Soup Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Originally posted by John Birch+Jan 22 2006, 07:54 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (John Birch - Jan 22 2006, 07:54 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>I think al-jazeera (sic) is biased, but I think all media is. Noam Chomsky's "Understanding Media" really influenced my thinking on this. irregardless if its slanted, nonetheless you get a diffrent perspective on the issues and thats good. I wish we could get al jazeera world or something on cable. Quoted post [/b] "irregardless" isn't a word. You can watch all the middle eastern news broadcasts including Al Jazeera to your heart's content on http://video.google.com/ or http://www.linktv.org/ It can be interesting, but then there's the subtle stuff. You're better off reading "Hatred's Kingdom" or something about Wahhabism to understand the complexities of just how wrong this situation is. I watched an episode of Al Jazeera where they reported on the UK cracking down on British Muslim newspapers. First off, the UK lets more shit fly than the middle east does. You have a better chance of picking up a terrorist pamphet in London than you do Kabul. Second, UK wants newspapers to stop calling bombings "martyrdom" and call it "suicide bombings" or "terrorism." It's a complex terminology discussion that's those crystal-clear thinking muslims see black and white about: they're right and we're wrong. <!--QuoteBegin-KING BLING@Jan 22 2006, 10:13 AM Edit: I don't want to have random discussions whisch are basicly insults with opinion thrown in... I don't believe that the path to peace and justice lie in bombing villages and cities killing multiple civilians in attempts to get a few enemies, Vietnam taught us tthis and it is being reinforced in our current wars. I don't believe the government should spy on people without due course, I base this on the constitution and on common sense. I don't beleive we can acuse one form of media as being corrupt or biased while we have FAUX news, media and military relationships in war and the New York times having published Judith Miller... Quoted post You are right, we need to broaden our media. Books, internet, public radio, (podcasts?,) international newspapers... I wrote a thread that caught maybe 2 replies to a great site http://www.Buzztracker.org, it neatly compiles every major story in the world and gives you every article on the subject that was written and published by real newspapers on the internet. Also, by how much media is on a story, it shows where all the "buzz" is geographically for that day. You'd be amazed at how much or how little coverage some stories get. The thing is, the muslim conflict is futile. They don't like the west imposing on middle eastern culture, which is rediculous since they live in our countries and we've been economically involved there for decades. It's mainly a religious issue, the roots lie in understanding wahhabism. They love it, they love their jihad and we're the big bad censors who want to call the shit terrorism... like 9-11 or the July 7 london bombings never happened. There's other things too that bother me like how many intelligent, well educated Saudis decide to major in ISLAMIC STUDIES like they need any more Alah in their life, instead of something that could possibly help diversify their economy. There's also no middle class in saudi arabia, all oil fields are worked by immigrants, no saudi wants to do the dirty work when they'd rather be poor and chill out worshiping at the mosk. There's the really rich who many are psychotic, and there's the poor which together hardly make up a serious state. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BURLAP Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 bob baer's "sleeping with the devil: how washington sold it's soul for saudi crude" is a fun read. chiggidy-checkit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereotype V.001 Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 "See no evil" was good too. But I always found it odd how popular Baer's books are with the left, since the general message is political correctness is destroying their capabilities to defend our country/get intelligence, and he can't do several things people bitch about in general as a result of this... wire tappings, assassinations, ect. "i think al qaeda is a cia front. i think bin laden is a patsy/operative. i think all the big noise over bin ladens "new tape" is an attempt to raise bush's approval ratings. " Its funny how people always leave out the fact that the CIA funded Afghan mujahideen fighters, and bin Laden was a Saudi financier that had no contact with us. But it is alot more entertaining to pretend he used to be a government agent who turned against his evil imperialist infidel masters, it could be a made for TV movie on CBS. And how exactly would Bush being too incompetent to follow through with his "dead or alive" speech, and not being able to kill bin Laden or prevent attacks help with his approval ratings? King Bling, I'm assuming the village bombing your referring to is the air strike in Pakistan? It was one hellfire missile that hit one building, where Zawahiri was supposedly eating some pork rinds and watching the Seahawks smash on the Broncos....or something along those lines. And I agree that its petty to call one media source biased while the ones in the US are pretty bad to a certain extent, but Al Jazeera is on a different level than having right wing commentators on and pushing the whitehouse press releases. Poke around on their website or something. Is 12oz anti-eggroll? