That’s what NPR claimed today was legalized by the FISA bill. In the spirit of their employment of the expression, here’s an interesting example of “warrantless domestic spying”:
The stunning rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors owed its success not just to artful deception, but also to a five-year U.S.-Colombian operation that choked their captors’ ability to communicate.
Known as “Alliance,” it began with a satellite phone call in 2003, just weeks after the Americans’ surveillance plane crashed in the southern Colombian jungle, according to U.S. and Colombian investigators and court documents.
The call came from Nancy Conde, the regional finance and supply chief for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whose boyfriend would become the American hostages’ jailer. She was calling confederates in Miami to see if they could supply the rebels with some satellite phones.
What Conde didn’t know was that state security agents were listening.
UPDATE: Warrantless “domestic spying” explained, succinctly, by the BBC:
After the 9/11 attacks, the US government started to monitor e-mails and phone calls in which one participant was abroad. It did so without going to a special court to ask for a warrant, arguing that there was no time. Phone companies agreed to provide the information but were subsequently sued for breach of privacy. Taps on communications wholly within the US still need a warrant.
A temporary law, the Protect America Act, was passed last year to allow for taps without warrants but it expired in February. President George W Bush’s subsequent attempt to replace the temporary law triggered a fierce battle with the US House of Representatives.
– This is why you just have to keep talking truth to subversion because these bastards in Lefturd partisan nests like the NPR will never stop trying to cripple Americas sovereign right to defend herself. Hate the fuckers.
NPR=Satanic voices in your head.
What I like to say to the paranoid is that their lives are really not very interesting to anyone but themselves.
I wonder if any of the 5000 intercepted calls that FARC made they discussed their dealings with Rep. McGovern of Speaker Pelosi?
or not of
Ask NPR why C-SPAN radio can’t get off the ground and then let’s talk about their respect for civil liberties I think. Parasitic commie whores every last one of them.
I sense a strong animosity for public radio from the feet of happiness, but I could be wrong.
– I know they can’t know what they’re talking about, so for me its a crystal clear case of rank party love above country and everything else.
– Apparently the German Chancellor is a smart cookie. The last thing she needs is a Marxist Socialist spewing his anti-American crap at the Brandenberg gate. If the Left isn’t just doing its usual BDS dance, and Bush did in fact give her a little nudge, then good for him. Either way, good for her. Obama can blather all he wants to over here. I don’t want those dinky little Socialisms in the EuroBloc to get the idea that the upstart Colonists have finally decided to bow to their Masters, especially when you consider most of those elitist Euro-fucks probably wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for Americas sacrifices.
– No one can be more insufferably snot-nosed ingrates than the elitists.
“…it authorizes U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop, without court approval, on foreign targets believed to be outside the United States.”
Um, since when did they need “authorization”?
“Um, since when did they need “authorizationâ€Â?
– NO, the never have and they never will. Bush and the NSA are doing exactly what our Constitution charges them to do, defend America from all threats within and without, and Hes letting these anti-American assholes diddle themselves silly over the hole instead of the donut.
– The entire gaggle of braindead nitwits on the Left are so stupid they actually think they’re doing something. Unbelievable.
– And the BBC doesn’t know shit either. But isn’t it just like the Left to try to use the foreign media to Demonize our country, recall Nancy the Harpie, and her diplomatic trip to Syria.
– In other times, every one of the bastards on the Left that play these games of sedition would either be hung or deported.
BBH: How long has ECHELON been in operation and why, now, is it an issue?
Racists
– BJT, ECHELON, operational since the early 90’s, is just the latest refinement in a long line of ELINT systems starting with TENNIS in the mid 60’s.
– The scuttlebutt within the security world says that during Clintons administration some Lefturd sympathizers at State, angered over the whole Slick Willy impeachment proceedings, leaked intercept information to some of the conspiracy nutbags.
– Of course, since they were working strictly from rumors and guesswork, it was nearly all bogus, but the hard Left lapped it up like a kitten to milk.
– They’ve been chasing their assholes in circles ever since. They honestly are so deluded, and willfully ignorant concerning the Constitutional powers of the PONTUS, they saw it as a huge “gotcha” for any Republican Pres.
– With a Dem pres. in the WH, you wouldn’t hear a peep about it. Surprise, surprise.
– Of course the real irony is that as is the want of the Left, they never consider the fact that if they actually were able to cobstrain the PONTUS powers to defebd us, the same restraints would cripple their own guy. What short sighted idiots.
– The other irony is, Clinton was far more prone to go over the line in his actions, recall the break and entry(s) without warrents he engaged in. Theres a lot of evidence that thats what Berger was up to, trying to “cleanse” the record for Clinton.
Thanks, BBH. Interesting stuff. If you tried to write a book would some black ops guy off you?
I denounce myself.
…which didn’t stop people in the U.S. from intentionally ANTHRAX including suspected keywords in their e-mails, just to PLUTONIUM fuck with Big Brother’s head.
“…which didn’t stop people in the U.S. from intentionally ANTHRAX including suspected keywords in their e-mails, just to PLUTONIUM fuck with Big Brother’s head.”
I thought that was more awareness raising than anything else.
In the circles where I was seeing it done, “awareness” was already at Red Alert levels.
‘Cause of all the black helicopters.
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 7/11 @ 6:47 am #
“And the BBC doesn’t know shit either. But isn’t it just like the Left to try to use the foreign media to Demonize our country, recall Nancy the Harpie, and her diplomatic trip to Syria.”
That little BBC quote seems to be rather fair / “just the facts”.
“She was calling confederates in Miami to see if they could supply the rebels with some satellite phones.”
I know the answer to this already (it would be “no”), but did anyone in law enforcement ever follow up on these “confederates”? Since FARC is officially labeled (and actually is) a terrorist organization, wouldn’t their active supporters get into any sort of, you know, trouble?
if they could supply the rebels with some satellite phones
No Radio Shack’s in Colombia?
[…] post at Protein Wisdom pointing out the contrast between the rhetoric of “domestic spying” and the reality of […]
Re: #21
Read the article. It’s AP so I dare not quote it but Columbian agents were listening in, the FBI arrested the US confederates, they turned them and the FARC was put in touch with an FBI front that supplied bugged sat phones. Over 5000 calls were intercepted. That’s why I wondered if any of them concerned the members of Congress who were playing footsie with FARC.
[…] I’m no longer linking directly to AP articles, I’ll point you toward a good post by Dan Collins and give you a precis of the story. Back in 2003, a high-ranking FARC member named Nancy Conde […]
[…] hate the term “warrantless wiretap” as it’s not a proper description, but, it appears to have once again saved lives against terrorists, this time in Columbia. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where […]
“In the circles where I was seeing it done, “awareness†was already at Red Alert levels.”
I read it about in the Internet press of the time due to that talk of adding words to emails.
I haven’t always run with the best crowd.
[…] We’re sure the ACLU will be all over this one too. […]