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Banned
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The biggest assault by our own elected officials, EVER...... on our right to keep unwarranted goverment intrusion out of our everyday lives, and no opinions or reaction posted, for a whole day?
Isn't there enough here to consider that the integrity of the next election is at stake, by the actions, lack of visibility, and resistance to congressional inquiry, routinely practiced by the Bush Cheney administration? Why is it not the logical reaction to what they are documented to be doing to us? Are we that complacent, resigned, and or indifferent?
The reason I believe that the current administration cannot smoothly transition, unless John McCain "wins" the november election, is because they cannot unwind what they have started....it's gotten too large for that, and their patrons, the corporations who run the state security apparatus for the regime, probably wouldn't like life under the oversight of an Obama administration...
Ya think????
The following documents that James B. Comey went directly from courageous acting US AG, blocking the efforts by Gonzales to force the gravely ill Ashcroft to approve a secret surveillance program renewal....to....general counsel of major US intelligence contractor, Lockheed Martin, and Comey has done quite well, in the 28 months he worked there, as of last December. DOJ salary to buying a $2.2 million home, in just two years.....
Ask yourself, do you think this administration has built all of this to routinely turn it all over to Obama and company, just 8 months from now, or is it just possible that they have created the domestic intelligence gathering organization to control the outcome of future elections?
If you look at the bottom quote box, you will see that they've even attempted to wipe out the evidence online, of their overzealous detention and deportation plan. Why did they scrub the web page describing the Operation ENDGAME, when the Massachusetts ACLU wrote an Op-ED about it, if it is a routine alien control program?
Why does the house DHS oversight committee, as I document in my last post, have to threaten to subpoena the presidential transition plan, drafted by DHS for next January 20th? Why won;t DHS share the plan with duly elected, authorized, bi-partisan contingent of congressmen with the security classifications to examine the planning documents?
All of the documentation that follows, relates to the documentation in the thread OP.
The administation does not trust you, they make that quite obvious. Why then, do you trust them to permit an orderly transition? Why take that risk, if you value the protections we thought we had, against overzealous or illegal government interference in our lives? Why not look into what I am showing you, ask questions, and do your own DD, but visibly, vocally, for the purpose of putting them on notice, as they have put all of us on notice, that the rules of the game have changed, irrespective of the laws of the land?
Quote:
http://www.washingtonian.com/article...rden/5844.html
Luxury Homes: December 2007
By Mary Clare Fleury
<img src="http://www.washingtonian.com/page_dbimages/5844/12.01.07.luxhomes.jpg">
Former top Justice official James Comey bought this McLean house for $2.2. million. Photographs by David Pipkin
....In Virginia: James B. Comey, a key figure in the scandal surrounding former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, and his wife, Patrice, bought a house on Kirby Road in McLean for $2.2 million. Comey, who was a top aide to Gonzales and predecessor John Ashcroft, testified this year about Gonzales’s hospital-room visit to persuade Ashcroft to certify the legality of the Bush administration’s warrantless-wiretapping program. Comey resigned from the administration in 2005 and became general counsel and senior vice president for Lockheed Martin.....
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070601993.html
By R.J. Hillhouse
Sunday, July 8, 2007; Page B05
“Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire.”
...In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed — and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn’t want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.
…
Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) — the heart, brains and soul of the CIA — <h3>has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.</h3>
These firms recruit spies, create non-official cover identities and control the movements of CIA case officers. They also provide case officers and watch officers at crisis centers and regional desk officers who control clandestine operations worldwide. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism -- Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan -- is made up of industrial contractors, or "green badgers," in CIA parlance.
Intelligence insiders say that entire branches of the NCS have been outsourced to private industry. These branches are still managed by U.S. government employees ("blue badgers") who are accountable to the agency's chain of command. But beneath them, insiders say, is a supervisory structure that's controlled entirely by contractors; in some cases, green badgers are managing green badgers from other corporations.....
