| Friday, January 06, 2006 |
| News from the Animal Farm... |
 A vendor to the IRS tracked the political affiliations of taxpayers under investigation in 20 states and the District of Columbia. The states involved: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. Been audited lately? I guess if you don't quite pay your taxes you'd better be a Republican, if you know what's good for you...
The NSA not only conducted illegal surveillance on U.S. callers, it reportedly later destroyed the evidence for fear of what Congress would do if it found out, and out of a fear of lawsuits (and that nasty process that goes with them: discovery)... Doesn't sound like an agency acting under the clear Constitutional authority of the president to me... Says Truthout:
NSA lawyers advised the agency to immediately destroy the names of thousands of American citizens and businesses it collected shortly after 9/11 in its quest to target terrorists in this country. NSA lawyers told the agency that the surveillance was illegal and that it could not share the data it collected with the CIA or other intelligence agencies.
The lawyers said the surveillance could result in numerous lawsuits from people identified in the surveillance reports, two former US officials told the Houston Chronicle in an October 27, 2001, report, and was illegal despite any terrorist threat that existed in the days following 9/11.
By law, the NSA cannot spy on a US citizen, an immigrant lawfully admitted to this country for permanent residence, or a US corporation. But, with the permission of a special court, it can target foreigners inside the United States, including diplomats. According to Raw Story, a secret military operation under the direction of Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone sought to score a public relations coup by finding missing Gulf War pilot Scott Speicher (his supposed captivity apparently being yet another of Chalabi's lies) and to "solve" the no WMD problem in Iraq even ahead of securing the country...
By the way, the NSA is denying it spied on CNN staffers including Christiane Amanpour. More accurately, the agency says no such reporters were targeted for surveillance, which doesn't necessarily mean their conversations weren't monitored, just that they weren't the primary targets of the eavesdropping, right?
The senior official said that from time to time NSA surveillance overseas "inadvertently" acquires recordings or copies of communications involving Americans -- or what the government calls "U.S. persons," which includes most U.S. residents and employees of American companies. By law, however, such materials are required to be erased or destroyed immediately, the official said. CNN seems pretty eager to knock this story down, don't they? I'd be interested to see what NBC's investigation digs up...
Tags: politics, News, Bush, national security, NSA, government, spying, Iraq, IRS |
posted by JReid @ 3:33 PM   |
|
|
|
|
