Bush Admin asked AT&T to set up domestic call monitoring 7 months before 9/11 attack

[e-brake]

This negates Bush's entire argument that the spying was needed to fight the war on terror. There was no war on terror before September 11, so why did Bush reportedly decide to start the process enabling him to illegally spy on Americans?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...O64zJE&refer=#

Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.
``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.''
The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers. More than 30 suits have been filed over claims that the carriers, the three biggest U.S. telephone companies, violated the privacy rights of their customers by cooperating with the NSA in an effort to track alleged terrorists.
``The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T may neither confirm nor deny AT&T's participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause `exceptionally grave harm to national security' and would violate both civil and criminal statutes,'' AT&T spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said in an e-mail.
U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller and NSA spokesman Don Weber declined to comment.
Pioneer Groundbreaker
The NSA initiative, code-named ``Pioneer Groundbreaker,'' asked AT&T unit AT&T Solutions to build exclusively for NSA use a network operations center which duplicated AT&T's Bedminster, New Jersey facility, the court papers claimed. That plan was abandoned in favor of the NSA acquiring the monitoring technology itself, plaintiffs' lawyers Bruce Afran said.
The NSA says on its Web site that in June 2000, the agency was seeking bids for a project to ``modernize and improve its information technology infrastructure.'' The plan, which included the privatization of its ``non-mission related'' systems support, was said to be part of Project Groundbreaker.
Mayer said the Pioneer project is ``a different component'' of that initiative.
Mayer and Afran said an unnamed former employee of the AT&T unit provided them with evidence that the NSA approached the carrier with the proposed plan. Afran said he has seen the worker's log book and independently confirmed the source's participation in the project. He declined to identify the employee.
Stop Suit
On June 9, U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel in New York stopped the lawsuit from moving forward while the Federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Washington rules on a U.S. request to assign all related telephone records lawsuits to a single judge.
Robert Varettoni, a spokesman for Verizon, said he was unaware of the allegations against AT&T and declined to comment.
Earlier this week, he issued a statement on behalf of the company that Verizon had not been asked by the NSA to provide customer phone records from either its hard-wired or wireless networks. Verizon also said that it couldn't confirm or deny ``whether it has any relationship to the classified NSA program.''
Mayer's lawsuit was filed following a May 11 USA Today report that the U.S. government was using the NSA to monitor domestic telephone calls. Earlier today, USA Today said it couldn't confirm its contention that BellSouth or Verizon had contracts with the NSA to provide a database of domestic customer phone call records.
Jeff Battcher, a spokesman for Atlanta-based BellSouth, said that vindicated the company.
``We never turned over any records to the NSA,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``We've been clear all along that they've never contacted us. Nobody in our company has ever had any contact with the NSA.''
The case is McMurray v. Verizon Communications Inc., 06cv3650, in the Southern District of New York.

[Dionysos]

Dude, do you read the articles you post? It says in the part you bolded that the NSA asked for the surveillance.

[junglist bastid]

lol

[e-brake]

Originally Posted by Dionysos

Dude, do you read the articles you post? It says in the part you bolded that the NSA asked for the surveillance.

7 months before the war on terror existed, so why is Bush claiming that it was a program created for the war on terror?

[Dionysos]

Originally Posted by e-brake

7 months before the war on terror existed, so why is Bush claiming that it was a program created for the war on terror?

I'm not defending Bush at all, in fact I think if these allegations are true it puts a huge hole in his defense. However, it doesn't say anywhere in the article that he's the one who ordered it.

[e-brake]

Originally Posted by Dionysos

I'm not defending Bush at all, in fact I think if these allegations are true it puts a huge hole in his defense. However, it doesn't say anywhere in the article that he's the one who ordered it.

The president appoints the head of the NSA, and the administration is key in directing the focus of the agency. Not to mention the man who was in charge of that department is a close personal friend of the Bush family, and was promoted to the head of the CIA earlier this year.

[Dionysos]

Originally Posted by e-brake

The president appoints the head of the NSA, and the administration is key in directing the focus of the agency. Not to mention the man who was in charge of that department is a close personal friend of the Bush family, and was promoted to the head of the CIA earlier this year.

And as of yet, there is nothing to state Bush ordered this. The article itself is already pretty damning, there's no need to throw conjecture into it. This is the kind of crap Micheal Moore does. Let the story speak for itself; if Bush ordered the action then let's get some evidence of it before throwing out the accusations.

[e-brake]

Originally Posted by Dionysos

And as of yet, there is nothing to state Bush ordered this. The article itself is already pretty damning, there's no need to throw conjecture into it. This is the kind of crap Micheal Moore does. Let the story speak for itself; if Bush ordered the action then let's get some evidence of it before throwing out the accusations.

]

How can I kick the DDM hornets nest without adding conjecture?

[elNastioBananaHando]

Originally Posted by Dionysos

And as of yet, there is nothing to state Bush ordered this. The article itself is already pretty damning, there's no need to throw conjecture into it. This is the kind of crap Micheal Moore does. Let the story speak for itself; if Bush ordered the action then let's get some evidence of it before throwing out the accusations.

Of course the NSA guy will probably take the fall for it. Its a smart move. I understand your argument for conjecture but at the same time you can't help but notice that he was appointed by Bush and is a good friend of Bush. Meaning Bush probably had something to do with it in the background. Well probably not Bush. I don't think Bush is that smart but I'm sure Cheney had his hand in this somewhere. Its smells like Cheney, sounds like Cheney! :-)

[Dionysos]

Originally Posted by elNastyAndy69

Of course the NSA guy will probably take the fall for it. Its a smart move. I understand your argument for conjecture but at the same time you can't help but notice that he was appointed by Bush and is a good friend of Bush. Meaning Bush probably had something to do with it in the background. Well probably not Bush. I don't think Bush is that smart but I'm sure Cheney had his hand in this somewhere. Its smells like Cheney, sounds like Cheney! :-)

And hopefully the information that comes out will bear that out. I'm just tired of both sides throwing around unsubstantiated conjecture, it muddies the water and kills off the chance for honest debate.

[zerojunkie]

The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers.

Smith v. Maryland. There hasn't been an expectation of privacy regarding the numbers you dial since 1979...yes that's BEFORE 9/11.

[elNastioBananaHando]

Originally Posted by Dionysos

And hopefully the information that comes out will bear that out. I'm just tired of both sides throwing around unsubstantiated conjecture, it muddies the water and kills off the chance for honest debate.

I'm with you on honest debate. Which is why many times I try to put my feelings and opinions aside and go with the facts. Even when I don't like them but the truth will hopefully lead us down a better path in the long run. Thats if we are smart enough to make sense of it and make improvements.

With that being said Bush could eat a baby on National TV and find a bad ass way to give it a spin to come out looking like he did the right thing. The baby was going to be a terrorist and he had to make a preemptive attack.