12/3/2008

> News

The panopticon economy
The NSA’s new data-mining facility is one component of a growing local surveillance industry

Greg M. Schwartz

It looks innocent enough, but no loitering, please: The NSA’s Texas Cryptology Center, under construction at 410 and West Military.

By Greg M. Schwartz

Surrounded by barbwire fencing, the anonymous yet massive building on West Military Drive near San Antonio’s Loop 410 freeway looms mysteriously with no identifying signs of any kind. Surveillance is tight, with security cameras surrounding the under-construction building. Readers are advised not to take any photos unless you care to be detained for at least a 45-minute interrogation by the National Security Agency, as this reporter was.

There’s a strangely blurry line during such an interrogation. After viewing the five photos I’d taken of the NSA’s new Texas Cryptology Center, the NSA officer asked if I would delete them. When I asked if he was ordering me to do so, he said no; he was asking as a personal favor. I declined and was eventually released.

America’s top spy agency has taken over the former Sony microchip plant and is transforming it into a new data-mining headquarters — oddly positioned directly across the street from a 24-hour Walmart — where billions of electronic communications will be sifted in the agency’s mission to identify terrorist threats.

“No longer able to store all the intercepted phone calls and e-mail in its secret city, the agency has now built a new data warehouse in San Antonio, Texas,” writes author James Bamford in the Shadow Factory, his third book about the NSA. “Costing, with renovations, upwards of $130 million, the 470,000-square-foot facility will be almost the size of the Alamodome. Considering how much data can now be squeezed onto a small flash drive, the new NSA building may eventually be able to hold all the information in the world.”

Bamford’s book focuses on the NSA’s transformation since 9/11, with the impetus for the new facility being a direct ramification of those attacks. At the time, the NSA had only about 7 percent of its facilities outside the Washington D.C./Baltimore area. But the realization that additional attacks could virtually wipe out the agency catalyzed a regional expansion. [See “Secret Agency Man,” November 5, 2008.]

The new facility is a potential boon to the local economy since it’s reportedly going to employ around 1,500 people, but questions remain about whether there will be adequate oversight to prevent civil-rights violations like Uncle Sam’s recent notorious warrantless wiretapping program. The NSA would suggest the facility’s ability to sort through surveillance data is one of America’s top defenses against terrorist threats, but the NSA’s presence comes with concerns that abuse of its secretive power could see the agency become akin to the “Thought Police” of 1984, George Orwell’s classic novel depicting the nightmare of a total surveillance society — and all for nothing. Even as the facility is completed, a new government-backed report has concluded that data surveillance is an ineffective method for identifying potential terrorists or preventing attacks.

So just what will be going on inside the NSA’s new San Antonio facility? Bamford describes former NSA Director Mike Hayden’s goals for the data-mining center as knowing “exactly what Americans were doing day by day, hour by hour, and second by second. He wanted to know where they shopped, what they bought, what movies they saw, what books they read, the toll booths they went through, the plane tickets they purchased, the hotels they stayed in… In other words, Total Information Awareness, the same Orwellian concept that John Poindexter had tried to develop while working for the Pentagon’s [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency].”

Bamford details how Hayden, now head of the CIA, had originally leaned toward being overprotective of civil rights, not wanting to see the NSA revisit the scandal-ridden era of the 1970s and the violations of “Project Shamrock.” But 9/11 altered Hayden’s philosophical direction 180 degrees. The Total Information Awareness project supposedly died when the plan was exposed, Poindexter resigned, and Congress cut off further funding. But Bamford and others have reported that the project simply migrated to the NSA, “an agency with a far better track record than DARPA for keeping secrets.”

The NSA remembers the Alamo

The NSA was waffling on selection of a home for its new facility when the City of San Antonio sent a mission to NSA headquarters in January 2007 to lobby for it, part of a continuing effort to woo the agency. On January 18, Microsoft announced its selection of San Antonio for a new data center. The NSA followed suit three months later. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff was part of the effort to entice the NSA to choose San Antonio. He says talks centered on economic factors and what the city could do to facilitate the NSA’s plans.

“They’re pretty tight on what they do; they don’t share that information with you,” says Wolff. “I hope that the administration will be addressing [civil-rights violations], and I hope they’re correcting those concerns.”

Bamford writes about how NSA and Microsoft had both been eyeing San Antonio for years because it has the cheapest electricity in Texas, and the state has its own power grid, making it less vulnerable to power outages on the national grid. He notes that it seemed the NSA wanted assurance Microsoft would be here, too, before making a final commitment, due to the advantages of “having their miners virtually next door to the mother lode of data centers.” The new NSA facility is just a few miles from Microsoft’s data center of the same size. Bamford says that under current law, NSA could gain access to Microsoft’s stored data without even a warrant, but merely a fiber-optic cable.

“What the Microsoft people will have will be just storage of a lot of the email that is being sent. They keep this email — I don’t know why — and there should be some legislation saying how long it should be kept,” said Bamford in a phone interview last week. “The post office doesn’t keep copies of our letters when we mail letters; why should the telecom companies or the internet providers keep copies of our email? It doesn’t make sense to me. But there’s no legislation. So they need a place to store it, and that’s where they’re storing all this stuff.”

(Microsoft did not return a call for comment before press deadline.)

The new NSA facility boosts the agency’s already formidable presence in South Texas, where they have 2,000 employees on the Medina Annex of the Lackland Air Force Base — mostly Signals Intelligence, or Sigint, specialists, who use cutting-edge technology to intercept anything from faxes to emails and satellite communications.

NSA’s new facility also gives the agency easy access to UTSA’s Institute for Cyber Security and the school’s Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security. The ICS was founded in 2007 with a $3.5-million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to continue efforts to protect American communities against cyber-attacks, with the CIAS — a think tank launched in 2001 — being rolled into the ICS. All of this led U.S. Representative Ciro Rodriguez (D-San Antonio) to declare San Antonio “the center of cybersecurity, in the country and the world.”

ICS Founding Executive Director Ravi Sandhu acknowledges some synergy between the NSA presence in San Antonio and UTSA’s cybersecurity work.

