Wednesday, January 11, 2006

NSA Whistle-blower provides something rather intresting...

Well ABC news got the Whistle Blower who is a main source of the New York Times Allegations....

though I have to wonder if on the broadcast it provided something of substance because on the online version something else came out....

Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use.

"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing."

According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.


This is not secret information, but not well known. The key to this technology is it doesn't "tap" in the traditional sense nor surveil in the traditional sense. It takes any phone call that may say Jihad. though I'd imagine they'd probably want a few more flags on a call before it sorts itself out.

again not common knowledge but if you know the NSA well you know about this.

however what is said next is particularly telling.

But Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.

"That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum," Tice said.


What he seems to be saying here isn't so much that he knows of specific illegalities, but he knows that a POTENTIAL for specific illegalities exists.

If this is all he has to blow the olde whistle with he is very much lacking.

and now of course for what was said at the end of the article....

The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him. Tice calls that bunk and says that's the way the NSA deals with troublemakers and whistleblowers. Today the NSA said it had "no information to provide."


Now their are one of two ways to look at this.
#1) He is a legitimate Whistle blower
or
#2) He is someone with an Axe to grind.

It is pretty clear he got dismissed around the time the New York Times first broke the story to the White house. A story they waited a year to publish. Around this time we have what many believe was a case of open warfare against the president by folks in the CIA. So is this another kind of Plame faux-story?

only time will tell.

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