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Birch Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 "irregardless" isn't a word. not to get into one of those types of discussions, but yeah it is. I used it in a sentance....But irregardless whether it ain't a word or not, I looked it up in my Oxford dictionary, which is kept handy in the reference section of my home library...and its right there bewteen irrefutable and irregular...egg rolled!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Old news, new news to me. NSA's wiretapping is sending in tons of dead end leads to the FBI. THAT's the best reason to stop the nonsense. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...5E23109,00.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Old news, new news to me. NSA's wiretapping is sending in tons of dead end leads to the FBI. THAT's the best reason to stop the nonsense. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...5E23109,00.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KING BLING Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Originally posted by Stereotype V.001@Jan 22 2006, 09:34 AM King Bling, I'm assuming the village bombing your referring to is the air strike in Pakistan? It was one hellfire missile that hit one building, where Zawahiri was supposedly eating some pork rinds and watching the Seahawks smash on the Broncos....or something along those lines. Quoted post Do you find its easier to talk than to read? http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/01/15/alqaeda.strike/ LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) -- Thousands of people turned out in cities across the country Sunday to demonstrate against Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the United States in the wake of a U.S. airstrike that killed 18 people on Friday, as Pakistani parties called for more demonstrations. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10972951/ Pakistani officials believe the strike killed four other top al-Qaida operatives, but also killed at least 13 civilians, including women and children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KING BLING Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Originally posted by Stereotype V.001@Jan 22 2006, 09:34 AM And I agree that its petty to call one media source biased while the ones in the US are pretty bad to a certain extent, but Al Jazeera is on a different level than having right wing commentators on and pushing the whitehouse press releases. Poke around on their website or something. Quoted post "Poke around on their web site or something"? That was a very strong point that flushed out your opinion nicely. You are a respectable debater and clearly your ideas are validated by the wealth of information you possess and share here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Actually, it was a single hellfire missle. Intelligence had sourced out a dinner date Zawahiri had at the address we sent the hellfire missle. We had a time he was supposed to be there too. What I think is fucking stupid is that we assumed he'd be there and blindly sent it in. I haven't found any information on if they had a guy on the ground, probably not, or how good our night time surveillance is with satelights.. obviously not too good. It seems it was a shot in the dark and we missed. The US military's happy tho, they said with the intelligence we had it was the right thing to do, which should tell you how frequent this kind of shit must happen over there. Just type "missile strike" in google news. Fuckin a. I'm adding to this that it wasn't a missle simply aimed at Al Zawahiri, two or more other high ranking Al Qaeda members were seen in the Village. Al Qaeda's top bomb maker Midhat Mursi was seen in the village at the time of the attack, and Abu Ubaida who's the operations chief for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. Of course now it's a little hard to sort out who was and was not there since they're literally picking up the pieces of whoever was in the building and running it through DNA tests. Missiles have a tendancy to blow things up. read up http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto.../International/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereotype V.001 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Originally posted by KING BLING@Jan 22 2006, 06:13 AM Edit: I don't want to have random discussions which are basicly insults with opinion thrown in... Quoted post "Do you find its easier to talk than to read?" "That was a very strong point that flushed out your opinion nicely. You are a respectable debater and clearly your ideas are validated by the wealth of information you possess and share here." Well, you lasted a whopping one post without resorting to your clever, well thought out retorts that eggroll my ass back to the stone age. Congratulations! And PS: I actually do find it easier to talk than read. If I was really hungry, and had like, lets say 7 eggrolls in my mouth, reading probably would be easier though. But in most other cases, talking comes more naturally. Except with eggrolls. Yeah. Anyhow, the number of people killed in the airstrike or the fact that civilians were killed wasn't being contested by me. But it definitely is an easier point to make, especially with the bold lettering(I usually don't read non-bold, normal sized text)....even if that wasn't the topic. Speaking of which, getting back to topic, it's been more widely reported that a single hellfire missile was launched from a drone (I am under the impression that a drone's max payload is a single hellfire), and it has also been less widely reported that three missiles were used. But if a village was indeed targeted there would be casualties more towards one hundred than 20ish. So, your guess is as good, and in king bling's case most certainly better, than mine. Unbiased, straight forward reporting. Please ignore ironic quotes in title heading. That was typo my friend! I love ameriki! Garge Boosh, numbar one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereotype V.001 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Its going to be impossible to confirm everyone, but I know for a fact they confirmed the guy in charge of the training camps. 