• The “roving wiretap” provision allows the FBI to obtain wiretaps from a secret intelligence court, known as the FISA court (for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), without identifying the target or what method of communication is to be tapped.
• The “lone wolf” measure allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of a person for whatever reason — even without showing that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist. The government has said it has never invoked that provision, but the Obama administration said it wanted to retain the authority to do so.
• The “business records” provision allows FISA court warrants for any type of record, from banking to library to medical, without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation.
contradiction on spy satellite shootdown explanation from usnews: When the Pentagon ordered a Navy ship to shoot down a crippled U.S. spy satellite last February, it claimed the operation was necessary to prevent a harmful fuel from being dispersed in the atmosphere. At the time, critics charged that the Bush administration was using the toxic fuel as an excuse to demonstrate missile-defense and antisatellite capabilities.
Astrophysicist Yousaf Butt obtained U.S. government documents showing that NASA's own analysis concluded that the satellite's fuel tank was expected to burn up completely during re-entry—even though NASA probably overestimated the tank's chances of survival. "Despite its optimistic oversimplifications, the released study indicates that the tank would certainly have demised high up in the atmosphere," Butt, a staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, writes in an article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Up to now, U.S. officials had refused to release any of the prelaunch analyses regarding the fuel tank, claiming they contained sensitive information. But Butt says that the newly released documents clearly contradict the official explanation for the shoot-down, which was seen at the time as provocative and risky.
But just in time for a new administration (and the bundles of cash always at the ready for the expanding homeland security market), comes a complete "surveillance in a box" system called the Intelligence Platform!
According to New Scientist, German electronics giant Siemens has developed software allegedly capable of integrating "...tasks typically done by separate surveillance teams or machines, pooling data from sources such as telephone calls, email and internet activity, bank transactions and insurance records. It then sorts through this mountain of information using software that Siemens dubs 'intelligence modules'." New Scientist reports that the firm has sold the system to some 60 countries in Europe and Asia. Which countries? Well, Siemens won't say.
gore vidal: US never had democracy from press tv: American essayist Gore Vidal says that despite the US claim that it is making the world safer by perpetuating democracy, the country never had any democracy.
In an exclusive interview with Press Tv correspondent, Vidal said that the United States has never had democracy and the word never was used in the US constitution, Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence.
Vidal also said that America has fallen into the hands of a small group of people that only care about global dominance and making money from US tax payers by waging wars.
olbermann should take obama to task for fisa betrayal from kurt nimmo: Earlier this week, Keith Olbermann complained about FISA and the Justice Department’s proposed changes on domestic snooping. It was nice to hear Olbermann excoriate the government for creating an "embryonic police state," never mind this sucker is beyond gestation and growing in our midst like a tenacious weed...
Olbermann showed his real colors. He said the next president — assumed to be Obama, as Olbermann is a Democrat — will be saddled with Bush’s intelligence "embryo." Keith made it sound like Obama disapproves and the already long established and well developed snoop state apparatus will be a yoke around his neck. In fact, Obama voted in the Senate for the current FISA bill, to the chagrin of no shortage of Democrats, many now finally coming around and realizing there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans and if you turn ‘em upside down they all look alike.
Under Democrat Lyndon Johnson, the snoop state flourished, from COINTELPRO to the CIA’s Operation CHAOS and beyond. "At this time, there was an impression given to the intelligence community of ‘get the job done’ regardless of the methods," writes Major Kevin G. Donaleski, USMC.
fair use notice: this site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. we are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, & social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. In accordance with title 17 usc section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
from threat level: The House voted Monday to extend to December three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act spy legislation. The measure’s passage, by a 275-144 vote, was expected. The three provisions are expiring at month’s end. Rather than seriously debate or alter them, the House punted — the third failure by Congress in more than a year to address the law’s controversial issues. The measure now goes before the Senate, which is likely to follow the House’s course on legislation that was hastily adopted following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Here are the expiring provisions the House adopted:
