Russel Tice on NSA

[Tyler Durden]

Hum. So NOW the guy's having qualms. Reminds me of the following joke:

POLICE: So, was that sheep you were having sex with male or female?

FARMER: Female of course! I'm no pervert, dammit.

-TD


>From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
>To: cypherpunks at jfet.org
>Subject: Russel Tice on NSA
>Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:48:33 +0100
>
>http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1491889
>
>Jan 10, 2006 . Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security
>Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.
>
>For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy 
>on
>other people's conversations around the world.
>
>"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his
>job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations."
>
>But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world"
>operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated 
>the
>law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged 
>wrongdoing
>in these programs run by the Defense Department and the NSA in the 
>post-9/11
>efforts to go after terrorists.
>
>"The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do 
>whatever
>it takes to get them," he said.
>
>Tracking Calls
>
>Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic 
>and
>international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one 
>in
>New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might 
>use.
>
>"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the
>technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it 
>out
>of the system for processing."
>
>According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop 
>graphs
>that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or
>even thousands more.
>
>Tice Admits Being a Source for The New York Times
>
>President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to
>eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite
>warrants.
>
>But Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to 
>eavesdropping
>by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA 
>programs
>is used.
>
>"That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know,
>placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into 
>that
>vacuum," Tice said.
>
>The same day The New York Times broke the story of the NSA eavesdropping
>without warrants, Tice surfaced as a whistleblower in the agency. He told 
>ABC
>News that he was a source for the Times' reporters. But Tice maintains that
>his conscience is clear.
>
>"As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't say anything that's 
>classified,
>I'm not worried," he said. "We need to clean up the intelligence community.
>We've had abuses, and they need to be addressed."
>
>The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what 
>it
>called psychological concerns and later dismissed him. Tice calls that bunk
>and says that's the way the NSA deals with troublemakers and 
>whistleblowers.
>Today the NSA said it had "no information to provide."
>
>ABC News' Vic Walter and Avni Patel contributed to this report.
>
>--
>Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
>______________________________________________________________
>ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.ativel.com
>8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
>
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