7-8 others are(were) supposedly bigwigs and body guards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Originally posted by Stereotype V.001@Jan 22 2006, 12:34 PM "See no evil" was good too. But I always found it odd how popular Baer's books are with the left, since the general message is political correctness is destroying their capabilities to defend our country/get intelligence, and he can't do several things people bitch about in general as a result of this... wire tappings, assassinations, ect. "i think al qaeda is a cia front. i think bin laden is a patsy/operative. i think all the big noise over bin ladens "new tape" is an attempt to raise bush's approval ratings. " Its funny how people always leave out the fact that the CIA funded Afghan mujahideen fighters, and bin Laden was a Saudi financier that had no contact with us. But it is alot more entertaining to pretend he used to be a government agent who turned against his evil imperialist infidel masters, it could be a made for TV movie on CBS. And how exactly would Bush being too incompetent to follow through with his "dead or alive" speech, and not being able to kill bin Laden or prevent attacks help with his approval ratings? King Bling, I'm assuming the village bombing your referring to is the air strike in Pakistan? It was one hellfire missile that hit one building, where Zawahiri was supposedly eating some pork rinds and watching the Seahawks smash on the Broncos....or something along those lines. And I agree that its petty to call one media source biased while the ones in the US are pretty bad to a certain extent, but Al Jazeera is on a different level than having right wing commentators on and pushing the whitehouse press releases. Poke around on their website or something. Is 12oz anti-eggroll? Quoted post are you fuckking joking? usama bin laden was educated and trained here. school of americas, columbus georgia. the bin ladens helped finance bush's first oil company, arbusto. they have alot to do with each other. how does usama being alive boost bush's approval? easy: it gives america the goal of fighting the evil terrorists. it also takes attention away from the bad things that our govt is involved in. you're a moron. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereotype V.001 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Originally posted by richard_vagina@Jan 22 2006, 11:09 PM are you fuckking joking? usama bin laden was educated and trained here. school of americas, columbus georgia. the bin ladens helped finance bush's first oil company, arbusto. they have alot to do with each other. how does usama being alive boost bush's approval? easy: it gives america the goal of fighting the evil terrorists. it also takes attention away from the bad things that our govt is involved in. you're a moron. Quoted post The school of the americas? Assuming he was, how would you know? The school of the americas was specifically for South American countries to teach basic infantry tactics, but assuming he passed himself off as Raul bin Ladenachez, do you have any evidence you could post to corroborate your claim or are you talking out of your ass? And bin Laden has a family with a few hundred people in it, and they are oil rich Saudis (edit- f911 was a kewl movie huh?). Not a big suprise that they would try to send a nice gesture to the son of the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military, you know get on his good side. The conspiracy angle makes more sense to me though. Bin Laden's niece poses in glamour shots and has her own perfume line out, does that mean the new york fashion industry is a secret branch of the CIA, Al Qaeda, and/or teh new world orderz?I bet uncle benny ain't happy about that... And I honestly don't think the fact that Bush couldn't capture or kill bin Laden is being rubbed in his face could be good for his already rock bottom approval ratings. But thats a matter of opinion, so good luck with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 "The United States, via the CIA, poured $3 billion into the Afghan resistance during the 1980s, providing weapons and other resources for bin Laden and thousands of others who would become his most loyal, fierce supporters." that is from a biography of bin laden U.S. schools train military personnel from all over the world, Spenser said. "We trained Osama bin Laden*, and he was not unusual," she said. Although the U.S. government says people like bin Laden are just a "few bad apples," she said, one study used statistics to show that the amount of time a person spent at the SOA was correlated with the severity of terroristic actions that person performed. "Either [WHISC is] not teaching them very well, or they're very bad learners," Spenser said. The United States trains soldiers from many other countries