“Cybersecurity in the public domain has largely been about defense, but there’s certainly an attack component to it. To some degree, the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence agencies are now starting to talk about the attack component in the public domain,” says Sandhu.

Sandhu says UTSA’s cybersecurity students are recruited by many of San Antonio’s local employers and doesn’t doubt that NSA is one of them. “Recruiting is one end … but it’s an attractive thing for NSA employees [too]. They can further their education — they can do degrees part-time, they can do advanced degrees … so there are advantages beyond direct recruitment of NSA students.”

Does automated data mining even work?

While the opening of the NSA’s massive new data center heightens existing civil-rights concerns, a new report from the National Research Council questions whether such data-mining is even effective. Sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation and released in October of this year, the report suggests that pattern-based data-mining is not even a viable way to identify terrorists.

The 352-page study —“Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists” — concludes that identification of terrorists through automated data-mining “is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts.” It also says inevitable false positives will result in “ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses” being erroneously flagged as suspects.

“Actions such as arrest, search, or denial of rights should never be taken solely on the basis of an automated data-mining result,” says the report. The question, then, is how rigorously will human analysts vet such information before alleged leads are pursued, and who has oversight of the process?

“Part of the problem is … jurisdiction over national-security issues is very divided in Congress. You have the Homeland Security committee, the Justice committee, but, of course, you also have some basic issues — government oversight, appropriations,” says Professor Fred Cate, the NRC committee member who wrote most of the report and who serves as director of Indiana University’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. “So I think in some ways one of the issues is the need for a more streamlined oversight system so that somebody takes responsibility for it.”

Cate says the migration of the TIA project to the NSA is part of the problem.

“Because so many different agencies are involved and because there are no consistent oversight mechanisms, it’s very hard [to monitor]. And Congress created a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and then it didn’t like the way it created it initially, so then it recreated it with more powers, but it never confirmed any members to it,” says Cate. “So for the past year, there’s been nobody in that critical position. So I think one immediate step for Congress and the new president will be to nominate members and get them confirmed.”

The lack of clearly delineated oversight remains a vital yet unsolved issue. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Virginia), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would appear to be the Congressman with the most power to pursue such oversight.

“Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, but now it’s mostly the security, industrial complex; it’s these people that build all the hardware and software for Homeland Security and Intelligence and all that,” says Bamford. “As far as I can see, nobody has a handle on how many contractors are out there, what they’re doing, how much money’s going to them, how much is useful, how much is wasted money.”

Cate says the NRC committee is not necessarily opposed to data-mining in principal, but is concerned about how it’s carried out. “The question is can you do it and make it work so that you don’t intrude unnecessarily into privacy and so that you reach reliable conclusions.”

Bamford writes in the Shadow Factory of how the NSA’s Georgia listening post has eavesdropped on Americans during the Iraq War, including journalists, without a warrant or any indication of terrorism. He also reports on NSA eavesdropping on undecided members of the United Nations Security Council in the run-up to the vote on the Iraq War resolution, with the Bush regime seeking information with which to twist the arms of voting countries. The spying was only revealed due to British Parliament whistleblower Claire Short, who admitted she’d read secret transcripts of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s confidential conversations.

“The UN people have been aware of [NSA eavesdropping] for a long time, but there’s not much they can do about it,” says Bamford.

A common response to concerns about data surveillance is that those who keep their noses clean have nothing to worry about. But the reach of the NSA’s surveillance net combined with lack of oversight and the political paranoia escalated by the 9/11 attacks means that almost anyone could wind up on the terrorist watch list.

“The principal end product of all that data and all that processing is a list of names — the watch list — of people, both American and foreign, thought to pose a danger to the country,” writes Bamford. “Once containing just twenty names, today it is made up of an astonishing half a million — and it grows rapidly every day. Most on the list are neither terrorists nor a danger to the country, and many are there simply by mistake.”

Bamford reports that consequences of being on the list could include having an application for a Small Business Administration loan turned down; having a child’s application to one of the military academies rejected; or, because the names are shared with foreign governments, being turned away after landing in Europe for a vacation or business trip. All without ever being told why.

A senior intelligence official concerned about the situation told Bamford “the system is a disaster,” adding that the list at the National Counterterrorism Center isn’t even compatible with the NSA and CIA systems.

“They could be snooping on just about anything right now and not be accountable and be able to hold their hands up and go, ‘Our system doesn’t track that,’ when in many cases the system does, but the code is so convoluted you could never know it,” says the official.

Bamford also reports on Uncle Sam’s skyrocketing use of “national security letters” for obtaining personal information. The NSLs, which do not require probable cause or court approval, jumped from 8,500 in 2000 to 143,074 between 2003 and 2005, according to a 2007 Justice Department inspector general’s report. Under the revised version of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, it’s not only a crime for any company to refuse to cooperate, it’s also become a crime for company officials to even disclose their cooperation.

“There was a lot of pressure by the FBI in ’94 to have CALEA enacted … but the Clinton Administration was in favor of doing all that,” says Bamford.

The question for us then becomes who, if anyone, is watching the watchdogs? One organization devoted to such duty is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based non-profit whose mission is to protect electronic civil liberties. Reducing the use of NSLs to gag and acquire data from online service providers is one of the planks in EFF’s proposed privacy agenda for the new Obama administration.

“The issue here is that when people are gagged, you can’t talk about it and [people] don’t know what kind of abuses there are,” says EFF media-relations coordinator Rebecca Jeschke. The EFF privacy agenda also includes repealing or repairing the FISA Amendments Act, reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and reform of the State Secrets Privilege, the latter which has been used by the Bush regime to shield its electronic surveillance activity from judicial review.

The EFF filed a lawsuit against the NSA in September on behalf of AT&T customers who were victims of warrantless wiretapping, with defendants including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and NSA Director Keith Alexander. The EFF also filed suit against AT&T — until this summer headquartered in San Antonio, the telecom giant still maintains a sizable presence here — for participating in the illegal surveillance program, and is challenging the FISA Amendments Act passed by Congress in July — which gave retroactive immunity to the telecom companies — as being unconstitutional.

