National Intelligence Director Reveals Previously Classified FISA Details - Confirms Private Companies Aided Illegal Spying
By Logan Murphy Friday Aug 24, 2007 3:27pmAP Via Yahoo:
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.
McConnell's comments — made in an interview with the El Paso Times last week and posted as a transcript on the newspaper's web site Wednesday — raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Among the disclosures:
McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector assisted with President Bush's warrantless surveillance program AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. "Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," McConnell said, arguing that they deserve immunity for their help.
He provided new details on court rulings handed down by the 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves classified eavesdropping operations and whose proceedings are almost always entirely secret. McConnell said a ruling that went into effect May 31 required the government to get court warrants to monitor communications between two foreigners if the conversation travels on a wire in the U.S. network. Millions of calls each day do, because of the robust nature of the U.S. systems. Read more...
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Fine. Let em go belly up if it will serve as a warning to other telecommunications companies that if they side with reich wing extremists in our government against the privacy of Americans they will be punished.
....oh, and frist.
Welcome to the Police State. It's for your own good.
immunity my ass....let em go bankrupt...shit...I have both of them....but not for long.ratbastards
Let 'em die. I bet it'd be cheaper to provide loans and grants to a few dozen small start-ups to buy up the infrastructure and take their place, and be better for the rest of us, too. Heck, organize the plaintiffs in these suits into investing that money into replacement companies.
I thought companies that are breaking the law are liable for punitive charges, just as individual citizens are. What's the big deal? Or are you saying that breaking the law is ok when the government asks for it?
Can anyone trust McConnell's statements? Would it be possible that this is just a diversion to think the surveillance isn't so bad?
Of course, those companies wouldn't need help if they hadn't seriously violated the law and a lotta peoples privacy at the same time. A lawsuit isn't a threat to a large corporation unless it has merit. McConnell is essentially admitting that the lawsuits have merit.
[Deleted-Sitemonitor]
Traitors enabling traitors. When will the people of the US rise up and call a spade a spade?
The yahoo article is dated 8-22. It has 13 votes, 4 stars. I wonder if it was visible longer than like 20 seconds.
Two words.......
Fuck 'em
wait for the next one - hundreds of thousands of foreign security employees of private contracting firms like blackwater in the US standing on your necks and being paid by you.
They did it in new orleans. This is just another demonstration that these corporatists know no bounds.
Ardyjay @ 9:
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That's what us attorney types call an admission. McConnell is tacitly admitting that the suits have merit and will prevail.
By disclosing this information isn't McConnell aiding the terrorists, whether or not the the El Paso times prints it or not?
Citizen's arrest, citizen's arrest!!
Let them go "belly up". Good riddance. We need to show the corporations we can live without them.
By the way..... how many readers of this post still pay Murdoch for his satellite TV service, Direct TV?
How many of the readers on this site have a MY Space Murdoch site where he gathers your every conversation?
I live in a Murdoch free household. Do you?
The day I heard that verizon and AT&T were suspected of "voluntarily" handing over information without a warrant, I contacted Qwest and tried to sign up for service.
Unfortunately, the don't offer service in my area so all I was able to do was thank them for showing some backbone against the white house thugs.
I recently saw a little snippet somewhere about how they are having a bit of financial trouble lately. Coincidence ?
I doubt it.
Yellowbird @ 16:
Rupert can see you through your computer monitor, and He is not pleased. :evil:
Oh no- it would bankrupt those companies if they had to pay out to lawsuits for violating peoples' privacy rights? How terrible.
Maybe they should've considered that ahead of time. That's sort of the whole point of a lawsuit.
Now I know why AT&T blocked part of their broadcast of the Pearl Jam concert over the internet. They needed that extra bandwidth go go through Eddie Vedder's email and voice mail.
Let 'em hang.
“Now if you play out the suits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies."
In other words, 'if these corporations are made to follow the law, they will lose alot of money. Therefore we must rewrite the law.'
And what else would you expect from these people? Law is for little people. It's a club you use the weak when they start to upset the powerful. Law does not apply to the powerful in this nation.
When the Qwest and telecom database issue came to light, I called my telephone service providers demanding to know if they'd taken part. Both denied they had. Now clearly I see they have.
I feel so violated.
Carmikl @ 7:
Yeah, isn't it WONderful?
Does anyone know who's doing the suing here? Who's going after AT&T, et al?
Because I want to send THEM some money.
Yellowbird @ 16:
Yellowbird - Thanks for the info about Direct TV being owned by Murdoch. I didn't know that. If I ever have a lapse of judgment by bringing mind numbing cable into my house it will not be Direct TV. Murdoch poisons more aspect of media than I realized.
Apples @ 22:
And in the few instances the law does snag the powerful like Scooter Libby the powerful like Bush commutes their sentences.
The deck is stacked against rank and file Americans.
Corporations are required by federal law to use assets to generate returns for investors. If specific actions expose the corporation to such extreme awards in civil suits as to bankrupt them and as a result cause losses for the investors, I would suggest federal law has been violated.
What we see here is just another attempt by this lawless government to use legislation to absolve themselves (absolution to punishment for having tortured) and their cronies (ATT, Verison and more) from consequences of their illegal acts.
This is an important question.
Generally it is true that acts subsequent to a criminal act are themselves criminal. The driver of a car carrying people who have just committed a bankrobbery for example is committing a crime which is subsequent to the robbery.
Is the act of absolving criminals from the consequences of their criminal acts itself criminal?