because its leaders like to control other countries, she said. http://www.soaw.org/new/print_article.php?id=923 http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Poli...4/terrorism.pdf The FBI defines terrorism as "violent acts... intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government, or affect the conduct of a government", which is a precise description of the activities of SOA's graduates. But how can we be sure that their alma mater has had any part in this? Well, in 1996, the US government was forced to release seven of the school's training manuals. Among other top tips for terrorists, they recommended blackmail, torture, execution and the arrest of witnesses' relatives. Last year, partly as a result of the campaign run by SOA Watch, several US congressmen tried to shut the school down. They were defeated by 10 votes. Instead, the House of Representatives voted to close it and then immediately reopen it under a different name. So, just as Windscale turned into Sellafield in the hope of parrying public memory, the School of the Americas washed its hands of the past by renaming itself Whisc. As the school's Colonel Mark Morgan informed the Department of Defense just before the vote in Congress: "Some of your bosses have told us that they can't support anything with the name 'School of the Americas' on it. Our proposal addresses this concern. It changes the name." Paul Coverdell, the Georgia senator who had fought to save the school, told the papers that the changes were "basically cosmetic". http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/stor...,583254,00.html i'm looking for those official documents, as soon as i find them, i will link you to them. http://www.zpub.com/notes/terror-camp.html some more info for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereotype V.001 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Thank you. The School of the America's watch site might not be the most objective of sources. The statement that bin Laden was pretty contradictory as well. ""We trained Osama bin Laden*, and he was not unusual," she said. " "* note from SOA Watch: Osama bin Laden was trained by the CIA via the Pakistani Intelligence Agency in an effort to fight communism in Afghanistan. " So which was it? Did he go to ft. Benning, or did the ISI train him with American money (the article says both)? I also find it odd that he would need to know any warfare techniques, since he was in a financier role and generally stayed away from the battlefield (shooting down soviet helicopters is hard when you have to tow a dialysis machine around). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Originally posted by Stereotype V.001@Jan 22 2006, 10:42 PM Thank you. The School of the America's watch site might not be the most objective of sources. The statement that bin Laden was pretty contradictory as well. ""We trained Osama bin Laden*, and he was not unusual," she said. " "* note from SOA Watch: Osama bin Laden was trained by the CIA via the Pakistani Intelligence Agency in an effort to fight communism in Afghanistan. " So which was it? Did he go to ft. Benning, or did the ISI train him with American money (the article says both)? I also find it odd that he would need to know any warfare techniques, since he was in a financier role and generally stayed away from the battlefield (shooting down soviet helicopters is hard when you have to tow a dialysis machine around). Quoted post i believe he was trained prior to the afghan conflict (russia, etc). the cia did flood money into that, but here's the catch, they not only funded afghan rebels, they also funded iran. no matter who loses, america has the winner in their pocket. bin laden was on the fighting front, that is what made him popular with his followers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemis...ity_Cooperation http://wwws.house.gov/search97cgi/s97_cgi/...ge=Go&image.x=0 http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/09/ skim through that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthemothafuckinbuilder Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 You guys are talking all this shit as if this were something new. Broad spying on U.S. civilians started during the cold war and never ceased. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 i already said that way back in the thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthemothafuckinbuilder Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I know, I was jsut laughing my ass off to how many references to the Bush admistration (as if they were responsible for this) there were made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Birch Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 but the bush administration isn't doing anything to reduce it. when i voted for bush in 2000, he ran on a platform of smaller gov't and reform...turns out he's the worse president we ever had besides maybe ulysses s. grant edit* I really didn't vote for bush in 2000. I said that for hyperbole... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 or, lbj..