NSA Spying on Journalists- Operation 'Firstfruits'

[bigtree]

December 28, 2005 -- BREAKING NEWS. NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts. WMR has learned that the National Security Agency (NSA), on the orders of the Bush administration, eavesdropped on the private conversations and e-mail of its own employees, employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies -- including the CIA and DIA -- and their contacts in the media, Congress, and oversight agencies and offices.

The journalist surveillance program, code named "Firstfruits," was part of a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) program that was maintained at least until October 2004 and was authorized by then-DCI Porter Goss. Firstfruits was authorized as part of a DCI "Countering Denial and Deception" program responsible to an entity known as the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee (FDDC). Since the intelligence community's reorganization, the DCI has been replaced by the Director of National Intelligence headed by John Negroponte and his deputy, former NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden.

Firstfruits was a database that contained both the articles and the transcripts of telephone and other communications of particular Washington journalists known to report on sensitive U.S. intelligence activities, particularly those involving NSA. According to NSA sources, the targeted journalists included author James Bamford, the New York Times' James Risen, the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, UPI's John C. K. Daly, and this editor , who has written about NSA for The Village Voice, CAQ, Intelligence Online, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)

NSA: Listening in on its own employees, journalists, and members of Congress.

In addition, beginning in 2001 but before the 9-11 attacks, NSA began to target anyone in the U.S. intelligence community who was deemed a "disgruntled employee." According to NSA sources, this surveillance was a violation of United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The surveillance of U.S. intelligence personnel by other intelligence personnel in the United States and abroad was conducted without any warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The targeted U.S. intelligence agency personnel included those who made contact with members of the media, including the journalists targeted by Firstfruits, as well as members of Congress, Inspectors General, and other oversight agencies. Those discovered to have spoken to journalists and oversight personnel were subjected to sudden clearance revocation and termination as "security risks.

full article at truthout blog (story by Wayne Madsen, who is 'formerly an NSA employee and apparently still maintains close ties with current employees': http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/12/29/74957/493
(also at Madsen's website)

[mike_c]

1. this is the biggie, if true...

...and ESPECIALLY if it predates 9/11. Holy feces, Batman!

[bigtree]

2. posted this morning on the town meeting blog

can't tell the source, other than Madsen.

This should not come as a surprise. Wonder when the MSM will pick it up. 'Firstfruits'. Cute.

[aquart]

3. Probably true.

But I won't believe it until someone OTHER than Wayne Madsen says it.

[progressoid]

12. Yep

Sometimes life in Wayne's world is a little askew.

[librechik]

4. so far Madsen is the only source, so best remain skeptical

but I don't see how they could restrain themselves from doing it--they're addicted to this kind of stuff.

TIA never shut down--it just changed it's name--I (and many others) said so at the time.

[bigtree]

5. from the blog page:

"If this information is correct, and I am betting that it is, how can any NSA employee come forward to corroborate this story and not be tried for treason? How are whistleblowers going to come forward and not be arrested and shut up? There must be a law that allows government employees to reveal criminal actions and not be charged with treason. I wonder how this works. Does any one know?

[ClayZ]

13. Whistleblowers RISE and Shine!

[Stephanie]

6. First Fruits = Biblical feast day

Shavuot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Shavuot (Hebrew ש ;בועות), (" weeks") (pronounced: shah-voo-OH-t) is one of the three Biblical pilgrimage festivals. It is a major Jewish holiday, and is also known as the Feast of Weeks. Greek-speaking Jews gave it the name Pentecost (π ;εντηκόστη) since it occurs fifty days after Passover. If you don't count Passover, the holiday is 49 days after Passover, which is a jubilee of days. This ends the Counting of the Omer.

Shavuot has many aspects and as a consequence has been called by many names. In the Hebrew Bible it is called the "Feast of Harvest" (Hebrew: חג הקציר, Hag ha-Katsir; Ex. xxiii. 16) and the "Feast of Weeks" (Hebrew: חג שבעות, Hag Shavuot; ib. xxxiv. 22; Deut. xvi. 10), also the "Day of the First-Fruits" (Hebrew יום הבכורים, Yom ha-Bikkurim; Num. xxviii. 26).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot

[Peace Patriot]

10. Interesting find, Stephanie. Points to the Neo-Cons.

To Christians, Pentacost is the coming of the Holy Spirit, described as tongues of fire descending from Heaven into the Apostles, and often depicted as a dove. Some Christian theologians have associated the Holy Spirit with the Great Mother Goddess (third person of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Holy Spirit is associated with knowledge and wisdom.