“Where I disagreed was the immunity to telecommunications entities … and that’s why I couldn’t support something that provided for the immunity provision,” says U.S. Representative Charlie Gonzalez (D-San Antonio) of the FISA Amendments Act. “We had something that we thought in the House was good, and then the Senate did their own thing. But I was never happy with the inclusion of the blanket-immunity provision to telecommunications entities, because I thought it relieved them of a responsibility and duty that they owe as corporate citizens.”

Gonzalez added that he thinks “there’s still tremendous shortcomings in the law when it comes to making sure that you don’t have abuses of the authority of eavesdropping.”

The Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., a public interest research group whose mission is similar to EFF’s, is suing the Department of Justice for access to documents authored by government lawyers regarding President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. These opinions, prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel, provided the legal rationale for Uncle Sam to wiretap American citizens in the United States without court approval. On October 31, a federal judge ordered the DOJ to provide for independent judicial inspection of documents relating to the program.

The latest news in Uncle Sam’s ongoing surveillance scandal happens to come from the FBI’s involvement with the NSA. The Washington Times reported in November that Supervisory Special Agent Bassem Youssef, who oversees the FBI’s role in the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program, says the FBI engaged in unlawful acts while carrying out that surveillance. Youssef, who now fears career retaliation for stepping up as a whisteblower, is due to testify with the Justice Department.

Whether or not the new Obama administration will enact any demonstrable change in the personnel and policies that created the civil-rights violations of recent years remains a question mark.

“Everything I’ve seen so far with Obama has not been focused on change. It’s been focused on bringing back the old Clinton Administration or continuing the same,” says Bamford, noting the President-elect’s decisions to nominate Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Bamford mentions Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold as someone he feels would fight for greater accountability.

“That’s a person I would like to see rewarded for making the right decision, instead of people being rewarded for making the wrong decisions,” says Bamford of Feingold’s record in voting against the revised FISA Amendments Act and being the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act.

Bamford ends The Shadow Factory by quoting Senator Frank Church, the first chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, during the original hearings on the NSA in the 1970s. “If a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology,” said Church more than three decades ago.

That technology now sees its latest evolution occurring at the shadowy building on San Antonio’s West Military Drive. •

On 12/3/2008 10:38:46 AM, Anonymous said:

What a complete load of crap! This is just a rehash of the story you ran 2-3 weeks ago. How much is Bamford paying you to advertise his book?

On 12/4/2008 10:47:51 AM, Gschwartz said:

I dare say this story makes a gainful attempt to follow up on that one, presenting a more in-depth look at the local facility as well as the current state of the civil rights issues surrounding it.

On 12/4/2008 11:31:25 AM, jones said:

Surveillance requires surveillance.

On 12/4/2008 12:35:14 PM, Anonymous said:

Uh... and, the alternative being suggested, is...???

On 12/4/2008 2:33:01 PM, Anonymous said:

Who is watching the watchers???

On 12/4/2008 2:51:09 PM, Anonymous said:

The quote from Frank church gives us a clue that maybe the Government does know what the terrorists are up to.

Would like to see something in San Francisco that looked like Mumbai. We need it.

On 12/4/2008 6:00:28 PM, Anonymous said:

The Patriot Act ROCKS!

On 12/4/2008 8:40:48 PM, Anonymous said:

If the terrorists do take over …the first ones they will dispose of will be the whining Liberals.

Not being paranoid will not stop them from plotting against us.

On 12/5/2008 6:45:39 AM, Anonymous said:

The author(s) should note that the NSA and it's data base is one big reason why he(they) still enjoys the right to undermine national inteligence efforts. Such spin would qualify as seditions in many countries. (I have to say this; they may be listening) Good grief Charlie Brown!

On 12/5/2008 11:11:26 AM, Anonymous said:

Article is typical of a left-wing journalist, light on facts and long on crap.

On 12/5/2008 2:05:47 PM, Gschwartz said:

Dear Mr. Anonymous,

Please do share what type of facts you feel are missing that you'd like to see...

On 12/5/2008 3:23:26 PM, Anonymous said:

Datamining: examining the corn in somebody's shit, and trying to guess what they're having for lunch.

On 12/5/2008 4:28:39 PM, jones said:

Anonymous - It sounds like you prefer other countries with worse civil rights and where dissent is sedition. If you would like to move to other countries with worse civil rights, no one is stopping you. Also, it's funny that you can't spell the word "intelligence". I'm just saying...

On 12/5/2008 8:12:34 PM, Anonymous said:

How do you call the cops on the cops?

Putting too much power in the hands of a 'select' few is always a recipe for disaster. I come from a family of war veterans (dad WWII. me Vietnam)and none of us fought overseas just so the powers that be could push us around and dictate how to live.

Those who trade freedom for security deserve to lose both. —Benjamin Franklin

On 12/5/2008 10:05:17 PM, Anonymous said:

whoever said that we need something that looked like mumbai in san francisco had better calm the fuck down. 163 people were killed in last weeks attack in mumbai. to wish that on any american city is traitorous. and why san francisco? it seems like all of you right wing inbreds think of SF as the worst city in the country. it is still an american city. there are still right wing loons that live there too. would you be satisfied if an attack like that were carried out in san antonio? or houston? would that be teaching america a lession? i dont know what you were thinking when you made that ignorant, careless statement, but you should maybe reevaluate what it is you consider being american. there is nothing patriotic about what you said, no matter what your opinion on the nsa or govt is.

On 12/6/2008 6:05:39 PM, Anonymous said:

To the author:

Get Michael Moore's dick out of your ass and write a worthwhile article.

On 12/7/2008 3:24:23 AM, Anonymous said:

I think we should get a bunch of people to go down a take pictures of the NSA building and waste their time.

On 12/7/2008 4:43:39 AM, Anonymous said:

You know, the Stasi is starting to look downright quaint compared to this. In East Germany, your neighborhood informants filed written reports on you. Here, the NSA has the process fully automated.