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Since we're not experts on the subject matter, I see no shame it folks saying "i think" or "I'm pretty sure" instead of throwing out shit with unconfirmed sources, or no sources at all. Post #100 - That's still an unconfirmed report. Great, that it's from Al Jazeera, but they're still running the bits of people from the missle strike through DNA tests. The nutshell would be the Village was being used by Al Qaeda, it was hit by an American missle, BIG NEWS since the Pakistani people were looking for a reason to protest the United States.. Post #102 - Before you walk down this road of what we did for Bin Laden, know that Bin Laden didn't turn to fundemental Islam until the 90's when there was a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan resulting in a call to arms by religious leaders all over the Muslim world to liberate the country from pro-Soviet rule. This was when Bin Laden sent money, supplies, and weapons to the militant jihadis in Afghanistan. Like we would with anyone else, had we known we were raising a monster, America would've done something sooner. It's strange that you say Bin Laden was educated at the School of Americas, the notorious "School of Assasins", yet he has chosen to operate out of a cave this entire time. I guess big bad SOA isn't so scary after all. Washington has always held "my enemy's enemy is my friend" true, and since Militant Jihadis were attacking A-bomb capable Soviet union, the CIA funded them. It meant less dirt getting back to the West if the proverbial shit hit the fan. If you hate the US for doing such a thing, then you should be pro-war right now, since we're going back and taking them all out. post #107 - I'm fairly certain that it was for at least a decade spying on American citizens wasn't practiced in the Intelligence world. What they're doing now is overkill. Overkill, if you want to keep government's Intelligence gathering to a budget, is bad. Originally posted by John Birch@Jan 24 2006, 05:20 AM hyperbole Quoted post you're gay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 SOA is very dangerous. how do we know he's ina cave somewhere? as for the spying, do any of you know what ECHELON and it's predecesor programs are? any clue at all? shit, we've been doing this for so long we ahve allies helping us. australia has admitted its part in the echelon program. what about carnivore or it's predecessors? that happened in clintons era if i'm not mistaken. lots of shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Oh I forgot to mention, I can't confirm he ever went to SOA. He did go to Oxford. Here's a picture of him as a teen in 1971, I think it's pretty great. (right) "While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA. Former CIA official Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency's Afghan operation in the late 1980s, says, "The CIA did not recruit Arabs," as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight, and the Arabs who did come for jihad were "very disruptive . . . the Afghans thought they were a pain in the ass." Similar sentiments from Afghans who appreciated the money that flowed from the Gulf but did not appreciate the Arabs' holier-than-thou attempts to convert them to their ultra-purist version of Islam. ... There was simply no point in the CIA and the Afghan Arabs being in contact with each other. ... the Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding. The CIA did not need the Afghan Arabs, and the Afghan Arabs did not need the CIA. So the notion that the Agency funded and trained the Afghan Arabs is, at best, misleading. The 'let's blame everything bad that happens on the CIA' school of thought vastly overestimates the Agency's powers, both for good and ill." [Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 64-66.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I would be happy to go into the history of SOA, or as it's been called since 2001, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), but because that's WAY THE FUCK off topic, I suggest you make a new thread for discussion because ending your piece with "lots of shit." isn't giving me too much to go on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 haha, touche'. it is getting off topic, indeed. 'lots of shit' refers to echelon, carnivore, etc.... you can find lots of info of those programs. well, those two programs. echelon is still active, carnivore has been updated. probably several times. as for the history if the SOA, no need to go into that. too much crap. i'm still looking for the docs confirming bin ladens time there (fort benning, ga). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 whoops, didn't read what you wrote. When did 12 oz disallow deleting your own replies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 what? echelon is an american program. it just so happens we have 'friends' helping out and gleening info off it, too. carnivore is a intell program started by the fbi. gah!. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 "Echelon is perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world. Several credible reports suggest that this global electronic communications surveillance system presents an extreme threat to the privacy of people all over the world. According to these reports, ECHELON attempts to capture staggering volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic, including communications to and from North America. This vast quantity of voice and data communications are then processed through sophisticated filtering technologies. This massive surveillance system apparently operates with little oversight. Moreover, the agencies that purportedly run ECHELON have provided few details as to the legal guidelines for the project. Because of this, there is no way of knowing if ECHELON is being used illegally to spy on private citizens. This site is designed to encourage public discussion of this potential threat to civil liberties, and to urge the governments of the world to protect our rights." http://www.echelonwatch.