I think of harvest feasts and "first fruits" as taking the cream off the top--feasting on the best of the harvest, to celebrate the abundance of the earth. And I don't know if it's still current--or relevant here--but in my day "fruits" also meant "gays." (--the only relevance that I can think of is the rightwing "Christian" hostility to gays, and scapegoating of gays, and the junta's promotion of a brutal kind of masculinity--killing, torture, callousness, disregard for others, might makes right; and those who dissented from these Nazi traits would be "fruits"--gays, sweeter people; and, given who they were spying on--opinion shapers, professionals, gov't officials--these would be the "first" fruits, the initial dissenters).

There is also the simpler idea, that these were the first gleanings of their "harvest of information"--the first to be spied upon, the first to yield juicy results that could be used as blackmail to shut people up, or head off, anticipate and preemptively strike at any crticism.

[bigtree]

11. “Christ—the Firstfruits”

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=2&itemid=603

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul wrote at length concerning the resurrection of the dead, because some of the Christians in Corinth taught “that there is no resurrection of the dead” (vs. 12). As one of his proofs for the Christian’s eventual resurrection, Paul pointed to the fact of the resurrection of Christ, and showed that the two stand or fall together, saying, “if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (vss. 16-17)! After hypothetically arguing from the absurd in an attempt to get the Corinthian Christians to see that their stance on the final resurrection completely undermined Christianity, Paul proceeded to demonstrate that Christ had risen, and thus made the resurrection of the dead inevitable. It is in this section of scripture that some find a difficulty. Beginning with verse 20, Paul wrote:

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, emp. added).

Christ! Draw your own analogy.

[ClayZ]

14. Yikes, Holy Fruit Salad!

This keeps getting freakier and freakier. Why not get those guys who stand on the corner with big signs 'The End is Near" to run the country.

Where are the Psychiatrists when you need them?

Mass Psychosis is upon them!

[ddeclue]

24. What kills me is the original name for the Iraqi invasion:

Operation Iraqi Liberation... doh!!! What idiot came up with that! The acronym even SPELLS OIL!

Now it's OIF (Freedom for Liberation)...

Doug D.

[Stephanie]

26. They're idiots

They really are. The first sign of a poor intellect is unwarranted self-admiration. They are too stupid to realize how stupid they are. You'd think they'd figure it out now that every one of their plans has turned out to be a miserable failure.

[Armstead]

7. kick

This should be huge

[Peace Patriot]

8. People always jump in on Wayne Madsen info and say that he is a...

...questionable source. They often use his info about what may be called the Bush Cartel's Plan C for retaining power in 2004. So I want to say something about this, that's been on my mind. I think their Plan A was electronic voting controlled by Bushite corporations using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls (assured by Tom Delay, who bottled the paper trail requirement up in committee). But since electronic vote rigging is new, and was just being tested out for the first time nationwide in 2004, and since some of the old pols may not have trusted the promises of the young techies, and, also, in case it was a Kerry blowout and the pre-inserted vote switching programs weren't enough, they had Plan B--massive vote suppression, with blatant violations of the Voting Rights Act, in whatever battleground state it came down to (in this case, Ohio).

And, in case Plans A and B did not work, there was Plan C--a phony "terrorist alert" shutdown of the vote counting, probably intended for the west coast. They even had Cheney's plane out over the Pacific just before the election. (He left for Hawaii, of all places, on Sunday, and I remember laughing at the news story--he said that Hawaii was promising to go "red," and he was going there to pump for votes. Hawaii!). Plan C was well prepped in the news, prior to the election, with numerous phony "terrorist alerts" (people were laughing about them), and there was even one involving a grade school in Los Angeles. (Remember that? It turned out that some Iraqi school principle had a map of the L.A. school on his computer, to help plan the construction of a school in Iraq.)