Funny how it only took 20 years for us to become the Evil Empire that Reagan vanquished. Osama bin Laden has won.

On 12/7/2008 9:45:48 AM, Anonymous said:

Its ok. Hussein Obama with Hillary at his side will be cutting government spending as Dems do. Maybe Sony will take their plant back.

On 12/7/2008 2:41:45 PM, Gschwartz said:

Here's the latest from the LA Times, for the commenter of 12/6 at 6:05:

| Spying on Pacifists, Environmentalists and Nuns

http://www.truthout.org/120708Y

Bob Drogin, The Los Angeles Times: "'Lucy' was an undercover Maryland State Police trooper who between 2005 and 2007 infiltrated more than two dozen rallies and meetings of nonviolent groups. Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by 'Lucy' and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database - and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency. Among those labeled as terrorists: two Catholic nuns, a former Democratic congressional candidate, a lifelong pacifist and a registered lobbyist. One suspect's file warned that she was "involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings."

On 12/7/2008 3:36:44 PM, Anonymous said:

Just another sign of America turning into a totalitarian state. The founding fathers would be appalled at the attacks on individual privacy. These surveillance tactics are the very things our constitution was created to stop. Unfortunately, Bush's cronies on the supreme court turn a blind eye to personal freedoms and civil rights. American democracy and freedom died Januar 20, 2001.

On 12/7/2008 7:30:43 PM, Anonymous said:

"Funny how it only took 20 years for us to become the Evil Empire."

Your observation about the nature of Empire is completely correct, but what's changed isn't the U.S. character, but our ability to begin to see it in ourselves in the absence of an "other" on which to project it (and thus deny it about ourselves).

The reason the U.S. has been so violently enraged for an entire century at the behaviors of those it branded "Evil" is that it is simply an exercise in collective projection - rejection of the part of us that we can't accept, so much so we'd rather kill that part of ourselves (and thus kill it when we imagine we see it in others) than acknowledge it. That's why we rail against the Stasi but then far outdo their intrusions, shake our fists at the Soviets but run our economy into the ground through the excesses of the centrally-planned military-industrial oligarchy, decry terrorism while callously, even righteously dropping bombs on innocent men, women and children.

These features of our country are indeed shameful and stomach-turning. And they can no more be healed by denial than a diagnosis of cancer can be healed by denial and assertions that one feels fine. Our denial (which is so, so understandable in the face of the unthinkable) is really just the first step in the grieving process - grief at the death of our national self-delusion of being the perfect, immortal, God-like savior and hero.

The small glimmer of hope is that people such as yourself are beginning to recognize those features at all. It's the beginning of recognizing that what we see in the mirror isn't our enemy - it's *us*.

And that's the next, necessary step in actually changing it, in ourselves and the world.

And what we will finally get, once we grieve the death of our self-image as the perfect, immortal savior and hero, is the chance to live a life that *actually experiences and celebrates our own humanity - that loves being imperfect, human, and mortal.*

It's what Christ couldn't do, because in order to be reunited with God Christ had to die to his own humanity. And we, because we're not Christ (which is what we're slowly realizing), have the opportunity to take the next step and write the next great chapter in human experience. We get the chance, if we can tolerate it and not simply reject the parts of ourselves that we fear, don't understand, and don't yet love - what a funny idea! Would any God be so small as to hate *any* part of what He created, which are all simply part of Himself? - we get the chance to live in connection to God (which again is just all that we don't yet know as ourselves) while we also celebrate and love being human.

To complete the Christian tradition, *that's* the return of the Savior, who brings Heaven to Earth - not the appearance of some other perfect person somewhere, but each of *us* consciously living as our own part of God, as the simple, human embodiment of God's love and love of *everything*, right here, right now.

So the way we get to fulfill our destiny as the perfect hero and savior...is to accept and love that we're not.

Life's already perfect just the way it is. All we have to do is see it.

While I didn't start out to end quite here, it does seem fitting for an article about "Total Awareness." ;-)

My best wishes to you all,

Bruce

(As a postscript, the comments here and elsewhere that consist simply of ad hominem attacks, or reflexive rejection, or threats or wishes of violence, aren't things to which one can respond rationally, because they don't come from or reflect a rational process. They're verbal expressions of a deeper, limbic system-depth fear. In the same way that one can't calm a frightened animal or child by trying to argue that their fear is irrational, one can't and shouldn't try to reason with a person caught in that part of themselves. The experience being expressed exists far underneath reason, and so trying to argue their fear away actually makes the problem worse, because now the person is both afraid and confronted by what seems an irrational person (that's projection, but it feels completely true) who can't even see the (again, what from inside the fear feels so terribly real) danger.

The only place to start, and the only really compassionate response to such expressions, is to say "I'm so sorry you're so afraid. Just breathe. You're scared, but you're OK. Regardless of what might happen, you're alive *now* - and *I won't leave you*. Tell me more about what you're so scared of feeling.")

On 12/8/2008 12:40:02 AM, Anonymous said:

what a horrible article.

its completely illegal to intercept ANY US citizens.

i worked at the NSA as a military sigint specialist and our targets are foreign military powers. rarely do us citizens even come into play and when they do, theyre overseas, in a hot zone and usually up to no good.

anyone whos worked at Medina (MRSOC) or any of the other SOCs will tell you the same thing.

noobs

On 12/8/2008 2:41:14 AM, Anonymous said:

"" is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology," said Church more than three decades ago.

That technology now sees its latest evolution occurring at the shadowy building on San Antonio’s West Military Drive. "

And when does a Person of Interest morph into a leading source, with a History of Nearly Impeccable Grooming/Recruitment of Intelligent Interests, for one has to be aware of Non-State Renegade Actors/Rogue AIgents working Beta in Parallel Fields.

Presumably then the SMARTer Money Invests in Embrace and Enable Trusted and Trusting Third Parties, in Order to Gain Access Rights to Controlled Privileged Units and Systems AIdDrivers.

