Spying

More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying
New Documents Reveal Md. Program's Reach

By Lisa Rein and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 4, 2009; Page A01

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes. READ REST.

By Melvin A. Goodman, The Public Record

During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama spoke out against the militarization and politicization of the intelligence community and indicated that an Obama administration would address the intelligence abuses of the past decade. Unfortunately, his maneuvers over the past several weeks strongly suggest that business as usual will dominate the president-elect’s intelligence policy.

Why the NFL Spies on Its Players
To Buff Image, League Broadens Discipline, Hires Ex-Cops; 'A White Man in Sunglasses'
By Hannah Karp | WSJ.com

The National Football League's unprecedented new effort to protect its image by cracking down on loutish behavior is making some of the league's 1,952 players a little nervous.

DOJ Lawyer Dropped Dime On Bush Wiretaps | CBSNews.com
Whistleblower Reveals He leaked Information About Warrantless Surveillance Program

A former Justice Department lawyer says he tipped off the news media about the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program because it "didn't smell right," Newsweek magazine reported Sunday.

Thomas Tamm, whose suburban Washington home was searched by federal agents last year, told the magazine he leaked the existence of the secret program to The New York Times 18 months before the newspaper broke the story.

The Fed Who Blew the Whistle: Is he a hero or a criminal?
By Michael Isikoff, NEWSWEEK

Thomas M. Tamm was entrusted with some of the government's most important secrets. He had a Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, a level above Top Secret. Government agents had probed Tamm's background, his friends and associates, and determined him trustworthy.

It's easy to see why: he comes from a family of high-ranking FBI officials. During his childhood, he played under the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, and as an adult, he enjoyed a long and successful career as a prosecutor. Now gray-haired, 56 and fighting a paunch, Tamm prides himself on his personal rectitude. He has what his 23-year-old son, Terry, calls a "passion for justice." For that reason, there was one secret he says he felt duty-bound to reveal.

By Andrew McLemore, Raw Story

The Justice Department has evaded a request from President-elect Barack Obama's transition team for documents about the secret programs of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The team asked to "review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs," but the inquiry has been denied.

Among the information requested are official documents about the "legal rationale" for the secret wiretapping and torture programs conducted by the two agencies.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey addressed the issue with reporters, saying that his department was reluctant to give up the documents without permission from the two agencies involved.

Government Must Disclose Whether It Has Records Related to Wiretapping of Privileged Attorney-Client Conversations Without a Warrant

December 12, 2008, New York – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals the decision of a federal court judge who ruled that the government did not have to disclose whether it was illegally spying on Guantanamo attorneys’ conversations.

By Marc Fisher, Washington Post

For years, the Maryland State Police, eager to play anti-terrorist surveillance agents just like the big boys on TV, spied on suburban peace activists who may have been loud, but never posed the slightest threat to the nation or the state.

So what did Maryland taxpayers get for their investment in the state police's investigations of 53 people, including lawyers, a candidate for Congress, a leader of an effort to curb military recruiting in Montgomery County high schools, and a sportswriter?

Have a look for yourself--it's pitiful.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation's telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans' private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants. READ THE REST.

By Dave Lindorff

I am not a terrorist.

How can I prove this in these paranoid times? Easy. The New York Department of Motor Vehicles took my $30 payment over the phone to clear what they said was a record of my NY drivers license having once been withdrawn, and informed the National Driver Register in Washington that I’m a good guy deserving of a renewal of my Pennsylvania drivers license.

Let me explain.

Former Intercept Operator Tells ABC News He Saw Blair File, Heard "Pillow Talk" of Iraqi Leader
By BRIAN ROSS, VIC WALTER, and ANNA SCHECTER, ABC

A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia between 2003 and 2007.

Last month, Faulk and another former military intercept operator assigned to the NSA facility triggered calls for an investigation when they revealed U.S. intelligence intercepted the private phone calls of American journalists, aid workers and soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Iranian blogger arrested as Israeli spy | Jerusalem Post

An Iranian blogger who visited Israel at least twice in the past three years, and who was twice interviewed here by The Jerusalem Post about his efforts to "humanize" Israel for Iranians and vice-versa, has reportedly been arrested in Teheran and admitted to spying for Israel.

According to a report in Jahan News, which is close to Iran's intelligence community, quoted by the Middle East analyst Meir Javedanfar, the blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, returned to Iran about three weeks ago, having previously been based in Canada.

"Prior to his return," Javedanfar writes on his middleeastanalyst.com Web site, Derakhshan had "started attacking [former Iranian president] Ayatollah [Hashemi] Rafsanjani in his blog. It is possible that he fell foul of a power struggle within Iran."

By AMOL SHARMA, Wall Street Journal

Verizon Wireless disclosed late Thursday that several of its employees accessed and viewed President-elect Barack Obama's personal cellphone account, and said it planned to discipline workers for the privacy breach.

"We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day," the company's chief executive, Lowell McAdam, said in a statement.

Verizon said it discovered the unauthorized account access this week and said it related to an account that has been inactive "for several months." The device on the account was a standard feature phone, rather than a smartphone with advanced email and data capabilities.

Intelligence study sees risks in rapid global power shift
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The risks of a nuclear weapon being used and wars being fought over dwindling resources will grow during the next 20 years as diminishing U.S. power, a shift of wealth from West to East, the rise of India and China and climate change reshape the world, a new U.S. intelligence study warned Thursday.

"The international system — as constructed following the Second World War — will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, an historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of non-state actors," the report said.

By Dave Lindorff

The ongoing and deepening global economic crisis, to which Barack Obama owes his presidential election victory, is no small thing, to be sure. It also presents us on the left with a lot of openings to press for progressive change.

George W Bush could pardon spies involved in torture
By Tim Shipman | Telegraph.co.UK

Senior intelligence officers are lobbying the outgoing president to look after the men and women who could face charges for following his orders in the war on terrorism.

Many fear that Barack Obama, who has pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and put an end to the policy of extraordinary rendition, could launch a legal witch hunt against those who oversaw the policies after he is sworn in on Jan 20.

Most vulnerable are US intelligence officers who took part in intensive interrogations against terrorist suspects, using techniques including water boarding, which many believe crossed the line into torture.

By Ryan Singel, Wired

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, Americans won't just get a new president; they might finally learn the full extent of George W. Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping.

Since the New York Times first revealed in 2005 that the NSA was eavesdropping on citizen's overseas phone calls and e-mails, few additional details about the massive "Terrorist Surveillance Program" have emerged. That's because the Bush Administration has stonewalled, misled and denied documents to Congress, and subpoenaed the phone records of the investigative reporters.

By David Swanson

Glenn Greenwald has another post on phony "exclusive" claims by ABC News in which he again fails to report that I broke the NSA spying story. However, he has finally agreed to add an update correcting this and getting it right. Increasingly, the handful of reporters continuing to cover the story are getting that bit right, and much as I appreciate it, what I really want it for them to move on from the spying and phone sex to the evidence of war lies and war crimes that I originally reported. Greenwald's post is of interest, though, for the other phony "exclusive" falsely claimed by ABC.