voters. Since he will still be President, at that time, he will, by Presidential Decree, prevent legal action to stop it until after the election and then it will be too late; It will take effect and take years, if ever, to bring it to court. We may have one more free election and the Republican Congressmen are letting our freedoms slip away without a real fight. It's as if they have made an agreement to make a show of resistance but do nothing. RB
Former Marine Colonel To Town Council: You're Building A Domestic Army; Are You Blind?'
From Business Insider
Every day it seems more like the "war on terror" is at home in the U.S. rather than abroad in a foreign country.
Whether it's the NSA denying they scoop domestic communications while their chief tells hackers "we're looking for the terrorist among us," or it's the growing militarization and equipping of domestic police forces, it seems more and more crows keep coming home to roost.
Well, one former Marine colonel, Peter Martino, has had about enough.
In a rousing confrontation at a local council meeting in Concord, NH, he calls out his government for facilitating what he feels is a needless militarization of a domestic force.
And he should know, he helped build one in Iraq.
"We did everything we could to build the Iraqi Army, and I'm telling you right now, the Department of Homeland Security would kick their butts."
"What we're doing here, and let's not kid about it, is we're building a domestic army and shrinking the military because the government is afraid of its own citizens ... "
"The last time 10 terrorists were in the same place at the same time was September 11th, and all these [armored] vehicles wouldn't have prevented it, nor would they have helped anything."
"We're building an Army over here and I can't believe people aren't seeing it, is everybody blind?"
Mr. Martino is a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve who has been mobilized three times. During his military career, he commanded an infantry platoon, company, and battalion. He was also the senior U.S. adviser to an Iraqi Army brigade. Mr. Martino has had a successful civilian career providing training, consulting, and program management services to private companies and to state and federal agency contractors. Mr. Martino presently holds a top secret security clearance.
See Col. Martino's Testimony on this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Equc9A1pqQk
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NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds
From the Washington Post .... of all places.
By ,
The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
Read the documents
NSA report on privacy violations
Read the full report with key sections highlighted and annotated by the reporter.
FISA court finds illegal surveillance
The only known details of a 2011 ruling that found the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the communications of American citizens.
What's a 'violation'?
View a slide used in a training course for NSA intelligence collectors and analysts.
What to say (and what not to say)
How NSA analysts explain their targeting decisions without giving "extraneous information" to overseers.
More on this story:
FISA court judge: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited
Spy court chief judge says it must rely on government to say when it improperly spies on Americans.
NSA statements to The Post
The National Security Agency offered these comments on The Post’s story on privacy violations.
New demands for reform of NSA spy programs
Some lawmakers called Friday for greater transparency in the surveillance operations of the National Security Agency, while U.S. officials stressed that any mistakes committed by the agency were not intentional. The contrasting reactions came after The Washington Post reported that the NSA violated rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times in recent years.
The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.
In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.
[FISA judge: Ability to police U.S. spying program is limited]
The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.
In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.
In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.
[FISA judge: Ability to police U.S. spying program is limited]
The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.
I could publish dozens of other such stories as those reported here. RB
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