We hold these truths to be self-evident...

[zorch]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abIV0cO64zJE&refer=#

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[john9001]

quote:
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June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
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and if they had caught the highjackers before 9-11 because of the monitoring, you would say?

[zorch]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who said on May 17th, 2002, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile - a hijacked airplane as a missile."

I'd say you can't have it both ways. They claim the wiretap program which started before 9/11 was in response to 9/11.

They claim they couldn't have predicted the attacks. And you're ok with that because it might have, but didn't, stop the attack.

If we lock you up now, we might prevent you from committing a crime we can't possibly predict you will commit.

No, that doesn't make sense, but it's the same logic you're using to justify the administration usurping your rights and lying about the reason.

Either they knew, or they didn't. If they didn't know, they were being deliberately obtuse (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm).

If they did know, they allowed it to happen because it advanced the administration's agenda and provided an excuse to implement the PNAC ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century ).

My money is on the latter;
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml

[Gunslinger]

[uvwpvW]

Originally posted by john9001
quote:
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June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and if they had caught the highjackers before 9-11 because of the monitoring, you would say?

I would not trade our freedom to save two buildings and 3000 lives, even if one of those lives were mine. I accept the risk of being free. Staying free is the only way we will truly defeat terrorism. Unfortunately Americans are running scared. The terrorists are winning.

[Holden McGroin]

Hell I'll bite...

Originally posted by zorch
I'd say you can't have it both ways. They claim the wiretap program which started before 9/11 was in response to 9/11.

[/b]

1. The program stared after 9/11. No where in your linkage did I find otherwise

2. It is a call database, not a wiretap.  The Admin claims they gather info about who you talked to, not what was said.

3. Why do you think your two quotes are related, the one by Rice and the other talking ofthe 3 comm cos?

[zorch]

Holden McGroin queried;
1. The program stared after 9/11. No where in your linkage did I find otherwise

2. It is a call database, not a wiretap. The Admin claims they gather info about who you talked to, not what was said.

3. Why do you think your two quotes are related, the one by Rice and the other talking ofthe 3 comm cos?

1 & 3. There's evidence the program was intitated before 9/11. Using 9/11 to justify doing something 7-8 months earlier is only valid if you either anticipated 9/11 or planned it. Which is why the two quotes you mention are connected. Rice claims they didn't anticipate it, so either she's lying about that, or she's lying about the justification for the program.
http://cryptome.org/mayer-016.htm

Personally, I believe she's lying about both. You can easily tell when this administration is lying. Their lips move.

2. You're confusing 2 programs. One logs who you call. The other taps voice and internet content. The logging of who you call has been a practice of telcos for over a decade (They use a product called Ensemble CRM, ostensibly for marketing and fraud protection). Tapping phone calls and logging internet traffic wasn't initiated until a few days after Bush took office, but several months before 9/11.

Funny how there's so much illegal surveillance going on, you can't even keep the programs straight.

As far as the logging of who you call, pay careful attention to the language used by the telcos. They claim not to have given the records to the NSA. What they don't say, is that they all use Ensemble CRM to log numbers called and the call duration. Ensemble is owned by an Israeli company, which was founded by 3 guys from Israeli intelligence. The NSA only had to ask one company to get all of the records.

uvwpvW wrote;

I would not trade our freedom to save two buildings and 3000 lives, even if one of those lives were mine. I accept the risk of being free. Staying free is the only way we will truly defeat terrorism. Unfortunately Americans are running scared. The terrorists are winning.

Amen.

And thanks to Gunslinger for demonstrating that even obnoxious speech is tolerated in a free society.

[Nash]