An NSA Whistleblower Speaks Out (worth reading)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: EEkid () aol com
Date: January 8, 2006 12:59:16 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: An NSA Whistleblower Speaks Out (worth reading)

"Amy Goodman: Two weeks ago, a former N.S.A. intelligence officer  
publicly announced he wants to testify before Congress. His name is  
Russell Tice. For the past two decades he has worked in the  
intelligence field, both inside and outside of government, most  
recently with the National Security Agency and the Defense  
Intelligence Agency. He was fired in May 2005, after he spoke out as  
a whistleblower."........



"Russell Tice: Data mining is a means by which you -- you have  
information, and you go searching for all associated elements of that  
information in whatever sort of data banks or databases that you put  
together with information. So if you have a phone number and you want  
to associate it with, say, a terrorist or something, and you want to  
associate it with, you know, 'Who is this terrorist talking to?' you  
start doing data on what sort of information or what sort of numbers  
does that person call or the frequency of time, that sort of thing.  
And you start basically putting together a bubble chart of, you know,  
where everybody is.

Lord help you if you've got a wrong phone call from one of these  
guys, a terrorist overseas or something, and you're American. You're  
liable to have the F.B.I. camping out your doorstep, apparently, from  
everything that's going on. But it's basically a way of searching all  
of the data that exists, and that's things like credit card records  
and driver's license, anything that you can get your hands on and try  
to associate it with some activity. I think if we were doing that  
overseas with known information, it would be a good thing if we're  
pinning them down. But ultimately, when we're using that on -- if  
we're using that with U.S. databases, then ultimately, once again,  
the American people are -- their civil rights are being violated.".....




"Russell Tice: Well, anytime where you have a situation where U.S.  
citizens are being arrested and thrown in jail with the key being  
thrown away, you know, potentially being sent overseas to be  
tortured, U.S. citizens being spied on, you know, and it doesn't even  
go to the court that deals with these secret things, you know, I  
mean, think about it, you could have potentially somebody getting the  
wrong phone call from a terrorist and having him spirited away to  
some back-alley country to get the rubber hose treatment and who  
knows what else. I think that would kind of qualify as a police  
state, in my judgment."


http://www.alternet.org/rights/30387/

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