GroupThinkTank
Revolutionizing the world, one "I agree" at a time
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Mike Russo, 1:09 PM:
I was proved fucking right!
So, that baseless speculation in the post below about how NYT had probably spiked the story prior to the election? Spot-on:
The New York Times first debated publishing a story about secret eavesdropping on Americans as early as last fall, before the 2004 presidential election.
So yeah. As Kevin Drum points out, there's a very strong chance if this story had broken, say, mid-October, we'd have a President Kerry right now. It's unfair to the Times to say it should have run back then, without knowing the details on sourcing etc., but still.
Oh, and apparently the current informed speculation is that the program at issue is something Echelon-like, as Mark suggested. Mostly cueing off of a few statements here and there -- Sen. Rockefeller's letter indicating the program had "technical" complexities and that it reminded him of Poindexter's brainchild TIA, e.g. -- and the patent silliness of the "FISA Court isn't convenient enough for the executive branch" argument.
[Subject heading courtesy Judith Miller re: WMD, of course]
Friday, December 16, 2005
Mike Russo, 12:58 PM:
Law and Security Roundup
So, was reading the big long NYT article on the NSA conducting warantless surveillance of phone traffic (the article doesn't make a very big deal out of it, but I'm pretty sure this is illegal by statute, which is why there's all the maundering at the end about "inherent constitutional authority." That's when I reach for my revolver etc.)
Anyway, buried in there is this:
The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
Anybody else doing the math on when an article delayed for a year might have come out? NB that I'd bet dollars to donuts that the cited mid-2004 "concerns" were what prompted the leaks which led to the story.
Notable too is the apparent fear on the part of the people administering the program that they would be subject to investigations upon a change of administrations. This worry has apparently come up in a bunch of contexts -- e.g. the CIA guys who are holding the bag on renditions, "torture lite", and secret prisons. Yet another argument for legislative, rather than purely executive, guidance in these areas.
In related news, I'm sure y'all have seen the White House has caved on the McCain amendment. The tweaks are not terrible (the one on reasonable reliance on superior orders is fine, but there's another one which to my knowledge hasn't been reported on yet which I'm disappointed is in there), and Hunter's just posturing now. So that's a big win -- unless of course the Pentagon's new secret list of ok'd tactics winds up screwing with things. I'm really curious what the dynamics in DoD were like on this one...
EDIT: Oh, and lest the above come off uncharacteristically Pollyanna-ish, I should note that Graham-Levin is totally getting passed and is fucking terrible. Especially given the rumors that they're sexing it up even worse in conference -- the whole "OK, 'evidence' from torture should be admissable in court if we really, really want it" thing is bad enough, but there've been even worse ideas kicked around, from what I hear...
X-Pub, 12:03 PM:
Bushy Scandal of the Week
The NSA has been spying on 500 people in America and a few thousand abroad at any given time without a warrant with authorization from Bush
The article talks about how people thought this may have kinda sorta been illegal, and I just had to ask: is there any way that this could not be illegal?
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
David Bernat, 3:54 PM:
Google This
Could of things I've been wanteing to see on this there internet.
1) Address Lists on Gmail. Do I really need to cut and paste from a text file?
2) You mean I can't store and view a text file alongside my Gmail? Give me a place to store view and files in my mailbox. Sure, I could email them to myself, but that just suggests that this feature would be very easy to impliment.
3) I'm looking for an online calendar that will sync with my computer and go so far as to email me or my phone updates when I have appointments. This probably exists out there on the internet, but I haven't found a system that is easy and carries these three features: Accessible online, syncing with my laptop, and communication with my cell phone.
I should have written that SMS parser when I had the time and motivation.
