Monday, December 19, 2005
NSA Spying on US Citizens. Why?
A handful of judges on the FISA court have authorized many requests to spy in the name of National Security. They meet in secret, with no published orders, opinions, or public record. Those spied on May never know of the intrusion. Only very few requests to this court have ever been turned down.
Why do Bush and his cronies need resort to executive orders to bypass the FISA court? Is it because they are spying on someone the court would turn down the request for?
Activists? Perhaps they are spying on people that are not tied into terrorism - just people trying to put an end to this war. For example is this why they spy on a bunch of Quakers?
Journalists? Journalists often have contacts with various shady characters so that they can get the insides to a story. These requests may get turned down due to first amendment reasons. Is this why so many of them seem to get offed?
Lawmakers? The request may have nothing to do with terrorism at all. It may just have to do with figuring out the opposition's policies and strategy. Mabe we have another watergate on our hands.
HiTekVagabond
Is this really of concern or a case of movement people tendencies toward the paranoic? I can never be personally sure of the veracity of such accounts made by other persons. People exagerate, lie, have hidden agendas, twisted movtives, and can be wrong. Perhaps some actually suffer a mental disease called paranoia.
In days of direct movement activism, persons who thought themselves more reasonable than I, would describe me as paranoid. My tendency was then, and it still is, to believe the truth of conspiracy theories connected to the assassinations of the Kennedys, King, X (Malcom Little), Fred Hampton, and others. I use the word "believe" rather than "know" because I wasn't there. I can only attest to truth of what happenned to me and what I observed first hand. The following is offered to enlighten suspicions of reasonable doubters. The time and place are the 60's and 70's in a mid sized midwestern US city.
I woke for unknown reason one morning about 3 am, got up and looked out the front window from my darkened home. A car pulled up. A man got out the passenger side and threw a rock through the front picture window. I picked up the pellet pistol kept near the door. My wife correctly objected to that that aspect of my paranoia, but threating phone calls were common. I stepped out and shot once. I doubt I hit anything. The guy jumped back in the car, and it sped away. About the same time that night a similar thing happened to two friends, also movement activists. One got a rock. The other's garage was lit on fire.
The three of us received mail the next morning, which had to have been posted the day before the acts. With glued on letters cut from a magazine, mine read something like. "Next time it will be a bullet through your head not a rock through the window." Also included was a commercially printed card stating it was from the KKK. It had a picture of rifle scope crosshairs and stated the sights are focused on the back of your neck. Together we met with the local police chief and lieutenants. They laughed. It seemed clear they were already well apprised. So much for Officer Friendly.
A friend had been the business manager of the local daily paper until he was fired when a copy of the National Guardian (a now defunct leftist weekly) was discovered in his desk. He then operated a private parking lot at the city's center. He also acted as a stringer for the local FBI Special Agent. That is, he feed them information, but it went both ways. Without hearing the rock/fire/threat story he told me persons from downstate were brought in by the FBI to administer the incident. His vehicle descrition fit.
I received a call at my office one day from the unviersity president's assistant. I was told the boss wanted me to know an attempt would be made in my department to have me fired. The president had been involved in protests for racial equality. His message concluded they'd have to get him before they got me. I heard no more about it, but years later I met and thanked the then retired president. He too quickly said he didn't recall.
A cab driver friend called from a phone booth and requested a meeting. He said he overheard the local FBI and state's attorney discussing plans to raid my home along with others and discover pot. I had none, but the cops probably did. I Never used it. The raid never took place.
In those days a room bug was simplicity in itself. One had only to unscrew a phone's mouthpiece, phone the target, and not hang up. The line remained open, bugged, and appeared dead. Many times I would attempt a phone call and find a dead line.
The line itself was also tapped. I confronted two guys on the pole installing it. They had an unmarked truck with other state license plates and said they were working on contract. The phone company denied it, and a neighbor employee informed me of the tap as did a local police officer. The job was evidently not very well done. Serveral times the police department answered my calls placed to other parties.
I had a separate unlisted line installed, and that was apparently overlooked. I used to chuckle at hours spent by someone unknown listening to my preteen daughters' endless conversations.
I built a bug tracing reciever and used it to locate and remove bugs from homes. With one, we actually got word the police wanted their equipment back.
There were some important papers I kept secret for family reasons that had nothing to do with movement activities. They were in an envelope taped behind a locked office file drawer. Years later on leaving that office, I discovered they were gone. Someone knows more about my family than I'd like. My kids might like the papers back.
I never went to the trouble of obtaining my FBI and other agency files. Two friends did. My name was all over them. No telling what the blacked out parts were, but much of the information had been submitted by local patriotic right wing fanatics. There was no verification of any of their paranoiac garbage.
Some national church council promoted a thing where we refused to pay the special war tax imposed on phone bills. The phone company simply notified the IRS of the lacking 23 cents or so each month. I would receive and ignore IRS notes to pay the 23 cents. Each month's was separate and seemed to be from a different office. Then the 3 am phone calls demanding payment began. Next they simply took it from my bank account, the 23 cents or so at a time.
We attended an old college friends reunion party at the distant city home of an ex appartment mate. He was then chief of IRS enforcement for the midwest. I joked of the 23 cents matter. His response was to the effect they would harrass us as we harrass them and get that 23 cents back over and over and over. He knew all about my activities, job, kids, etc. We hadn't seen each other or communicated for 15 years.
A student I knew to have been involved with the likes of the goofy right wing John Birchers all of a sudden joined the movement. His first idea was we should find out where we can get guns. I watched him slip away from a demonstration to confer with nearby police.
Two ridiculously hippie costumed guys no one had seen before appeared at a meeting preparing for a demonstration to oppose a Secretary of Defense speech. They also hyped for violent activity. They had previously informed the police they were from Army Intellegence. So said a friendly cop.
There's much more, but that's enough here. I had been briefly involved with SCLC in Selma, Alabama, SNCC in Jackson, Mississippi, and extended civil rights, anti war, poverty, and union organizing in my own town. But, I was just one of many who organized and used direct action to oppose government deeds. I was not in particular any kind of charismatic leader.
Now an old man retired in Mexico, I view things moving in the same direction once more, that is while doubting they had ever stopped. The agencies that will oppose such movement have probably dirtied rather than cleaned up their act. I can only urge those who see only lawful opponents to get real, get paranoid, keep their eyes on the prize, and hold on.
Well if it dont make a lot money for corporations and we persionalize our food again we might start thinking about all thay are trying to do and have been doing to us and the animals we eat .
Sad when a goverment becomes so paranoid that thay all watch each other then go looking for patsy,s. But then it has been going on sence this country was made by force others made by sectioning them selfs off or ones not wanting to be around others.
When a goverment oks the miss use of people f.d.a for proffit and only do recalls when people start sewing or dieing on stuff thay ok but now thay start taking natural stuff used thousands of years and want millions of dollars in proof it can work when thouse who realy care for healing make a simple living .
Now to pic flowers on the side the road is illage now to plant certan plants there a drug wait till thay find out another plant can heal something ill get indangered safe and then thay will be gone .
Need to keep the corporations happy and thay means making millions for people who invest in others work and want a make proffit even if it kills the workers o well thay are just the machines who do the work breaks get another one.
Good stories of the days when trying to help America seemed the right thing to do. Times have changed and one needs to realize, America failed, and we need to finish it off before it does anymore damage.
And with America, it is always best to keep the worst in mind, since that is what they seem to specialize in.
