AlterNet: Whistleblower Levels Shocking Allegations at Bush's Spying Programs

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Whistleblower Levels Shocking Allegations at Bush's Spying Programs

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted January 24, 2009.

It seems Bush's lust for spying went so far as to target reporters, and even the senator tasked with overseeing U.S. intelligence.



On Jan. 21, former U.S. intelligence official Russell Tice appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermannn" and broke a sobering bit of news that, sandwiched between Obama's inauguration and sweeping executive orders, went largely ignored by the media: Under the Bush administration's notorious warrantless spying program, not only did the NSA eavesdrop on millions of Americans, it turns out it specifically targeted "U.S. news organizations, reporters and journalists."

As Olbermannn put it, "non-terrorist Americans, if you will."

"It has taken less than 24 hours after the Bush presidency ended for a former analyst with the National Security Agency to come forward to reveal new allegations about how this nation was spied on by its by its own government," Olbermannn said on Wednesday night.

"Russell Tice has already stood up for truth before this evening as one source for the revelation in 2005 by the New York Times that President Bush was eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants … tonight, the next chapter for Mr. Tice -- a chapter he feared to reveal while George Bush occupied the Oval Office."

The contents of the exclusive interview, if not surprising, were chilling nonetheless. Tice, who was fired from the NSA in May 2005, discussed how part of his job had been to monitor information flow among organizations that were expressly not of interest, for the ostensible purpose of flagging and filtering them out. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/122234/whistleblower_levels_shocking_allegations_at_bush%27s_spying_programs/