James Bamford Interview discusses the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program with Sibel Edmonds

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Jew Intel Scams in US Government described:

James Bamford discusses the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, the ties between NSA and the nation's telecommunications companies including the Israeli companies involved in intercepting highly sensitive communications for the U.S. government, the agency's failings pre-9/11 and the relevant information blackout by the 9/11 Commission, the US mainstream media, President Obama's 'no change' so far, and more.


James Bamford is one of the country's leading writers on intelligence and national security issues. His books include "The Puzzle Palace," "Body of Secrets," "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies," and most recently " The Shadow Factory". Mr. Bamford coproduced NOVA's "The Spy Factory", which was based on his latest book. He has written for many magazines, including investigative cover stories for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine and The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and is a contributing writer for Rolling Stone. His 2005 Rolling Stone article "The Man Who Sold the War" won a National Magazine Award for reporting. He also spent a decade as the Washington investigative producer for the ABC News program, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and taught at the University of California, Berkeley, as a distinguished visiting professor.


http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/07 ... st-show-1/

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/podpres ... 090721.mp3


Interesting comment below:

Anonymous Says:

If al Qaeda was as truly dangerous as US intel claimed then why were al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar free to roam the US for 20 months?

NSA:

1) Hayden was involved in pre-9/11 warrantless surveillance programs.

NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims

Qwest CEO Not Alone in Alleging NSA Started Domestic Phone Record Program 7 Months Before 9/11

2) Hayden failed to use FISA. Evidently his excuse was concern about civil liberties. This of course makes no sense at all because FISA was created to adress civil liberty concerns and the pre-9/11 warrantless surveillance programs were obviously in gross violation of civil liberties.

3) The NSA failed to inform the CIA and FBI even though they asked to be told about Yemen hub communications.

4) After 9/11, Hayden kept his job while helping to further implement warrantless surveillance programs. He later received promotions to DDNI and CIA Director. As CIA Director he opposed the declassification of the CIA IG 9/11 report (the full report is still classified) claiming it would "consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed" and distract the CIA from the WoT. He also supported the torture program and launched an investigation of CIA IG Helgerson.

CIA:

Scheuer needs to get his story straight. Either Alec Station was concerned about al Qaeda or they weren't. The withholding of information about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar continued after they were linked to USS Cole suspects. Lawrence Wright notes in his book (The Looming Tower) that the Gorelick wall excuses were without merit. One, the 1998 indictment of Bin Laden gave the FBI the legal authority to surveil al Qaeda operatives. Two, FBI criminal side agents investigated the Cole bombing. They were not told that the NSA and CIA were aware of a January 5-8, 2000 al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. FBI suspects in the Cole bombing (i.e. Khallad bin Attash, Rahim al-Nashiri) attended the meeting along with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. Wright also wrote the New Yorker story about FBI agent Ali Soufan who repeatedly asked the CIA for information during his investigation but was told they had nothing to share. This is why Wright wrote that CIA withholding of information was tantamount to obstruction of justice.

FBI:

Scheuer said in a interview that the CIA didn't share the information because they couldn't trust FBI computer systems. What about secure line telephones? Face to face meetings? The main problem with Scheuer's explanation is that the information about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar was shared in late August of '01. The problem was that the information wasn't given to criminal side agents. Instead the FBI UBLU (intel side Bin Laden unit) tasked a rookie agent to do a search. Based on public information it also appears that UBLU agents knew that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were in the US for quite some time (well before the information was officially shared).

Coleen Rowley has described the bizarre conduct of another intel side unit (RFU) that obstructed the Moussaoui investigation.

AFAIK, the chiefs of CIA's Alec Station (Rich B.), the UBLU (Rod Middleton) and the RFU (Dave Frasca) have never been interviewed by US media. It should be noted that the chief of Alec Station from mid-'99 until 12/01 (at which time he was promoted to chief of the reopened Kabul station) was Rich B. (Sheuer's ID was classified until he was permitted to go public to promote his books). One would think these officials would be able to clear up a lot of confusion. And despite the fact that the 9/11 Commission turned over their records to NARA in '04 the MFR (summary of interviews) for each of these officials is pending classification review. In fact, I'm not sure if the 9/11 Commission even interviewed Frasca or Middleton.

Where was the good faith?
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 am

Metemneurosis Says:

Great job Sibel. Great choice of intro music. I was aware of Comverse/Verint and they were the first thing that occurred to me when you wrote you piece for Brad blog speculating on whether some congressmen were being blackmailed. When we consider that angle and all the Mossad agents arrested after 911 – some of whom were reported to be living within close range of all the various cells of hijackers – and add to that the secret offices created within both Israel and the US (the Office of Special Plans and it's counter-part in Israel under Sharon), so many of the neocons either having close ties to Israel or being dual Isreali citizens it all begins to look very suspicious. Also it's interesting to take into account the fact that when good agents tried to investigate so many things related to 911 including Comverse they were shut down from above. And the fact the Cameron reported for Fox that some under investigation related to 911 changed their communication practices as soon as wiretaps were put in place. He even said that there was a highly secretive investigation into connections with the Israeli government over that very issue.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it does begin to sound like we have some group of people (and I tend to think they're not some monolithic group but also have internal tensions) that are operating outside the normal parameters of even our secretive intelligence agencies.

(If this comment doesn't get me on the watch list I'm going to be disappointed.)