Three Exchanges You Should Listen To About NSA Surveillance 12JUN13

THE fascist conspirators in the "intelligence" community, with Army Gen keith alexander as their primary propagandist at the Senate hearings, are doing their best to justify the government's violations of our civil liberties by manipulating people's fears of terrorism. The first  example below contains a reference to 11SEP01 and a big what if. What I want to know is if this is such a valuable tool how did the Boston Marathon bombing happen? We also need to know what part of the patriot act (itself an abomination of "law" and a clear violation of our civil liberties) allows the nsa to ignore the minimal requirements of the act and not be required to obtain a warrant from a fisa court. Gen alexander would not admit there is no legal justification for the nsa violating that law, bypassing even these minimal "protections" and got a pass to work out his spin on this issue. But thank God Sen Collins R ME put to rest one of our fears, getting alexander to state he knows of no way the nsa could wiretap the president. That assurance from the mouth of the person who doesn't feel these violations of law and civil liberties are wrong. Yeah, I believe him. This from NPR.....

by EYDER PERALTA

June 12, 2013 5:26 PM

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/12/191081329/three-exchanges-you-should-listen-to-about-nsa-surveillance

U.S. Army Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), testifies during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on Wednesday.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, received a public grilling by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.

We listened to the long hearing and pulled out three sections of audio that, while dry and sometimes boring, are important to understanding the story of the NSA obtaining vast amounts of data about the electronic activity of Americans. As we've reported, at the center of the controversy is a leaked secret court document authorizing the collection of all the calls made by Verizon customers during a three month period.

With that, here are the three pieces of audio you should listen to: (You need to click the link above to go to the NPR story to hear the questions and answers)

— An Explanation: Responding to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Alexander explained why the collection of phone meta-data is important. Alexander framed it in the case of Sept. 11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar. (Here's background from the Sept. 11 Commission report.) What if the NSA had had the ability to track all of his phone connections, even in the past? Perhaps the government could have tracked his conspirators. 

Alexander Responds To Durbin

— The Original Request: One of more substantive exchanges came between Alexander and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who zeroed in on the original request of data on all phone calls made by Verizon customers. Alexander said the government doesn't look at that data without further permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court. Merkley said that doesn't matter. He wanted to know what in the USA Patriot Act justified the original data dump:

Alexander Responds To Merkley

— Broad Wiretapping: The one question that got an easy answer was one from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who asked if what NSA leaker Edward Snowden said about being able to wiretap anyone, even the president, was true. Alexander said he knew no way to do that.

Alexander Responds To Collins