They didn't have to use Plan C (except in Warren County, Ohio). It was a much bigger Kerry win than expected (probably by a margin of 5% or so), so they did implement Plan B (outright vote suppression). And what Wayne Madsen may have gotten hold of was the tail of Plan C--the phony "terrorist alert" election shutdown for selected places--as it slithered away back into its black ops hole.

Madsen had a copy of an off-shore check and some sources who were pointing to a planned west coast shutdown of the vote. And people here blamed him for not be able to prove anything--and also for it NOT happening, as if Madsen had made it up. (This was in the midst of the controversy about BBV-Bev Harris not being able to prove anything.)

So I just wanted to say that I think DUers (the Madsen skeptics) were wrong about this Madsen item. In retrospect, I think that it is more than likely (I'd give it a 99% likely) that there WAS a Plan C, because of the cookie crumbs all around the plan (phony "terrorist alerts" planted in the newsstream; Cheney going to Hawaii), and because I believe that this criminal junta could not afford to be ousted from power, and would stop at nothing to retain it.

We should ALWAYS be careful about disinformation. I'm sure it is rampant. I don't blame anyone for skepticism and questioning sources. I just wanted to say that I think Madsen was unfairly accused of not being able to prove something the proof of which was likely being 'disappeared' very quickly with all the resources of the Bush junta.

And I have no doubt at all that Porter Goss and the Bushites were/are spying on everybody and his brother, and are probably blackmailing much of the political and news monopoly establishment.

[babylonsister]

9. I await the indignation of the media but wonder if it will happen. nt

[ddeclue]

23. Well the media take this sort of thing very personally...

They might not care what happens to you or I but ol' Judy in Jail was the favorite topic of all the TV talk show hosts right and left this year so if this is true, then in NASA-speak: The fecal matter has interfaced with the rotary ventilation device.

Doug D.

[Al-CIAda]

15. .

[cyberpj]

16. If so, can't wait to hear Hersh on this. nt.

[Toots]

17. Hmmm Rove and Libby didn't seem to have been effected

"Those discovered to have spoken to journalists and oversight personnel were subjected to sudden clearance revocation and termination as "security risks."

[bigtree]

18. sure

they're the creeps that chose the spooks who ran the program.

[EVDebs]

19. Spying on everyone else, why not journalists too !

Since TIA was offshored and outsourced to Global Information Group, Ltd., of the Bahamas -- Ben H. Bell's company-- you have the datamining being done out of country and with 'plausible deniability'. As for the quality of the "data" being mined, be assured that even banks operating overseas are already being scammed by unsrupulous types

""...Alan Paller, director of research at the Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Institute, said the California law is probably necessary because of the kinds of crime that are occurring. A group in Russia and Ukraine has been acquiring customer data, extorting money to prevent its release and then selling it anyway. Paller believes some companies are paying off the extortionists in an attempt to contain the damage""

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/privacy/story/0,10801,76768,00.html

So, our personal data is being 'mined' without any quality assurance and we're being spied upon in order find 'terrorists' who possibly fit the profile of: being a US citizen and living in the USofA.

NSA, here's a tip, narrow your parameters for what the profile of a terrorist is, o.k. ? Then verify that the data being mined (by chop-shops like ChoicePoint) hasn't been tweaked.

But I really didn't have to tell this to you, do I ?

[cantstandbush]

20. And Miller goes to jail to protect sources? WTF? If this doesnt

call for impeachment and jail time for a bunch of Bushbots, I don't know how we can invade anywhere in the name of "spreading democracy."

On the other hand, most journalists didn't give a peep when the US were killing foreign journalists in Iraq...it's fair to say they deserve whatever they get at the hands of the this administration. Of course the ones named are excepted from my opinion.

[Stephanie]

21. if they spied on Miller then it's fair game for Fitzgerald

dontcha think?

[ddeclue]

22. PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE A SECOND SOURCE!

Don't tease us like this...

[bigtree]

25. nope, and I won't vouch for Madsen's credibility, others will.

see post #8

keep looking for the programs referenced in the article: DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) "Countering Denial and Deception" program, and the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee (FDDC). Madsen's retired and he says it'll take some active operatives at the NSA to corroborate it. Sorry, you'll just have to rely on Madsen's word for now.

