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New Surveillance Whistleblower: The NSA Violates the ConstitutionA former Obama administration official calls attention to unaccountable mass surveillance conducted under a 1981 executive order.
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF - The Atlantic
JUL 21 2014, 6:00 AM ET
<snip>
John Napier Tye is speaking out to warn Americans about illegal spying. The former State Department official, who served in the Obama administration from 2011 to 2014, declared Friday that ongoing NSA surveillance abuses are taking place under the auspices of Executive Order 12333, which came into being in 1981, before the era of digital communications, but is being used to collect them promiscuously. Nye alleges that the Obama administration has been violating the Constitution with scant oversight from Congress or the judiciary.
"The order as used today threatens our democracy," he wrote in The Washington Post. "I am coming forward because I think Americans deserve an honest answer to the simple question: What kind of data is the NSA collecting on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?"
If you've paid casual attention to the Edward Snowden leaks and statements by national-security officials, you might be under the impression that the Obama administration is already on record denying that this sort of spying goes on. In fact, denials about NSA spying are almost always carefully worded to address activities under particular legal authorities, like Section 215 of the Patriot Act or Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. An official will talk about what is or isn't done "under this program," eliding the fact that the NSA spies on Americans under numerous different programs, despite regularly claiming to be an exclusively foreign spy agency.
Executive Order 12333 is old news to national-security insiders and the journalists who cover them, but is largely unknown to the American public, in part because officials have a perverse institutional incentive to obscure its role. But some insiders are troubled by such affronts to representative democracy. A tiny subset screw up the courage to inform their fellow citizens.
Tye is but the latest surveillance whistleblower, though he took pains to distinguish himself from Snowden and his approach to dissent. "Before I left the State Department, I filed a complaint with the department’s inspector general, arguing that the current system of collection and storage of communications by U.S. persons under Executive Order 12333 violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures," Tye explained. "I have also brought my complaint to the House and Senate intelligence committees and to the inspector general of the NSA."
These steps—which many say Snowden should've taken—produced no changes to the objectionable NSA spying and wouldn't be garnering attention at all if not for Snowden's leaks. It is nevertheless telling that another civil servant with deep establishment loyalties and every incentive to keep quiet felt compelled to speak out. As Tye put it:
<snip>
More: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/a-new-surveillance-whistleblower-emerges/374722/
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Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)You know, if all these reporters weren't such poopyheads and their sources weren't a bunch of insider turncoats, people could rouse themselves to care about these abuses. What we need is a reporter beyond reproach with a sterling track record whose source has the highest credentials and spotless employment history. Well, until the reporter starts reporting on the shortcomings of the intelligence community, at which point he's totally reproachable, and the source turns on his faultless intelligence agency, at which point he's all disgruntled and stuff, and did you know he once had a library book overdue for nearly two weeks?
It's too bad, too. Because it really sounds like there are some bad things happening, but we can't really concentrate on any of them because the people bringing these incidents to our attention are such flawed vessels (and if they're flawless, we can invent a few).
christx30
(6,241 posts)is going to be, by definition, an insider turncoat. Insider, as in "I've been working within the system for years." and turncoat, as in "During my time within the organization, I've seen these abuses of XYZ, and I want to let the American people know about it."
Anyone that's not a turncoat is going to still be within the system, and not going to be against the abuses, or doesn't consider them abuses.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)You're giving away the whole scam.
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)
kpete
(72,901 posts)Thanks WillyT
and peace,
kp
WillyT
(72,631 posts)And peace to you as well.
Gee, I thought this was supposed to be a democracy? What else don't we know about?
Agents for Bush
The 1980 Campaign
by Bob Callahan
Covert Action Information Bulletin
George Bush owed his recent political fortune to several old CIA friends, chiefly Ray Cline, who had helped to rally the intelligence community … and started … "Agents for Bush."
Bill Peterson of the Washington Post wrote in a March 1, 1980 article, "Simply put, no presidential campaign in recent memory – perhaps ever – has attracted as much support from the intelligence community as (has) the campaign of former CIA director George Bush."
George Bush’s CIA campaign staff included Cline, CIA Chief of Station in Taiwan from 1958 to 1962; Lt. Gen. Salm V. Wilson and Lt. Gen. Harold A. Aaron, both former Directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Also included were retired Gen. Richard Stillwell, once the CIA’s Chief of Covert Operations for the Far East, and at least 25 other retired Company directors, deputy directors and, or, agents.