That would also have the System kicking ITself into Hyperdrive by doing Something Simple and HyperRadioProActive rather than claiming a Complexity and doing nothing Valuable and Novel ..... therefore planning more of the same rather than something better and different.

And if you aint doing IT so, you aint Leading and/or/but Following the WAI ...... :-)

Or would you Care 42 Dare Deny Win Win Scenarios from CyberIntelAIgents at the Human Terrain Advanced IntelAIgent Environment Levels with their Communicating Virtual PlateauXXXX/Stealth Command and Control Systems.

On 12/8/2008 10:28:32 PM, Anonymous said:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

On 12/9/2008 1:41:27 PM, Anonymous said:

NSA works for the World Government, not US. ditto, IBM, Microsoft, etc.

On 12/9/2008 4:12:56 PM, Anonymous said:

Peace and blessings unto all.

There is no escaping the NWO in the physical sense. You can only save your soul. The biggest obstacle to the masses obtaining the truth about the US (and other nation’s) government’s nefarious activities in general and thus comprehending the greater realm of existence, is the disinterest and/or lack of discernment of the masses themselves in truth. People do not care that they are being monitored, tracked, recorded, & cataloged as economic cogs. As long as the people are openly and continually subjected to mass media propaganda and indoctrination, outlets for an expansion of greater consciousness will be relegated to the dimension where we currently reside - the internet. “Tele”-vision is not true vision. Read, understand, & pray for mercy. Go further, think deeper, & seek the truth at all costs. Learn more at http://subversivearchitect.com/

On 12/10/2008 9:13:28 AM, Anonymous said:

I bet that if NSA comes up with its new internet provider like Microsoft, God-saved Right (not 'damned right') would be the first ones to sign up. Well, if you're not hiding anything, what is your cause for alarm. Unless you're a Cuban spy, a closet communist intent on subverting or bound to infiltrate the US government. More power to NSA! More Power to Keith!

On 12/10/2008 11:34:13 AM, Anonymous said:

can we say the words that are mined and watched like bomb, kill, dead president, terror, 200 dead, i kill you

lol well thats what happens when its a police state

On 12/10/2008 1:04:25 PM, Anonymous said:

In fairness to NSA, when suspicious activity or dialogue is discovered or overheard by their listening antennas, NSA files a warrant of surveillance at FISA. FISA determines if there is probable cause. If there is, then whatever conversations or activities discovered or overheard before the filling of warrant is beyond the law to include as admissible evidence. Only those covered by the warrant, which was done right after the approval. The law does not antedate or NSA does not antedate nor are previous conversations before the approval or the warrant are covered by their surveillance warrant.

On 12/11/2008 9:10:21 AM, Anonymous said:

To the guy who said he wanted to see a Mumbai event in San Francisco, I hope the watchers have your IP you sick fk.

On 12/11/2008 11:20:19 AM, Anonymous said:

The Holy Bible is true. "They are seeking death" and coupled with this simultaneous wishful thinkings are also intentions to drag other people to death. As the Imam in Toronto has said, "They think that by blowing off the body, they can shatter their souls. They canno!t and their souls shall be cast 'in the lake of fire' toghether with the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPAs and communist bishops of CBCP.

On 12/11/2008 11:34:14 AM, Anonymous said:

LOL. Stop it! The more you taunt these freaking damned terrorists and communist Catholic bishops, the more they'll do it and terrorize the world. I'm damned anyway'- to quote a CPP-NPA terrorist. CPP-NPA stands for Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army, a tagged terrorist group in Philippines.LOL

On 12/11/2008 2:14:23 PM, Anonymous said:

If a powerful President like Richard Nixon was indicted and convicted of illegal wiretapping, chances are if NSA does it, it cannot escape the arm of the law. This being said, America is a country ruled by law. Unlike other communist countries to which the Communist Party of USA is subservient to, America is country with a lawful incumbent President, Senators and Congressmen elected by the people. America has an oversight committee 'watching' our spies, cops, and soldiers. Can you name one who was exempted from criminal liability? Not even Obama if he gets indicted for Cuban espionage. Why the hell would he extricate himself from security, hurriedly drive to an undisclosed place under the guise of doing something normal like going to the gym, buy a newspaper, and just out of the blue, gather everyone for an intelligence briefing?!!! I wasn't born yesterday! Look what his campaign foreign policy resembles. same as that of Ana Montes, the convicted Cuban spy!

On 12/13/2008 12:49:13 AM, Anonymous said:

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" asks our reader on 12/8/2008 at 10:28:32 PM. Uncle Mike thinks this is an excellent question.

On 12/13/2008 1:19:51 PM, Anonymous said:

Custodes or the sentries either do not have to watch themselves although there are oversight committees set up by the laws. Custodes guard themselves with criminal laws on espionage, illegal wiretapping, murder if you want to go that extremes, fraud (again if you want to go to that extreme), causing alarms and scandals, etc., laws which are all laid down in the American penal code. Aside from that NSA or CIA cannot legislate or cannot construe contentious issues on laws that cover them. We have the most lenient NSA and CIA comparing it with communist, rogue or dictatorial states. You can see the parody in that the International Socialist Review always criticizes NSA for its 'allegedly illegal wiretapping' but is evasive of unlimited illegal wiretapping in Cuba or China. They can try to 'change the world by way of changing America so that they can 'change Latin America', why not start the change in Cuba where there is overwhelming evidence of illegal or unchecked wiretapping?

On 12/13/2008 1:28:19 PM, Anonymous said:

So anonymous, you mean International Socialist Review magazine editors are a bunch of subversives bent on propping up the image of Fidel Castro and Obama and tarnishing the reputation of NSA, an agency which was created by law?

On 12/13/2008 1:31:41 PM, Anonymous said:

We all have rights under the Bill of Rights. That is what makes one consider America as a humane and compassionate society. Freedom of speech is enshrined under the Constitution. Besides NSA as an agency and its head, Keith Alexander is considered fair game. What is not fair game are the spies who should be anonymous.

On 12/15/2008 2:32:16 PM, Anonymous said:

I guess that if your afraid of this you are also afraid of our military, police forces, or just about anyone wanted to comit a violent act in our country against our people. Yea you really have a lot to worry about here - maybe you should move to Afganistan or Iraq - where you will be more safe. You AH.