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Quote:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hillhouse
Outsourcing Intelligence
By R.J. Hillhouse
July 24, 2007
....Over the past six years, a quiet revolution has occurred in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing to corporations and away from the long-established practice of keeping operations in US government hands, with only select outsourcing of certain jobs to independently contracted experts. Key functions of intelligence agencies are now run by private corporations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revealed in May that 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to contractors.
For all practical purposes, effective control of the NSA is with private corporations, which run its support and management functions. As the Washington Post's Walter Pincus <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601088.html">reported</a> last year, more than 70 percent of the staff of the Pentagon's newest intelligence unit, CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity), is made up of corporate contractors. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) lawyers revealed at a conference in May that contractors make up 51 percent of the staff in DIA offices. At the CIA, the situation is similar. Between 50 and 60 percent of the workforce of the CIA's most important directorate, the National Clandestine Service (NCS), responsible for the gathering of human intelligence, is composed of employees of for-profit corporations....
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This was reported 17 months before James Comey confirmed to a senate committee that it was an accurate account:
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/po...OsskSZSD8Q8xFg
January 1, 2006
Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - A top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight, according to officials with knowledge of the tense internal debate. The concerns appear to have played a part in the temporary suspension of the secret program.
The concerns prompted two of President Bush's most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now attorney general - to make an emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004 to discuss the program's future and try to win the needed approval from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the officials said.
The unusual meeting was prompted because Mr. Ashcroft's top deputy, James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in his absence, had indicated he was unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects of the program, as required under the White House procedures set up to oversee it.
With Mr. Comey unwilling to sign off on the program, the White House went to Mr. Ashcroft - who had been in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital with pancreatitis and was housed under unusually tight security - because "they needed him for certification," according to an official briefed on the episode. The official, like others who discussed the issue, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the program.
Mr. Comey declined to comment, and Mr. Gonzales could not be reached.
Accounts differed as to exactly what was said at the hospital meeting between Mr. Ashcroft and the White House advisers. But some officials said that Mr. Ashcroft, like his deputy, appeared reluctant to give Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales his authorization to continue with aspects of the program in light of concerns among some senior government officials about whether the proper oversight was in place at the security agency and whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to conduct such an operation.
It is unclear whether the White House ultimately persuaded Mr. Ashcroft to give his approval to the program after the meeting or moved ahead without it.....
.....What is known is that in early 2004, about the time of the hospital visit, the White House suspended parts of the program for several months and moved ahead with more stringent requirements on the security agency on how the program was used, in part to guard against abuses.
The concerns within the Justice Department appear to have led, at least in part, to the decision to suspend and revamp the program, officials said. The Justice Department then oversaw a secret audit of the surveillance program. ....
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/po...=1&oref=slogin
Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
Published: December 24, 2005
The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, <h3>is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.</h3>
As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain <h3>backdoor access to streams of domestic</h3> and international communications, the officials said.
…
What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. <h3>Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.</h3>
…
This so-called ‘’pattern analysis'’ on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.
The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts <h3>has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system</h3>, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.
But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.’s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.
A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.
‘’All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there’s been much more active involvement in that area,'’ said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.
<h3>Such information often proves just as valuable to the government as eavesdropping on the calls themselves</h3>, the former manager said.
…
Several officials said that after President Bush’s order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States’ communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.
The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.
…
Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. <h3>But the N.S.A.’s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency’s operational capability</h3>, according to current and former government officials.
Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. ‘’If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you’re really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data,'’ he said......