… Angelo Codevilla, informed a congressional committee that was "aware that active duty agents of the CIA worked for the George Bush primary election campaign.
… Ray Cline claimed that he had been promoting the pro-CIA agenda that Bush had embraced for years, and that he had found the post Church-hearings criticism had died down some time ago. "I found there was a tremendous constituency for the CIA when everyone in Washington was still urinating all over it," Cline said. … "It’s panned out almost too good to be true. The country is waking up just in time for George’s candidacy. …
In July 1979 George Bush and Ray Cline attended a conference in Jerusalem. … (with) leaders of Israel, Great Britain and the United States. … The Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism was hosted by the Israeli government and … most of Israel’s top intelligence officers … were in attendance. …
… The Israelis were angry with Carter because his administration had recently released its annual report on human rights wherein the Israeli government was taken to task for abusing the rights of the Palestinian people on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. …
The Republican delegation was led by George Bush. It included Ray Cline and Major Gen. George Keegan (former USAF intelligence chief) and Harvard professor Richard Pipes.
Looking for a mobilizing issue to counter the Carter-era themes of détente and human rights, the Bush people began to explore the political benefits of embracing the terrorism/anti-terrorism theme.
… Ray Cline developed the theme that terror was not a random response. … but rather an instrument of East bloc policy adopted after 1969 when the KGB persuaded the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to accept the PLO as a major political instrument in the Mideast and to subsidize its terrorist policies by freely giving money, training, arms and coordinated communications. …
… Within days after the conference the new propaganda war began in earnest. On July 11, 1979, the International Herald Tribune featured a lead editorial entitled "The Issue is Terrorism," which quoted directly from conference speeches. …
SOURCE: Covert Action Information Bulletin No.33(Winter 1990) "The Bush Issue"
ONLINE(scroll down for excerpts):
http://mediamayhem.blogspot.com/2004_04_11_archive.html
Thank you for the heads-up on an outstanding article, WillyT.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
zeemike
(18,998 posts)But I know we are not suppose to look back.
+1 for this and a K&R for the OP.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you, John Tye.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)I'll listen to what this guy says and support his protest 100%, unlike the criminal Snowden.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)It is the data that Snowden has released that is important, not your search for personal purity.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And in fact no one even knew they existed until Snowden released the information to the public...and no one would have known it had he not done that...and probably this guy would never have come forward...or if he did would have met the same fate as Binny.
Prison hell, we need to pin a medal on his chest.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)If anyone deserves the Medal of Freedom, Snowden does.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)I knew they were government trusting assholes before that but this helps confirm it.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)indepat
(20,899 posts)anyone who would question its actions, policies, or quest for global hegemony.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
raindaddy
(1,370 posts)He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider, or I could be an outsider,” Warren writes. Outsiders could say what they want, he told her, but people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders get more access to push their ideas to powerful people. “But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders,” [Larry] Summers told Warren, she writes. “I had been warned.” [Boston Globe]
leftstreet
(40,582 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Disregarding the research and documentation provided by NYT, Guardian, Der Spiegel etc supporting Snowden, there's the supporting docs of those whistleblowers who have gone before him
Snowden doesn't operate in a vacuum.
K&R
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)The more people know, maybe the more will wake up.
navarth
(5,927 posts)
Uncle Joe
(65,096 posts)https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/primer-executive-order-12333-mass-surveillance-starlet
Many news reports have focused on Section 215 of the Patriot Act (used to collect all Americans' calling records) and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FAA) (used to collect phone calls, emails and other Internet content) as the legal authorities supporting much of the NSA's spying regime. Both laws were passed by Congress and are overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court). However, it's likely that the NSA conducts much more of its spying under the President's claimed inherent powers and only governed by a document originally approved by President Reagan titled Executive Order 12333. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is currently conducting a secret investigation into the order, but Congress as a whole—including the Judiciary committee—must release more information about the order to the public.
(snip)
Executive Order 12333
The Executive Order does three things: it outlines what it governs, when the agencies can spy, and how they can spy. In broad strokes, the Executive Order mandates rules for spying on United States persons (a term that includes citizens and lawful permanent residents wherever they may be) and on anyone within the United States. It also directs the Attorney General and others to create further policies and procedures for what information can be collected, retained, and shared.