Tony

On 12/15/2008 9:17:03 PM, Anonymous said:

HEY MAN I AM ALL FOR THIS KIND OF INTRUSION INTO MY PRIVACY PROVIDING THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS AND I REALLY MEAN NO EXCEPTIONS AS NO ONE HERE IS ABOVE THE LAW OF THE LAND... neither should NO ONES PRIVACY INCLUDING THOSE WORKING THERE, OUR PRESIDENT, all governmental employees NOT-WITH-STANDING every nerd and/or scientist associated with this project IS ANY MORE EXCEMPT FROM SCRUTINY THAN MY SEVERAL forms of expression and protected rights

On 12/16/2008 10:28:45 AM, Anonymous said:

NSA is very very welcome too to intrude into my phone conversations, email, etc. I got nothing to hide. How come when Naomi Klein. author of the book, DISASTER CAPITALISM, does not complain when Fidel Castro and his G2 oggle at her naked body seen on hidden cameras installed in her hotel room. This is crazy, man. They're having the cake and eating it too!!!@@@@@##$$

On 12/29/2008 3:43:26 PM, Anonymous said:

Those who were referred to as who's eating the cake and having them too are described as bad characters in the Bible or villainous modern day hypocrites like the communist or closet communist gay Catholic Bishops of the Philippines or like Father Kumander Balweg of Cordillera

On 12/30/2008 1:57:47 PM, Anonymous said:

You're all a bunch of Texan, right-wing fuckwads. God help you.

On 12/30/2008 4:24:18 PM, Anonymous said:

'If God is with you, who can be against you?'-God, Bible. Or simply telling a lady named Crystal Watkins of Jamaica-Canada who jumped with joy when a wife of an American intelligence officer was fired, "If you are the wife of an American intelligence officer, who then can be against you?"Now tell me, the Communists of the old Soviet Union have the habit of saying, 'There is no God, God is dead! which means that if God is not dead, they sure intend to kill Him. Now, does God has to help us. He is on our side, Anonymous!

On 1/9/2009 3:53:50 AM, Anonymous said:

Obama is continuing the same old fascism of his predecessors. Are all of you sick authoritarians who posted above going to cry that it is the "liberals" who are opposed to this when it is Obama expanding on Bush's police state?

The biggest terrorist network isn't Muslim. It is the folks in red, white and blue who invade other countries and kill foreigners by the millions. Their intelligence comes from the NSA and CIA. These agencies don't make anyone freer or safer. Quit believing the lie that this article can be written because of the criminal gang known as the US government is keeping its freedom to do so.

Some of you sure LOVE socialism if it is corporatism and wealth transfers to mass murderers.

Death to the USA, the Evil Empire! The sooner this happens, the sooner the world will be freer, prosperous and peaceful.

On 1/9/2009 6:59:50 PM, Anonymous said:

thank you Greg M. Schwartz

for your work. obviously the people who are dissing you are the enemy. really, ask yourself the question, if they didn't like your article then they could have read two lines and then spent their time on some thing else, instead they waste their so valuable time dissing you.

On 1/22/2009 11:08:28 PM, Anonymous said:

Where does one go to if they have evidence of illegal psy-ops?

On 1/23/2009 1:03:22 AM, Gschwartz said:

illegal psy-ops? like remote viewing? or something even more sinister? The type of stuff Alex Constantine writes about in "Psychic Dictatorship USA" ? See:

http://oneheartbooks.com/books/mind_control/psychic_dictatorship.htm

Your friendly, neighborhood staff writer would be intrigued to investigate such evidence...

On 1/28/2009 3:09:17 PM, Anonymous said:

George Bush, drunk, attempted to call up Barack Obama. George kept on asking him about his intended engagement with Cuba. Barack invokes CIA torture. George invokes torture of a Cuban dissident by a steel pipe with gangrene all over the victim's head. Obama said, F__y__. George Bush called up again. Obama hangs up. George Bush calls up again. Obama says the f__word. George finally got Michelle Obama. What Barack Obama is doing to me is discrimination based on creed. Why doesn't he want to debate with me? Why? just because I am a Republican? LOL (joke of the year by Mike Hayden)

On 1/29/2009 9:20:47 AM, Anonymous said:

"Domestic human rights is what concerns me. What happens to Cuba does not concern me. That is why I am a liberal bent on isolationism. I don't give a damn about international human rights even though I want to promote universal health care all over the world. Cuba is not a threat. Iran is not a threat. Even though there are about 20 thousand documented spies in Miami and the rest of USA does not concern me. Even though Cuban Five were convicted. Even though Ana Montes was able to infiltrate Defense Intelligence Agency. They do not threaten us."-Barack Obama.

On 1/31/2009 10:36:51 AM, Anonymous said:

Whether Obama hands in over Guantanamo Bay station to Cuba with corresponding concessionsis not the issue when it comes to his bargaining deal or concessions imposed on Cuba to reform or open up the system or economy because he knows right inside his the deep recesses of his that Cuba is going to open up (anyway). My understanding of human nature is so deep that I know when Obama is mad, when he's lying, when he's evasive. Trust me on that! He's not only a sell-out but a traitor to his country USA. TREASON IS A CRIME PUNISHABLE BY LETHAL INJECTION. Either that he is seeking death or he thinks he can have some mitigating circumstances to lower the penalty.

On 1/31/2009 3:07:09 PM, Anonymous said:

When Cuba opens up and reforms, the author of the economic treatise POR FAVOR RAUL, DON'T CHANGE HORSES IN MIDSTREAM will appear to be a villain or indicted or convicted for Cuban espionage. Obama basks in glory for granted concessions appear to be a hero, and will be acquitted for Cuban espionage. Fidel loves Obama. He's not going to let him go. He'll indict the author of POR favor, never to be forgiven for blowing the lid off Obama.