I would say, yes. Legislation intended shield criminals from justice must be seen as both an obstruction of justice and a continuation of the original crime - as a conspiracy.
This is why I changed my long distance from AT&T, who refuses to protect my privacy, to Qwest, who will. And I told them so.
these companies need to quit being doormats for the neo Stasi. They owe their shareholders to adhere to the Bill of Rights
I simply dumped Verizon about an year ago.
well well well....direct tv too huh?.....gotta switch to dish now....that explains why I didn't get tv in Mex this year...I used to be able to get all the channels down in Baja..but this year we only got 6 channels....this makes alot of sense...Murdoch.
When Wall Street boys lose money, they take a brief timeout from praising the free market, and demand that big daddy government make up their loses with some corporate welfare.
When corporations are caught breaking the law, they just have the laws rewritten so they aren't liable.
When good ol' rich boys are caught undermining national security to advance their ideoogical agenda, they just lie. No one calls them on it, and if by some miracle they are in fact convicted, they just have another good ol' rich boy pardon them.
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[...] National Intelligence Director Reveals Previously Classified FISA Details - Confirms Private Compani... This Summary is from an article posted at Crooks and Liars on Saturday, August 25, 2007 This [...]
"bankrupt these companies"
sounds like the mantra of the Fristonian era Congress concerning mercury in vaccines
These companies should go bankrupt. It is sad that we, as the population of the US, are unable to determine if the companies that we have to sign up for to work in society (cell phone, internet, etc) are going to be selling our personal information, and the government protects them. This is certainly no free market, because I would pay extra in a heart beat for service for a telecom company I could trust.
Large telecommunications companies do not go "belly up". If a class action suit is successful and if a jury awards an amount that is more than AT&T et al. can bear and if the suit is not overturned on appeal and if the amounts awarded are not significantly reduced on appeal and if the administration does not create legislation to protect the telecoms, then these companies might go bankrupt.
At which point, of course, the corporations which hold security over the telecoms' assets enforce their security and acquire the assets and then incorporate a new telecom co. to run the same business using the same assets and employing almost all of the same people as before.
"McConnell's interview raised concerns at the Justice Department, where senior officials questioned whether the intelligence chief had overstepped in discussing the secret FISA court."
Who cares? Is this Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. Who's listening?
If they broke the law, and are complicit in illegal wiretapping, let them PAY. Next time, they'll think twice.
In the article McConnell also said that only 100 Americans has been wiretap ed and that it takes 200 hours to get a warrant to legally spy on people outside this country. I say that this is misinformation. So I don't think you can believe what he has said about the phone companies. But the Bush administration has feeding us misinformation since 2001.
The chance of these companies being sued into bankruptcy is a smokescreen put up by McConnell. In order to provide the information to the spooks, they would have been given authorization by the highest levels of the government, thus relieving their liability. What they are really trying to do by giving immunity for past sins by the teloco's is cover for the White House, who provided these authorizations. Authorizations that were totally illegal and without oversight of any kind.
I have no love for corporate scumbags who go along with whatever government they have to live under to get along. Therefore I think we all granted a great deal of respect, however short lived it deserved, when one of the baby bells out west told the current maladministration to stick their illegal spy act where the sun don't shine. The rest, in my view, ought to sink as deep as the heavy anchor of criminality will take them.
If we further assume that these corporations were promised favorable regulatory treatment for their acts, this adds crime upon crime to the maladministrators who shit on their own badge and oath.
Unfortunately the government actors who actually tore up the laws will walk away with all their immunity intact when, in reality, it is they who among the entire field of bad actors, ought to pay for their crimes.
And in the end -par for the course- Americans will suffer and have no claim or recourse to get their government or their dignity back.
Having absolutely no choice in the matter and inheriting someone else's mess seems to me a totally dysfunctional relationship. Such is the sad state of our alleged democracy.
Why are there only 41 responses now when there were over 70 before? Quite a few are missing, including mine.
gnuorder @ 43:
Damn, never mind. Different thread I was thinking of. And I found my post.
The official story is ALWAYS a lie.
AT&T and Verizon should be sued into non-existence as a lesson and warning to any future corporation that comtemplates lawlessness and betrayal of customers to be a viable business plan. The Officers and boards of the companies should be thrown into prison and the keys sbould be thrown away or melted down.
The scum sucker McConnel gave this information because it is already largely suspected. By doing so he is attempting to say this is the full extent of the illegal activity by AT&T and Verizon. The truth I suspect is that AT&T and Verizon have been "assisting" the 'government' far beyond what he admits.
Not to forget McConnell's ties to the telecom industry...
And to the facism for which it stands.......
Qwest should be running commercials with a little jingle about "letting freedom ring"...
This would bankrupt these companies? So be it if that is the deterrant we need to prevent other corporations from being complicit in illegal activity.
They knew when they signed on it was illegal ergo the denials...if it bankrupts then so be it they are all ready morally bankrupt anyways
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Highlevel_Verizon_exec._exofficial_who...
Verizon denies
USA Today first reported the existence of a data-sharing program on May 11, 2006 in a story that fingered AT&T, Bell South, and Verizon for directly assisting the NSA in a program that may contravene federal law. The latter two companies promptly issued blanket denials of the story's allegations.
The official statement from Bell South, which read in part, "we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA," was accompanied by a statement from company spokesman Jeff Batcher, who said, "We are not providing any information to the NSA, period."
Likewise, Verizon spokesman Bob Varettoni told USA Today, "We are not providing any information to the NSA, period."
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