesting- even if most of the post was not.

From the link above-
In the greatest surveillance effort ever established, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. ECHELON is controlled by the NSA and is operated in conjunction with the Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) of England, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 1948 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today.
Click to expand...

Sounds like some kind of throwback to the Cold War built out of World War 2 cooperation. But considering the scope of this-how effective could this be. They might be able to eaves drop on some terrorist schmuck, but they have to know which schmuck to watch?

Didn't stop the bombings in London, for instance.

The ECHELON system is fairly simple in design: position intercept stations all over the world to capture all satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic communications traffic, and then process this information through the massive computer capabilities of the NSA, including advanced voice recognition and optical character recognition (OCR) programs, and look for code words or phrases (known as the ECHELON “Dictionary”) that will prompt the computers to flag the message for recording and transcribing for future analysis. Intelligence analysts at each of the respective “listening stations” maintain separate keyword lists for them to analyze any conversation or document flagged by the system, which is then forwarded to the respective intelligence agency headquarters that requested the intercept.
Click to expand...

Again, they would have to do a lot of footwork to figure out who or what to watch.

Illegal?

But apart from directing their ears towards terrorists and rogue states, ECHELON is also being used for purposes well outside its original mission. The regular discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of “unpopular” political affiliation or for no probable cause at all in violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution – are consistently impeded by very elaborate and complex legal arguments and privilege claims by the intelligence agencies and the US government. The guardians and caretakers of our liberties, our duly elected political representatives, give scarce attention to these activities, let alone the abuses that occur under their watch. Among the activities that the ECHELON targets are:
Click to expand...

But the rollback on civil rights has been going on in the US since the 1970s and furthered by the Rehnquist Court. So that's no big surprise.

Political spying: Since the close of World War II, the US intelligence agencies have developed a consistent record of trampling the rights and liberties of the American people. Even after the investigations into the domestic and political surveillance activities of the agencies that followed in the wake of the Watergate fiasco, the NSA continues to target the political activity of “unpopular” political groups and our duly elected representatives. One whistleblower charged in a 1988 Cleveland Plain Dealer interview that, while she was stationed at the Menwith Hill facility in the 1980s, she heard real-time intercepts of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. A former Maryland Congressman, Michael Barnes, claimed in a 1995 Baltimore Sun article that under the Reagan Administration his phone calls were regularly intercepted, which he discovered only after reporters had been passed transcripts of his conversations by the White House. One of the most shocking revelations came to light after several GCHQ officials became concerned about the targeting of peaceful political groups and told the London Observer in 1992 that the ECHELON dictionaries targeted Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and even Christian ministries.
Click to expand...

When they go after the Christians... surely it is evil. Because we all know Christians never lie or do anything morally reprehensible.....
Ya.

Blow up an abortion clinic lately?
Commercial espionage: Since the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe, the intelligence agencies have searched for a new justification for their surveillance capability in order to protect their prominence and their bloated budgets. Their solution was to redefine the notion of national security to include economic, commercial and corporate concerns. An office was created within the Department of Commerce, the Office of Intelligence Liaison, to forward intercepted materials to major US corporations. In many cases, the beneficiaries of this commercial espionage effort are the very companies that helped the NSA develop the systems that power the ECHELON network. This incestuous relationship is so strong that sometimes this intelligence information is used to push other American manufacturers out of deals in favor of these mammoth US defense and intelligence contractors, who frequently are the source of major cash contributions to both political parties.
Click to expand...

This is kind of interesting. Protect your defense industry by spying for them. It was true that after the Cold War there was some thought to retooling CIA to be more involved in commercial areas- but industrial spying and espionanage for favored industries- that's bad.

While signals intelligence technology was helpful in containing and eventually defeating the Soviet Empire during the Cold War, what was once designed to target a select list of communist countries and terrorist states is now indiscriminately directed against virtually every citizen in the world. The European Parliament is now asking whether the ECHELON communications interceptions violate the sovereignty and privacy of citizens in other countries. In some cases, such as the NSA’s Menwith Hill station in England, surveillance is conducted against citizens on their own soil and with the full knowledge and cooperation of their government.
Click to expand...

Be curious about how other countries respond to this.


This report suggests that Congress pick up its long-neglected role as watchdog of the Constitutional rights and liberties of the American people, instead of its current role as lap dog to the US intelligence agencies. Congressional hearings ought to be held, similar to the Church and Rockefeller Committee hearings held in the mid-1970s, to find out to what extent the ECHELON system targets the personal, political, religious, and commercial communications of American citizens. The late Senator Frank Church warned that the technology and capability embodied in the ECHELON system represented a direct threat to the liberties of the American people. Left unchecked, ECHELON could be used by either the political elite or the intelligence agencies themselves as a tool to subvert the civil protections of Constitution and to destroy representative government in the United States.
Click to expand...
 
welsh said:
This report suggests that Congress pick up its long-neglected role as watchdog of the Constitutional rights and liberties of the American people, instead of its current role as lap dog to the US intelligence agencies. Congressional hearings ought to be held, similar to the Church and Rockefeller Committee hearings held in the mid-1970s, to find out to what extent the ECHELON system targets the personal, political, religious, and commercial communications of American citizens. The late Senator Frank Church warned that the technology and capability embodied in the ECHELON system represented a direct threat to the liberties of the American people. Left unchecked, ECHELON could be used by either the political elite or the intelligence agencies themselves as a tool to subvert the civil protections of Constitution and to destroy representative government in the United States.
Click to expand...
[/quote]


Was that not the theme or subplot of Deus Ex? Granted, in the game it was the 'evil' UN that controlled ECHELON, but the idea remained the same.


Anyways, concerning ECHELON: What is the effectiveness of such a machine? I understand the concept desired to spy on people, but even with the most brilliant supercomputer it takes a large staff to piece together the clues. Supposedly certain words are 'tagged' and recorded, for the computer to sort later. Yet, where are the NSA people who filter this machine, and where would it be located? Cheyenne Mountain?
 
No, one of the listening stations is the US-UK branch, I know that. However, it has several regions it coordinates simultaneously I thought. My gues would be Fort Meade, after reconsideration.
 
So, write your local elected representative and demand they start impeachment proceedings on the hopes there are enough people who feel the same way.

No matter how corruption or much graft there is in American politics (and there is a lot), if enough people squeak, somebody will listen.
 
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