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_vagina Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46852,00.html WASHINGTON -- FBI agents soon may be able to spy on Internet users legally without a court order. On Thursday evening, two days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the Senate approved the "Combating Terrorism Act of 2001," which enhances police wiretap powers and permits monitoring in more situations. The measure, proposed by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California), says any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. Previously, there were stiffer restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance techniques. Its bipartisan sponsors argue that such laws are necessary to thwart terrorism. "It is essential that we give our law enforcement authorities every possible tool to search out and bring to justice those individuals who have brought such indiscriminate death into our backyard," Hatch said during the debate on the Senate floor. Thursday's vote comes as the nation's capital is reeling from the catastrophes at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and politicians are vowing to do whatever is necessary to preserve the safety of Americans. This week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) on the rise. In England, government officials have asked phone companies and Internet providers to collect and record all their users' communications -- in case the massive accumulation of data might yield clues about Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Under the Combating Terrorism Act, prosecutors could authorize surveillance for 48-hour periods without a judge's approval. Warrantless surveillance appears to be limited to the addresses of websites visited, the names and addresses of e-mail correspondents, and so on, and is not intended to include the contents of communications. But the legislation would cover URLs, which include information such as what Web pages you're visiting and what terms you type in when visiting search engines. Circumstances that don't require court orders include an "immediate threat to the national security interests of the United States, (an) immediate threat to public health or safety or an attack on the integrity or availability of a protected computer." That covers most computer hacking offenses. During Thursday's floor debate, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), head of the Judiciary committee, suggested that the bill went far beyond merely thwarting terrorism and could endanger Americans' privacy. He also said he had a chance to read the Combating Terrorism Act just 30 minutes before the floor debate began. "Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to wiretap our citizens," Leahy said. "Maybe they want to adopt new abilities to go into people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country." By voice vote, the Senate attached the Combating Terrorism Act to an annual spending bill that funds the Commerce, Justice and State departments for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, then unanimously approved it. Since the House has not reviewed this version of the appropriations bill, a conference committee will be created to work out the differences. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), one of the co-sponsors, said the Combating Terrorism Act would give former FBI Director Louis Freeh what he had lobbied for years ago: "These are the kinds of things that law enforcement has asked us for. This combination is relatively modest in comparison with the kind of terrorist attack we have just suffered." "Experts in terrorism have been telling us for a long time and the director of the FBI has been telling us (to make) a few changes in the law that make it easier for our law enforcement people to do their job," Kyl said. It's unclear what day-to-day effects the Combating Terrorism Act would have on prosecutors and Internet users. Some Carnivore installations apparently already take place under emergency wiretap authority, and some civil liberties experts say part of this measure would give that practice stronger legal footing. "One of the key issues that have surrounded the use of Carnivore is being addressed by the Senate in a late-night session during a national emergency," says David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. A source close to the Senate Judiciary committee pointed out that the wording of the Combating Terrorism Act is so loose -- the no-court-order-required language covers "routing" and "addressing" data -- that it's unclear what its drafters intended. The Justice Department had requested similar legislation last year. "Nobody really knows what routing and addressing information is.... If you're putting in addressing information and routing information, you may not just get (From: lines of e-mail messages), you might also get content," the source said. The Combating Terrorism Act also expands the list of criminal offenses for which traditional, court-ordered wiretaps can be sought to explicitly include terrorism and computer hacking. Other portions include assessing how prepared the National Guard is to respond to weapons of mass destruction, handing the CIA more flexibility in recruiting informants and improving the storage of U.S. "biological pathogens." p.s.: i recall carnivore as being an issue before terrorist attacks..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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