(snip)
The Information Collected
The Executive Order purports to cover all types of spying conducted with the President's constitutional powers—including mass spying. That’s important to note because some of the spying conducted under EO 12333 is reportedly similar to the mass spying conducted under Section 702 of the FAA. Under this type of spying, millions of innocent foreigners’ communications are collected abroad, inevitably containing Americans' communications. In the Section 702 context, this includes techniques like Prism and Upstream. While we don’t know for sure, the Executive Order probably uses similar techniques or piggybacks off of programs used for Section 702 spying.
(snip)
Uses of Executive Order 12333
We do know a little about the spying conducted using EO 12333, but more must be revealed to the public. One early news report revealed it was the NSA's claimed authority for the collection of Americans' address books and buddy lists. It's also involved in the NSA's elite hacking unit, the Tailored Access Operations unit, which targets system administrators and installs malware while masquerading as Facebook servers. And in March, the Washington Post revealed the order alone—without any court oversight—is used to justify the recording of "100 percent of a foreign country's telephone calls." The NSA's reliance on the order for foreign spying includes few, if any, Congressional limits or oversight. Some of the only known limits on Executive spying are found in Executive procedures like USSID 18, the metadata procedures discussed above, and probably other still-classified National Security Policy Directives, none of which have been publicly debated much less approved by Congress or the courts.
Thanks for the thread, WillyT.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Uncle Joe
(65,096 posts) zeemike
(18,998 posts)It started with Reagan...not that I am surprised at all.
But hell, perhaps the religious people have it right...Ronald Wilson Reagan=666.
.
randys1
(16,286 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)
KoKo
(84,711 posts)
countryjake
(8,554 posts)
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But unless he tells the public very precisely what is being done that violates the Fourth Amendment his vague statements are not likely to attract much attention.
I am sure Tye is telling the truth. I feel certain based on Snowden's revelations alone that the NSA is violating the Constitution systematically, repeatedly and without remorse. That's the definition of illegal behavior.
But Tye's accusations as reported in the Atlantic are too abstract to mean much. He is not helping to inform the American people. We need to know enough about what is going on to be able to decide what we should think or say or maybe even do about it.
Greenwald's book describes activities and programs that are utterly shocking to me. I can't imagine that Tye is talking about any programs beyond those described in Greenwald's books.
I think that Greenwald has hit the right balance between informing the public of wrongdoing by the NSA and protecting information of genuine importance to American security. Tye seems to be too reluctant to share the details that the American people have a right to know and need to know. If it violates the Constitution, it should not qualify for protection under our laws that protect lawful secrets.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html
Pholus
(4,062 posts)Last edited Tue Jul 22, 2014, 09:25 AM - Edit history (1)
knowing full well they would see the person providing that proof in jail in a heartbeat.
There is something truly off about these individuals.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)There is a lot 'off' about anyone who even tries to defend any of this. Hopefully while they are working to smear this latest Whistle Blower, another one will come forward. After a while it gets difficult to swat all of them. So far, how many have there been? Quite a few. How long before even they have to stop trying to defend their criminal activities.
Pholus
(4,062 posts)There is always another bottle of snake oil to sell.
Did you read this article in the Guardian? I still haven't managed to digest its implications all the way, but few of them seem good to me.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/20/rise-of-data-death-of-politics-evgeny-morozov-algorithmic-regulation
I think I might do an OP on it...
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)As though the Guardian, NYT, Der Spiegel etc are somehow publishing Snowden's leaks without proof.
As though the Pulitzer Prize committee would give out awards for fake reporting.
Or that such people as Al Gore, Navi Pillay, Rachel Maddow, Daniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake, Wm Binney etc who are supporting Snowden are all simply misinformed.
That the "proof" exists is irrefutable - Snowden's been charged under the Espionage Act for stealing the supporting documents for his claims.
NealK
(7,146 posts)Yeah, they sound like those moronic Climate Change deniers.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)for the government to conceal the fact that it is violating our constitutional rights or even the spirit of the Constitution. It makes no sense that the government can, with impunity, blatantly and drastically obliterate a right we hold under the Constitution, a right like the right the Fourth Amendment guarantees by prohibiting us from learning that it is violating that right.
The whole point of the Bill of Rights and much of the rest of the Constitution is to limit the power of government.
If our government is circumventing the limits that the Constitution has established then it is unconstitutional and illegal. It is operating beyond and without heed to the Constitution. Then it is not a legitimate government. I hope that is not the case.
