Natalie/Facts of Life Ping!
Posted on 01/10/2006 4:22:59 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.
For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.
"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations."
But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the National Security Agency in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.
"The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them," he said.
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.
President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants.
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.
The same day The New York Times broke the story of the NSA eavesdropping without warrants, Tice surfaced as a whistleblower in the agency. He told ABC News that he was a source for the Times' reporters. But Tice maintains that his conscience is clear.
"As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't say anything that's classified, I'm not worried," he said. "We need to clean up the intelligence community. We've had abuses, and they need to be addressed."
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."
"He is a TRAITOR, pure and simple."
Agreed
"It is fairly hard to terminate a "civil servant",
It can't be difficult to move a whacko out of sensitive work............can it?
It is possible he is nuts, but is also possible that this is the only way of getting above the background noise, by sucking the demonrats into his story.
Bump.
"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."
So if they were given permission, which they were not, they could eavesdrop on more people. They were not given permission, so they did not.
ping
"My doctor tells me I swallow a lot of agression.....along with alot of pizza"
How convenient!
When you mention the name Dick Morris, activate your antenna. (He who speaks from both sides of his mouth).
Credit for Glick reference goes to '101st-Eagle' in Post #51.
LOL
The framework is infested. About time it gets cleaned out....shouldn't the "party of corruption" be able to clean out the "pure as driven snow" Clintoonistas?
The nondisclosure document clearly states it's a life time commitment,
and that there are penalties for violations of the trust.
That's a bunch of crap; he THOUGHT somebody who did not work at DIA was a spy and he DECLARED that HER DAUGHTER, who worked in DIA, would probably BE a spy.
He's a fool.
I saw this moron on Nightline tonight and was ~extremely~ annoyed at how ABC repeatedly referred to him as a whistle-blower.
I do not believe that ABC is incompetent enough not to realize how inappropriate it is, at this point, to refer to him with such a loaded (laudatory) term. Yea...at the end of the report they appended as a kind of footnote that he was a dismissed psycho but only after treating him through most of ths story as a wiseman and a hero. Any honest journalist would have asked him point blank: "Some people are saying that you are making these charges because you were dismissed from NSA over allegation of mental or emotional difficulties. Are these charges that you are making in any way related to how you were treated by the agency?"
Should be fairly, but plainly, asked. Too much to expect from ABC or other MSM. Way too much.
Well ok, above TS the need to know gets a little more rigid. There is Q; NSA has some coded SAPs. Technicality.
PING!!!!
Outside this area the ordinary facts of life surrounding such jobs may not be well known.
I do know people who have had such jobs. When you go off your meds you will need to get a new job.
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