• Former NSA whistleblowers plead for chance to brief Obama on agency abuses
    18 replies, posted
[url]http://rt.com/usa/nsa-obama-whistleblowers-letter-337/[/url] [IMG]http://cdn.rt.com/files/news/21/c6/10/00/19.si.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]A group of former National Security Agency insiders who went on to become whistleblowers have written a letter to President Barack Obama, requesting a meeting with him to offer “a fuller picture” of the spy agency’s systemic problems. The group of four intelligence specialists - William Binney, Thomas Drake, Edward Loomis and Kirk Wiebe - who worked at the NSA for “a total of 144 years, most of them at senior levels” stressed in the letter the need for Obama to address what they’ve seen as abuses that violated Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights and that have made proper, effective intelligence gathering more difficult. “What we tell you in this Memorandum is merely the tip of the iceberg,” the group, calling themselves the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), wrote. “We are ready – if you are – for an honest conversation. That NSA’s bulk collection is more hindrance than help in preventing terrorist attacks should be clear by now despite the false claims and dissembling.” [/QUOTE]
And as always nothing will happen.
[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;43471608]And as always nothing will happen.[/QUOTE] Until something gets leaked. Then they get called traitors for not pursuing the choice of 'sensible dialogue.' The unfortunate thing is that leaks are the only way to acquire mass attention to domestic abuses.
Honest opinion here: This is the stuff that presidents should be impeached about. If Obama refuses this, he's working against the American people by all definitions. But I guess getting your dick sucked is a bigger crime against them...
Where are our resident NSA apologists now?? I'd love to see their arguments against the claims of four senior officials
America could have been a great asset for humanity, And now its being pissed away.
Catbarf please tell me why they should have went through the government set up "legitimate" channels instead of burglarizing the fbi and exposing it to media outlets.
I seriously hope these guys get the chance to tell everyone about the NSA's cyberterrorism; the situation's gotten so out of hand that it's stuck to our feet.
[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;43471608]And as always nothing will happen.[/QUOTE] If Obama won't speak to them, then as protected whistleblowers they have the right to testify before Congress. I don't know if you've been paying attention but Congress has been pretty active about seeking inquiry. If on the off chance both Congress and the President won't address it, then no amount of leaking is going to force them to act. [QUOTE=zakedodead;43474485]Catbarf please tell me why they should have went through the government set up "legitimate" channels instead of burglarizing the fbi and exposing it to media outlets.[/QUOTE] I'm not seeing any mention of the FBI here, what are you on about?
Impeach obama
It seemed odd to me that Russia Today is the only one reporting this story (I thought we all agreed RT is a shit source?) so I did a bit of digging. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veteran_Intelligence_Professionals_for_Sanity"]This[/URL] is the group that sent the memo, a group of former intelligence community officers that have been sending warnings and concerns to the office of the President since 2003. [URL="http://warisacrime.org/vips"]Here[/URL] is a list of all of the memos they have sent. And [URL="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-0"]here[/URL] is an article containing the full wording of the memo. Anyways, despite what Russia Today is implying, these guys have no direct contact with the current programs. While they're certainly entitled to their opinion and probably have insight into long-term systemic problems with the NSA, they're not acting as whistleblowers regarding PRISM and other current NSA programs, so it's not surprising to me that the President wouldn't meet with them specifically.
[QUOTE=catbarf;43475732]It seemed odd to me that Russia Today is the only one reporting this story (I thought we all agreed RT is a shit source?) so I did a bit of digging. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veteran_Intelligence_Professionals_for_Sanity"]This[/URL] is the group that sent the memo, a group of former intelligence community officers that have been sending warnings and concerns to the office of the President since 2003. [URL="http://warisacrime.org/vips"]Here[/URL] is a list of all of the memos they have sent. And [URL="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-0"]here[/URL] is an article containing the full wording of the memo. Anyways, despite what Russia Today is implying, these guys have no direct contact with the current programs. While they're certainly entitled to their opinion and probably have insight into long-term systemic problems with the NSA, they're not acting as whistleblowers regarding PRISM and other current NSA programs, so it's not surprising to me that the President wouldn't meet with them specifically.[/QUOTE] Good lookin' out
[QUOTE=catbarf;43475732]It seemed odd to me that Russia Today is the only one reporting this story (I thought we all agreed RT is a shit source?) so I did a bit of digging. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veteran_Intelligence_Professionals_for_Sanity"]This[/URL] is the group that sent the memo, a group of former intelligence community officers that have been sending warnings and concerns to the office of the President since 2003. [URL="http://warisacrime.org/vips"]Here[/URL] is a list of all of the memos they have sent. And [URL="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-0"]here[/URL] is an article containing the full wording of the memo. [B]Anyways, despite what Russia Today is implying, these guys have no direct contact with the current programs.[/B] While they're certainly entitled to their opinion and probably have insight into long-term systemic problems with the NSA, they're not acting as whistleblowers regarding PRISM and other current NSA programs, so it's not surprising to me that the President wouldn't meet with them specifically.[/QUOTE] So what I'm getting from this is that you didn't bother to read the title, let alone article. The title explicitly says they are former members. The article then highlights that they were pushing for a different program while they were in the agency (i.e stellarwind and thinthread), not PRISM. [quote][B]But instead, then-NSA director Michael Hayden chose a different program[/B], STELLARWIND, produced by defense contractors that cost billions of dollars while violating Fourth Amendment and privacy rights. Drake sounded the alarm, continuing to push for THINTHREAD use even after all its developers left the NSA in October 2011. [/quote] Care to explain?
[QUOTE=Sprockethead;43474399]America could have been a great asset for humanity, And now its being pissed away.[/QUOTE] [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCAGUlWfCRM[/url] This is what we have become.
[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;43471608]And as always nothing will happen.[/QUOTE] i'm pretty sure with obama's track record he'd throw them all in jail the minute they arrive.
[QUOTE=Stopper;43471721]Honest opinion here: This is the stuff that presidents should be impeached about. If Obama refuses this, he's working against the American people by all definitions. But I guess getting your dick sucked is a bigger crime against them...[/QUOTE]Clinton didn't get removed for an Oval Office oral session. He got removed for lying under oath to the American people.
[QUOTE=Starpluck;43476287]So what I'm getting from this is that you didn't bother to read the title, let alone article. The title explicitly says they are former members. The article then highlights that they were pushing for a different program while they were in the agency (i.e stellarwind and thinthread), not PRISM. Care to explain?[/QUOTE] So what I'm getting from this is that you didn't bother to read the memo, and are instead going by RT's usual awful journalism, which on probably any other topic would garner complaints because RT is a godawful source. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake#Biography]Drake left the NSA proper in 2006, and was discharged entirely from the agency in 2007[/url]. In fact, see that little bit you quoted about 'October 2011'? Here's the sentence from the actual memo: [quote] In the weeks after 9/11, 40 to 50 servers began arriving followed quickly by a whole new set of technical people who on September 26, 2001, turned STELLARWIND loose on all of us. “Even after the developers of THINTHREAD left NSA in [b]October 2001[/b], I kept trying to get it authorized to go operational – in vain.[/quote] 2001, 2011, what's the difference, right? This is a terrible article.
As if he doesn't know all about it.
It scares me how little we actually know about this stuff
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