No act of Congress can give the government the authority to exceed the limits imposed on it by the Constitution. The Congress is merely a branch of the government that is limited by the Constitution.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Exactly !!!
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)The obligation to freedom and self determination is to burn the clandestine services operatives, sources, methods, revenue streams the whole kit and kaboodle.
The bathwater is trillions of gallons of radioactive sludge, no baby could survive in it and if it did it is mutated monster, throw it out!
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)their country only to find out they were being asked to violate the very thing they are asked to protect.
He is now the just the latest. He better get ready for what happened to Binney and Drake, who also took the steps he took.
Let the opposition research begin. I hope he doesn't have boxes in his garage.
I imagine those in the NSA, who like him and Snowden are disturbed by what that agency has been doing, have watched the reaction to Snowden's revelations and are likely to come forward also when they see NOTHING happening.
Sometimes it takes an avalanche to end these kinds of abuses.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)What is it that they are trying to protect? Or what do they think they are protecting? I can't imagine it's done in the name of freedom, or in the defense of. Is it the protection and a assurance of order? This is more like it I believe. Not because they are worried about what we may do to ourselves, violence in our streets, communities, gangs, but what we may do to "them", the controllers, the purveyors of servitude, the oligarchs. We have had the wool pulled over our eyes for a very long time, we have fallen for the idea that these people, and at the lower level are our elected leaders actually care. Instead, what we have is an ongoing effort to keep us distracted and divided, divvied up in easily manipulated categories, left, right, 99%, arguing over inconsequentials, scraps, when you compare them to the very liberty that is being slowly eroded so as to never notice it is gone.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)concerned about. But I would like to know how the government has used this information to cause the imprisonment of innocent people, denied them a benefit that they would otherwise be entitled to, and resulted in the deaths of innocent citizens.
On the other hand, I see all the evidence of police brutality, and gun violence run amuck all around the country. I see daily murder by police against unarmed black men and children killed in cross-fires and by accident playing with loaded guns in their homes. I see weapons made in the US, UK, and Israel made and sold to evil individuals and governments all around the world. This is what pains me to no end. I would gladly give up my rights to privacy ... and already have to corporations... to my government in exchange for the end to the MIC and the lax gun laws we have and enforcement of stricter gun laws and the arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of those guilty of police brutality.
And most of those law enforcement actions of breaking into homes, searching for drugs and other stuff that result in many innocent citizens being killed and brutalized are a result of tips...not from NSA spying...but from neighbors or family members with grudges, felons trying to get lighter sentences, and renegade police who seize the opportunity to crack heads or shoot black or Hispanic people.
questionseverything
(11,823 posts)and the personal liberty it guarantees there is probably nothing we can say that will reach you, but please do not assume that you speak for most Americans
there have been many articles recently about the doj illegally using nsa tips to begin investigations, lying about those investigations, denying the right to a fair trial...heck the solicitor general has lied to the sc not once but twice about it
i find your argument foolish, the idea that giving up rights to the same group that has been violating those rights for 30 plus years is going to magically end in utopia
your defense of le using tips is odd too, since there i no probable cause associated with an unnamed "tipster"...that in itself is an illegal practice
remember a woman's right to chose is because of her inalienable right to privacy
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)I'm sure they and their little blog minions would like to turn off something ...like dissent ...protests ...truth
tclambert
(11,191 posts)um, . . . hmm, I'm coming up with nothing.
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)
blackspade
(10,056 posts)
Amonester
(11,541 posts)$aint Reagun, poppy bu$h, Clinton, cheney-chimpy will be impeached (retroactively), and PBHO will be impeached.
Which of these 2 will happen?
Stay tuned... 
NealK
(7,146 posts)
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)This isn't news to me, and many others as well, I think. So can't we do with less talk about stuff we already know?
Do we really need to learn more about Dick Cheney and the additional ways he lied and bullied us into war?
Do we really need to learn more about how the financial industry evades accountability and is setting us up, again, to bear the costs for their insanity?
Do we really need to learn more about the ways the Koch brothers fund wild eyed extremists?
Do we really need to learn more about how the corporations with power and influence take advantage of the tax laws?
This is not news.
My sense of amazement hasn't been used up. K&R.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)"officials have a perverse institutional incentive to obscure its role."
LondonReign2
(5,213 posts)Have new talking points not been issued yet? Or have I just managed to put them all on ignore?
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)My spidey sense is tingling -- especially given some surprising supporters in this thread.
I'd advise caution.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