Did you see the article in today's WP about the CIA and a covert program? I immediately thought of Madsen's account but I can't find anything in the article matching his story.


from the WP article:

"Gen. Michael V. Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence, has described the administration's philosophy in public and private meetings, including a session with human rights groups.

"We're going to live on the edge," Hayden told the groups, according to notes taken by Human Rights Watch and confirmed by Hayden's office. "My spikes will have chalk on them. . . . We're pretty aggressive within the law. As a professional, I'm troubled if I'm not using the full authority allowed by law.

Not stopping another attack not only will be a professional failure, he argued, but also "will move the line" again on acceptable legal limits to counterterrorism.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901585_pf.html




here are some links:

NMIA (National Military Intelligence Association)Fall Symposium - Developments in MASINT and Denial and Deception: https://www.123signup.com/servlet/SignUpMember?PG=1522955182300&P=1522955191153210400&Info


Countering Foreign Intelligence
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/Ann_Rpt_2002/scfi.html


CIA Official Calls for "Sending SWAT Teams into Journalists’ Homes"

Saturday, July 27, 2002-WASHINGTON – "We’ve got to do whatever it takes – if it takes sending SWAT teams into journalists’ homes – to stop these leaks,” admonished James B. Bruce, vice chairman of the CIA's Foreign Denial and Deception Committee.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/cia-swat-journalists.htm



Denial and deception- SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, JANUARY 6, 1999 TO DECEMBER 15, 2000

The Committee has been deeply concerned about the increase
in foreign denial and deception efforts directed against U.S.
intelligence collection. Denial and deception refers to efforts
to conceal, or mislead with respect to, activities of interest
and concern to U.S. policymakers such as military deployments,
development of weapons of mass destruction, and political
intentions. Denial and deception threatens the national
security by depriving U.S. policymakers and military leaders of
timely and accurate intelligence of threats to U.S. interests.
The Committee held one briefing for Members and a number of
staff briefings on denial and deception issues. The Committee
increased funding for activities to counter denial and
deception, and has directed actions designed to focus
Intelligence Community resources and management attention on
this critical intelligence challenge.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001_rpt/srep107-51.html


These denial and deception programs are a creation of the CIA whose purpose is to address leaks of classified information by the press and others. This would seem to be right in line with the claims about monitoring journalists.

[robbedvoter]

27. Sad to see dubious sourced stories on first page of DU.

I don't even think they should be posted - or at least with a caveat right in the title.

[bigtree]

28. I posted this in GD where it is open to debate

What I am getting annoyed at are the broadsides at Madsen (maybe deserved) without any discussion from the posters about why they have problems with his credibility. I've seen plenty of reports from 'dubious' sources that proved correct. This one rings true. Do a search of the entities mentioned in Madsen's piece. They are primarily involved in stemming 'leaks'. Leaks that filter through news organizations. I actually don't think trashing Madsen is enough to quash the credibility of his report. If that were so, then we couldn't hope to get anywhere with our own investigative efforts as trashing the source is the opposition's method of discrediting anything we uncover.

[robbedvoter]

29. Caveat in the title might have been a good idea

I have problems with Madsen ever since I read his wildest accusations about Wes Clark (and I am talking Bat Boy wild - man boobs and other stuff from outer space).
During the stolen election 2004 pouring of info - DU had a lot of visibility because of some good activism and legit studies. And the roaches crawled out to take advantage. Such as bev harris , Madsen and a few others badly damaging the credibility and the effort of good people. That's my beef with Madsen.

[bigtree]

30. Yeah, my beef too. The efforts against DU and Clark are shameful

But, we have to judge stories with many different criteria. The source is just one of those. This story has paralells. It deserves some notice. I don't think anything would have been served by trashing Madsen as a pretext to the report. I gave the source and folks can sort the rest out. That's the function of the discussion board.

[Supersedeas]

32. I agree

[hang a left]

31. I know it is Madsen....

but don't you think he may have just scooped this story? Raise your hands if you think it is not true.

[Avalux]

33. Locking.

Wayne Madsen is not considered a reliable source. Please feel free to post the story again if another source is found. Thanks.