On 2/1/2009 2:08:36 PM, Anonymous said:

Obama suspects that Fidel Castro would compromise him as a Cuban spy. To forestall that, Obama ingratiates himself with Cuba and Fidel by way of nationalizing banks and handling over Guantanamo to Cuba. Obama need not fear compromise. Fidel looks up to him as a genuine spy who can wreak havoc on America. Fidel would 'compromise' the author of POR FAVOR RAUL, DON'T CHANGE HORSES IN MIDSTREAM. Hola Fidel! Hola Raul!

On 2/1/2009 2:34:35 PM, Anonymous said:

We know you from head to foot, DOMINGO RODRIGUEZ, author of the economic treatise POR FAVOR RAUL, DON'T CHANGE HORSES IN MIDSTREAM.

On 2/2/2009 8:50:31 AM, Anonymous said:

You give him the cue, Obama implements them. It's either both of you or most of all, only you. Or it might be only you and he's either pleasing you or it might be something else. We know you from head to foot, DOMINGO!

On 4/18/2009 8:21:28 AM, Anonymous said:

На сколько вы все дебилы, консперации так и лезут вам всем в жопу. Вас всех имеет система, вертикально, горизантально, анально и арально и вы даже об этом не догадываетесь....:-D

On 6/21/2009 1:52:07 PM, Anonymous said:

"It was even conceivable they were watching everybody all the time"

--- George Orwell, 1984

On 6/21/2009 5:20:43 PM, Anonymous said:

They will justify anything they do...

as long as they wave the red, white and blue.

"for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -Thomas Jefferson

On 6/21/2009 6:41:35 PM, Anonymous said:

Hey All you Stasi wannabes what do think your guverment retirement check will look like in 20 years. What check? The check is on da plane. NEGATIVE! The check is in the US E-Mail stuck in San antone.

"That's All Folks"-Porky Pig

On 6/21/2009 10:24:16 PM, Anonymous said:

I wonder why no one wants to comment on the Bilderberg group meetings that took place last month in a f-16 guarded hotel in Greece. Geithner and Petraeus were there among others. I wonder what the leader of our mideast armed forces and our treasury secretary are doing meeting in secret with the worlds most powerful bankers. I wonder why media moguls were there but yet not a single mainstream outlet even mentioned the meetings. The answer is simple, wake up. Obama is a puppet. Learn who controls our government. It isnt a controlled frontman named obama. Ron Paul wants to bring our troops home from over 130 countries. Can you say stimulus plan? Funny how people who advocate real change aren't welcome on "progressive" blogs. When will you people learn that socialism and neo-conservatism will result in the same thing, TYRANNY. Break the false left-right paradigm that you have been molded into believing is real. Its freedom versus fascism, not republicrat versus democrican. These are two heads of the same coin, controlled by the same elite banking interests. Research the Bilderberg group and the federal reserve. There "lies" your true masters.

On 6/21/2009 10:26:59 PM, Anonymous said:

Sic Semper Tyrannis

On 6/22/2009 1:03:33 AM, Anonymous said:

If you think there are groups of shadowy terrorists plotting an attack on America you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist. If you are one of those people I would recommend you take some prescription meds.

On 6/22/2009 5:26:47 AM, Anonymous said:

all this in the day and age when people who believe our government should still follow the U.S. Constitution (imagine that). When world bankers and private companies are getting bailouts by the trillions, and the average person is grabbing for their ankles. It's all much clearer after you see the new thriller, "The Obama Deception", with nearly 2.5 million views on youtube in 3 months. Go to http://www.ObamaDeception.com and take the mask off Amerika.

On 6/22/2009 10:01:29 AM, Anonymous said:

Why is it that everyone that posts here seems to have 'the truth' and everyone else in society is somehow too stupid to grasp the concepts all these tin-foil hat wearers have somehow come across? The whole 'secret societies and the NWO rule the earth' is just 'the protocols of the learned elders of Zion' rehashed. It's stupid and anyone who believes in these conspiracy theories shouldn't hold a serious position of responsibility in society.

On 6/22/2009 5:02:15 PM, Anonymous said:

Just use TrueCrypt for your files, GPG4Win/OpenPGP/GnuPGP for email, Tor for your web surfing and zPhone for your phone calls. Then, the NSA can spy all they want. They'll just get garbled data that they won't be able to decrypt.

On 6/26/2009 2:05:25 AM, Anonymous said:

Hi Jack! Did your wife get those bath BOMBS I sent her in the MAIL? My boy loves his new squirt GUN!! Been MURDER in this heat eh? Oh my gawd what an EXPLOSIVE situation the pnac NAZIS have unleashed.

On 6/26/2009 2:15:42 AM, Anonymous said:

Time for overthrow. "Tear down this wall."

Fascism is not the same thing as security. In fact, Faacism destroys

both security and personal liberty.

Eliminate th NSA, and the CIA.

On 6/26/2009 8:53:55 AM, Anonymous said:

"if the terrorists do take over" What terrified sheeple, poor fools your congress are the terrorists and you are handing your freedoms over every day. Sheeple make me want to puke!

On 6/26/2009 10:21:03 AM, Anonymous said:

Who will "tear down this wall" and else? US dummies?

On 6/26/2009 11:10:48 AM, Anonymous said:

"The author(s) should note that the NSA and it's data base is one big reason why he(they) still enjoys the right to undermine national inteligence efforts. Such spin would qualify as seditions in many countries."

Spying on your own citizens is a communist thing to do; defending government communism would be described as TREASON in this country.

On 6/26/2009 11:25:45 AM, Anonymous said:

Shove Stalin's dead dick up your ass, NSA.

You aren't spying on foreign enemies. That's an excuse you're using to spy on US !!!

On 6/26/2009 12:40:16 PM, Anonymous said:

Would love to see 100 or 1,000 people show up at once to take photos of this place. Would they run them all through the interrogation mill? What fun!