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Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/24/...-in-name-only/
<h2 class="title"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/24/national-journal-total-information-awareness-stopped-in-name-only/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to 'National Journal: Total Information Awareness ‘Stopped In Name Only’'">National Journal: Total Information Awareness ‘Stopped In Name Only’</a><span class="storyexpander"><a class="storyexpander" id="exlink1-19090">»</a></span></h2>
<p><img src="/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/tia.jpg" class="imgright" alt="" />The National Journal has <a href="http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0223nj1.htm">published a major exposé</a> on Total Information Awareness, the controversial data mining program that Congress voted to terminate in 2003. </p>
<p>Earlier this month, ThinkProgress <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/11/tia-lives/">noted</a> a Newsweek story reporting that “very quietly, the core of TIA survives with a new codename of Topsail.” The National Journal adds several new details to the picture.</p>
<p>The core components of TIA have been moved to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Advanced_Research_and_Development_Activity">Advanced Research and Development Activity</a>, housed at NSA headquarters. <strong>According to the Journal, “The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts.”</strong> Emails written by subcontractors working to design these components show that the program continues under the codename “Basketball”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Congress’s decision to pull TIA’s funding in late 2003 “caused a significant amount of uncertainty for all of us about the future of our work,” Hicks executive Brian Sharkey wrote in an e-mail to subcontractors at the time. <strong>“Fortunately,” Sharkey continued, “a new sponsor has come forward that will enable us to continue much of our previous work.” Sources confirm that this new sponsor was ARDA. Along with the new sponsor came a new name. “We will be describing this new effort as ‘Basketball,’ ” Sharkey wrote</strong>, apparently giving no explanation of the name’s significance.</p></blockquote>
<p>Also notable is testimony given earlier this month by National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. As we <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/03/intel-stonewalling/">pointed out</a> at the time, Negroponte claimed ignorance about the status of TIA:</p>
<blockquote><p>WYDEN: Mr. Director, is it correct that when John Poindexter’s program, Operation Total Information Awareness, was closed, that several of Mr. Poindexter’s projects were moved to various intelligence agencies?</p>
<p>NEGROPONTE: I don’t know the answer to that question.</p></blockquote>
<p>Today’s report suggests that answer was misleading at best. Not only does it appear that Negroponte was aware of the ongoing activities, his office will soon control them.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>ARDA now is undergoing some changes of its own. The outfit is being taken out of the NSA, placed under the control of Negroponte’s office, and given a new name.</strong> … Officials with the intelligence director’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.</p></blockquote>
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Quote:
http://www.aclum.org/issues/ice_doc_gallery.php
"Endgame" Documents: Before and After
On March 26, 2007, the Boston Globe ran our <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/26/inhumane_raid_was_just_one_of_many/">op-ed</a> about operation Endgame, the plan to remove all 12 million undocumented immigrants from the United States by 2012. We wrote the piece to point out that the March 2007 raid in New Bedford by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents was not just an isolated incident, but part of a detailed and ambitious plan that will likely require similar tactics on an even greater scale.
After that (and starting the very next day), something interesting happened. While <a href="http://aclumedia.blogspot.com/2007/04/lte-immigration-op-ed-new-aclu-low.html">publicly</a> taking issue with our assertion that Endgame uses tactics similar to the ethnic cleansing we saw in the Balkans during the 1990s -- lightning raids, mass arrests, packed detention centers, and mass deportations -- ICE has quietly removed documents about operation Endgame from its website, ice.gov.
Fortunately, we anticipated this and saved copies.
The operation Endgame strategic plan itself used to be available online <a href="http://www.ice.gov/doclib/pi/dro/endgame.pdf">here</a>.
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Update....the "here" link, in the last sentence, in the quote box above, is indeed, dead now, but.....
Stupid government stooges were embarrassed into removing their corporatist detention planning document, but it's still archived here:
http://web.archive.org/web/200609261...ro/endgame.pdf
<h3>Isn't it just a bit fucking curious that the mainstream media simply stopped digging to find the justification for the determination of Gonzales and Andrew Card to roust Ashcroft from his ICU hospital bed, while James Comey and FBI director Mueller had decided to resign if Gonzales and Card succeeded iin their Bush directed errand? The press dropped their inquiry, after James Comey's sensational confirmation of the Jan. 1, 2006 NY Times reporting on the confrontation, ....it's been a year since Comey's senate testimony.</h3>
I am not a sheep.....I am not a sheep....I am not a......
Last edited by host; 05-22-2008 at 04:08 AM..
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