good questions.

great article
i’ll be waiting for this story to break.

explaining why the Times finally published its story last week after holding it back for over a year

Thankyou NY Times for keeping Americans informed on their vanishing freedoms. For standing up for the people’s right to know what their government is doing (to them). Eventually. When you get around to it. When things are beginning to turn against the administration.

Maybe if the next public opinion poll shows enough people think impeachment is called for, you can run an editorial calling for a serious look at impeachment.

When your multiplayer online game lags … guess what is stradling the internet backbone: massive supercomputers.

For a while there were only three Cray II supercomputers in Canada, two of which were used by Canadian intel agency on CA-NET (Canadian internet backbone). This was 10 years ago…

Has anyone thought about who might be spying on the U.S. what means they are currently using, and what are they doing with that information?

What is NSA up to? or what is up in the intelligence community?

From this years Intelligence Bill: (my blog on it)

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 noted the critical value of open source intelligence (OSINT) and stated Congress’s belief that all elements of the Intelligence Community should make extensive use of open source information. The Act recommended that the DNI explore the possible establishment of a center for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, producing, and disseminating open source intelligence

This web site would be considered ‘open source information’

Although authorization for the activities at EPIC is not within the Committee’s jurisdiction, the Committee recommends that the DNI leverage EPIC’s expertise, endorse greater information-sharing between EPIC and the Intelligence Community, and encourage a closer and more collaborative working relationship between EPIC and members of the Intelligence Community

Then look to the comments made when Negroponte was consolidating his control

Coming just a month into his work in the newly created job of intelligence chief, the conflict over Mr. Negroponte’s personnel powers was widely seen as the first major test of his political strength. Had his powers been trimmed, questions would have been raised about his ability to exert control over the nation’s 15 intelligence agencies, especially those that are part of the Defense Department

Earlier Thursday, some architects of intelligence overhaul bill last year warned that requiring Congressional committees to approve personnel changes would undercut Mr. Negroponte’s authority

Both are quotes from this article

Bush has completely overhauled the intelligence agencies, and it is pretty much his only major success….

Why was this issue #1?

Was it 9/11? (occam’s razorbladeslitmythroat)

and did former CIA&President Daddy offer his experiences? (like faking Iraqi tanks along the border of Saudi in Gulf ’91)

Where are this reforms leading us? and how many are already in place?

I’m personally not a huge fan of privacy, but unbridled intelligence czars scare me… just kinda need the checks and balances (as a side note, Bushs strengthening of the Executive Branch has also been quite spectacular)

and …. rant done….

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report (NYT)

“The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.”

Hmmmmmm….iiiiinteresting. So that’s why the fuckers couldn’t just use FISA. Well, since you fascist motherfuckers are reading this anyway: fuck you, fuck your bosses, and fuck your souls.