Someone Is Listening
In an issue close to QG's heart, ABC is reporting that the NSA isn't just listening to the conversations of terrorists:
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
“These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones,” said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA’s Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as “personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.”
On the other hand, the program seems to be working - at least when it's confined to the mission parameters:
Some times, Kinne and Faulk said, the intercepts helped identify possible terror planning in Iraq and saved American lives.
"IED's were disarmed before they exploded, that people who were intending to harm US forces were captured ahead of time," Faulk said.I'm all for intercepting terrorist plans to harm Americans. And I would argue that it's inevitable that along the way, we're going to listen to some conversations that have nothing to do with terrorism. But isn't there some way to refine the program as we go along to do less of one and more of the other?(h/t Hot Air)
posted by VermontGuy @ 6:02 AM
8 Comments:
Interesting, thanks, VG. Because it involves foreign calls to the US, there's no black and white answers when it comes to this area -- it's always going to be a balancing act between protecting our civil liberties and protecting our lives. But certain limits are obviously correct: if you can identify the caller as a US soldier on a personal call, it's your responsibility to destroy the intercept rather than passing it around to your buddies for yucks. With respect to NGOs, the line's not quite so clear. I'd hate for terrorists to learn that there's a "safe list" of phone numbers. More broadly, but for the same reasons, there are limits on how much I want this discussed in public congressional hearings, etc. But I'd love to have confidence that my elected representatives understand the issues and are making good faith efforts to strike the appropriate balance. I'm not sure I do.
When joining the service you sign a statement that you give permission to have your mail searched and any and all contacts or property searched under military regulations there is not much these officers can do about it.
Spent 9 1/2 years in I know.
Im a Soldier currently in Iraq, what this shows is the Government isnt taking any of this serious. They send us over here to do their "dirty work," while they sit back and laugh. Only a handfull of politicans in Washington have sons or daughters in the armed services, so what do they care. This is a total disgrace. We should abandon our cause over here and show them who real Americans are. The ones who protect our country, not destroy it. What has gone on in this country the last couple years makes me want to be a Canadian!
Oh My goodness...What a surprise?
And here I thought America was a democracy! Silly me!
This comes as no surprise to me at all. As to answer the question about the government or military being able to listen in on your conversations that is on military owned lines and not privately owned. That distinction must be understood and kept. As a soldier myself having deployed several times, I would never use a government phone to engage in phone sex because it is understood someone is listening, but when I pay for private service that is a different matter. Especially since those base camps overseas are regarded as US soil and not the country that they are in.
I'm truly gratified to learn that we've got several servicemembers as regular readers. I believe we said so on Memorial and Veterans' Days, but it bears repeating -- thank you.
As far as the privacy rights of your communications on privately purchased telephone lines from a foreign US base to US soil, I don't know the answer, but I will try my best to find out and report back.
It's great to get all these comments. I assume we've been linked somewhere. Anybody know where?
I checked but couldn't find anyone directly linking to us. However, there are some interesting updates at Hot Air, which is where I found out about the story.
Just click on the link at the bottom of my post to follow up.
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