It really is required viewing. Not only to see GG, but also to see what actual journalism (i.e. Amy Goodman) looks like. Check out her headlines, and compare them to the shite on the teevee. Compare it to KO on "Countdown", for that matter...

... ALLUH AKBAR! for the gratification of our "new friends" reading this.

n/t

including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

This legislation, like several examples before it, is being put in place to legalize actions that are ALREADY TAKING PLACE. All the more reason for a proper debate and investigation to have taken place. The whole thing is so transparent that even Fred Hiatt couldn't ignore it.

"What makes this all the more appalling is that it was so easily avoidable. All Democrats had to do was offer legislation to fix the only real gap in FISA and then demand that the President sign it or risk a Terrorist attack. They could have gone on the offensive ahead of time by crafting the legislation and then made it their own cause to demand that the President sign it immediately in order to fix this problem and protect us from the Terrorists."

They could have also elected to do absolutely nothing. W has already said he doesn't have to follow the law, so, really, how was this administration being hamstrung? They could have not brought a bill to the floor in the first place. What would that have said? Nothing much, except that we're still a Nation of laws, not Men, and that it's time to get with actual leadership, rather than dictatorial quick fixes.

This is the end of the rope for me. Next thing, you know, Gitmo probably won't look so bad to enough the Dems that Pelosi and Reid will feel the need to put up a bill that can't be overridden by a veto, therefore will have to be passed based on W's terms. Enough already!

It was kind of you to explain the obvious to Shooter, assuming he really is that obtuse. Perhaps he really thinks it is about national security. OTOH he might well be aware of the other purposes this technology is more likely to be used for. As Avedon says, and correctly:

Bear in mind that, though we now know they have been doing this illegal spying since 2001, the program has never generated a single piece of evidence that led to preventing any terrorism.

And there is no reason why anyone should ever have expected it to. The program lays more hay on the haystack, but is extremely unlikely ever to locate a single needle. It loads more useless data on without doing anything to screen data effectively.

Strong and tough Democrats would say, "Prove to the satisfaction of Bruce Schneier that this program is necessary. Then we'll talk."

Casual Observer posted a link to Jim Webb's statement at Raising Kaine.

http://www.raisingkaine.com/showComment.do?commentId=62612

The first comment on that thread is a hyper link laden post about the technology from a fellow who seems to see the bigger picture. He may tend to the dramatic but this is not tin foil hat stuff. This is real. Fly-Man mentioned Booze Allen & Hamilton.

Robert Parry this week had some cogent analysis about "Total Information Awareness" (TIA) and the collection of "transactional data" for data mining purposes.

Here is more on the TIA concept, which was championed by old Reaganaut and five-time convicted felon John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame. Poindexter is currently serving on the board of BrightPlanet, a data mining company.

Booze Allen & Hamilton is a key contractor in pulling together the disparate threads of data collection and data mining to seek TIA kinds of solutions. Remember that DNI John Michael "Mike" McConnell was the Director of NSA from 1992 to 1996 and was a senior vice president at Booze Allen & Hamilton from 1996 until 2006.

Remember also that current DCI Michael Hayden was the Director of NSA from 1999 until 2005. As DIRNSA, Hayden was the key apparatchik who oversaw the conduct of the Bush Administration's original warrantless wiretapping program, though of course the Department of Justice and the FBI also were critical players.

The information science discipline of link analysis seeks ways to comb through massive data bases to discern connections among data entries and individual actors.

And now for the next step, political microtargeting. Here is a recent link relating to Mitt Romney's campaign. Karl Rove was a "pioneer" in deploying this technique to target voters, as this March, 2004 article from Newsweek reveals.

Is the pattern now beginning to emerge more clearly? Bush, his apparatchiks, the ever-credulous MSM, and a majority of senators and congressmen frame the issue as a simple one involving the electronic surveillance of the communications of "foreign terrorists," for such communications may at times happen to pass through U.S. communications switches or Internet routers. Who could possibly oppose intercepting and collecting communications to or from those evil "foreign terrorists?"

But how do you tell whether the specific phone call or the specific data transmission (e-mail, web-page download, banking transfer, credit card transaction, Amazon order, PayPal transaction, library book renewal, plane reservation, electronic tax payment, brokerage firm statement, political contribution, medical file, prescription request, packetized phone call) really came from or is going to a foreign recipient (terrorist, foreign national, or U.S. citizen living abroad)--unless you collect virtually everything passing through every telecommunications and Internet pipe? How can you filter on the massive data flow in real time to ensure that just the items of real intelligence interest are extracted?

If the massive data flows cannot be surgically filtered as they occur, what is the alternative? Perhaps the only solution is to use massive arrays of hard drives to collect terabytes, petabytes, and even exabytes of data-in short, to vacuum up virtually all electronic communications with the intent scrutinizing it later using data mining techniques across myriad databases. No doubt such techniques can be of use in intelligence targeting and also in after-the-crime investigations of terrorist incidents.

However, why must the rules regarding U.S. citizens be so lax? Is there intent to use data mining techniques on these massive data bases in order to pursue partisan political gain? Are any contractors, such as BrightPlanet or Booze Allen & Hamilton given access to the massive databases of collected transmissions? Oh, and how about the Republican National Committee and any of its contracting firms that do political microtargeting?

If the link analysis software developed by BrightPlanet, Booze Allen & Hamilton, and the USG itself ever reaches the stage of granularity to permit a query on a particular individual and all of his electronic activities, the government will have acquired virtually total power over that, or any other, individual. Such information can be used for intimidation... could such information also be sifted and aggregated to identify Republican voters to get them to the polls and to identify Democratic voters to keep them away from the polls?

Why are senators and congressmen not more attentive to this issue, a critical one for the Fourth Amendment and for our Constitutional protections as individuals? Why would they roll over for warrantless wiretapping with the thinnest of protections promised by the likes of AG Gonzales and NDI McConnell and with essentially no judicial review?

My answer to that last question would be that they hope to use it themselves. Both parties took advantage of Hoover's files when Hoover had a reason to allow it.