Far More Wide-Ranging

Posted by on . 2 comments.

More spying:

A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans’ Constitutional rights.
Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a “special access” electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Sounds like Tice is talking about Echelon here because he’s specifically differentiating it from the “warrentless wiretapping” of the current NSA story.

Funny, someone told us that wasn’t the case…

Comments

  1. JimC says:
    February 15, 2006 at 9:14 am

    I think Tice or someone is getting their wiretapping lines crossed. In the ABCNews special I watched, it was clear that they were using a system very much like Echelon to generate leads. Then these leads would be send for further analysis and some subset of those leads ended up as a “warrantless wiretap”. I highly doubt they have two separate systems doing the same function, well maybe not, it is the federal government, why buy one super spying computer when you can buy two for twice the cost.

  2. Nick in Beantown says:
    February 15, 2006 at 9:22 am

    I think Tice or someone is getting their wiretapping lines crossed. In the ABCNews special I watched, it was clear that they were using a system very much like Echelon to generate leads. Then these leads would be send for further analysis and some subset of those leads ended up as a “warrantless wiretap”. I highly doubt they have two separate systems doing the same function, well maybe not, it is the federal government, why buy one super spying computer when you can buy two for twice the cost.

    Without Congressional oversight, we cannot be certain of any of this. Investigative reporting is one thing, the light of day is something else, entirely.