On 6/26/2009 1:21:54 PM, Anonymous said:

"i worked at the NSA as a military sigint specialist and our targets are foreign military powers. rarely do us citizens even come into play and when they do, theyre overseas, in a hot zone and usually up to no good.

anyone whos worked at Medina (MRSOC) or any of the other SOCs will tell you the same thing.

noobs"

You worked at an RSOC, which are geographically located to intercept specific target communications. Also, anyone who has worked for the NSA knows that intelligence is compartmentalized. Therefor, you have no idea what any of the other missions are targeting for their ELINT and SIGINT. You'd have worked on one small piece of the puzzle, with, at best, a limited view of what intel other missions are collecting, or how all the pieces are finally assembled.

You'd also know that the NSA, in addition to collecting intel for it's own missions, operates as a clearing house for other intelligence agencies. Or "customers" as they like to call them. Although the directive for the NSA is quite strict in it's scope, allowing only for the interception of foreign targets, the same is not true of all of the agencies to whom the NSA supplies intel. For example, the FBI's directive does allow for collecting of intel on U.S. citizens.

On 6/26/2009 10:14:42 PM, Anonymous said:

san antonio, really did spreading it's hairy legs open to that syphillitic organization

On 6/26/2009 10:18:44 PM, Anonymous said:

Dissent is the highest patriotism.

NWTHLSCRYGCHD

On 6/26/2009 10:29:07 PM, Anonymous said:

San Antonio made a mistake invitingthat syphyilitic old relic into the city, to pimp otherwise decent people, to support executions of public figures like Senator Paul Wellstone, the DC Madam and journalist Gary Webb.

On 6/26/2009 10:36:59 PM, Anonymous said:

NWTHLSCRYGCHD,

I'll take it further. In an age of 24x7x365 monitoring of all phone and email communications by secret agenciesm, ultimately doing the bidding of secret societiess, of secret prisons, of secret arrests and torture, or rendition, or stripping away of a citizen's rights, and property and citizensihp at the say-so of the Executive Branch, of executions of public servants, such as Colonel Ted Westhuesing, dissent isn't the highest form of patriotism - dissent IS PATRIOTISM.

On 6/26/2009 11:05:25 PM, Anonymous said:

That scum of the earth, three time convicted felon Poindexter, traitor to the United States is behind this cluster. He tried to snake this "Total Information Awareness" (intended for domestic spying) in years ago, and he was run out on a rail. Now he's back running it as his pet project. Bastard.

On 6/27/2009 3:29:39 PM, Anonymous said:

Explain your brutal invasions to the American public in simple moral terms suitable for middle-school children at an evangelical summer camp: We are bombing cities to bring the gift of democracy and American values, or to defeat some vague but frightening evil, perhaps lurking under the bed, or to get rid of a bad dictator no longer of service to us, or to bring freedom and prosperity to any survivors. (This doesn't work in Europe, which is honestly imperialistic.) The public can then feel a sense of unappreciated virtue when the primitives resist. Sententious moralism should always trump reason.

NSA - you have blood on your hands, arms, neck, chest and face, in the murders of millions of innocent civilians all over the world over the past four decades. A curse on you and yours forever. You'll all learn whaf goes around always comes around. Sow the Wind. Reap The Whirlwind.

On 6/27/2009 6:32:43 PM, Anonymous said:

To the other anonymous: That's Colonel Ted S. Westhusing, to you sir. A felllow Texan, a true patriot, and executed by the Miliary Industrial Complex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_S._Westhusing

On 6/29/2009 10:03:16 AM, Anonymous said:

I wish north korea would hurry up and nuke all you stupid cock head septic tanks ,your all full of shit..

and your stupid security agencies who couldnt find their own arses..

fuck the Useless Shitty Arseholes!

On 6/29/2009 10:26:07 AM, Anonymous said:

Y'all owe it to your forefathers to shake off this infestation of NAZI fleas and other assorted parasites.

On 7/8/2009 3:39:25 PM, Anonymous said:

Good Point

"The small glimmer of hope is that people such as yourself are beginning to recognize those features at all. It's the beginning of recognizing that what we see in the mirror isn't our enemy - it's *us*."

On 7/15/2009 9:53:32 AM, Anonymous said:

The NSA doesn't even have the resources to analyze the intercepts of expected foreign terrorists, let alone suspected American terrorists. To think they would or could monitor the activities of everyday Americans is completely ludicrous and implausible. The manpower just isn't there. In 15 years of working with the organization, I have never seen or heard of illegal spying on US citizens. That doesn't mean that it couldn't have happened, but the focus is on foreign intercepts.

NSA, blood on their hands? What an irresponsible and illogical statement. The NSA does not fight wars, it provides intelligence which helps to prevent the loss of civilian lives. Having spent substantial time in Iraq at the height of instability and witnessing actual cases where lives, American and civilian, were saved, I know the positives of the agency.

I didn't read all the posts here, but some of the posters are reading too much fiction. Actually, based on their grammar, they're probably not reading at all, but probably watching bad fiction. The intelligence level in some of these posts is pretty low.

On 7/16/2009 1:47:07 AM, Anonymous said:

the last poster is the one w/ low intelligence if he thinks that it is "ludicrous and implausible" that Uncle Sam would monitor everyday Americans. Sure they don't have the resources to monitor everyone, but ever heard of COINTELPRO?

On 7/16/2009 8:29:22 AM, Anonymous said:

Kudos to the author for risking his freedom for us the readers. I imagine they will now have a place to store the data from the tapped off fiber-optic lines. I am sure this agency believes they are protecting our freedom and feel they are keeping us from being attacked by some guy who lives in a cave who gave up his phone years ago and certainly doesn't send any emails... once China cuts off their buying of Treasury Bonds we should get back to normal with less government spending for projects like this.

On 7/16/2009 10:37:43 AM, Anonymous said:

There seems to be a tendency to attribute powers to government agencies which they simply don't have. COINTELPRO was carried out by the FBI for the most part under a very fanatical director. If anyone is carrying out domestic spying it is the FBI in concert with local law enforcement. The NSA mainly focuses on spying on foreigners. The notion that they're spying on my lesbian/vegan/peace activist aunt down the street is ridiculous because it's a waste of manpower. Besides, social activists are usually tailed by local police departments, not federal agencies.

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