ABC: NSA agents admit spying on Americans' private calls

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Thursday October 9, 2008


The Bush administration has repeatedly defended its warrantless surveillance of Americans as being directed only against "people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

Now two intercept operators who worked for the National Security Agency at Fort Gordon in Georgia have come forward to tell ABC News that isn't true.

David Murfee Faulk described to ABC's Brian Ross how he had listened to "personal phone calls of American officers, mostly in the Green Zone [in Baghdad], calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses and sometimes their girlfriends."

"Co-workers of mine were ordered to transcribe these calls," Faulk stated. "When one of my co-workers went to a supervisor and said, 'But sir, these are personal calls,' the supervisor said, 'My orders were to transcribe everything.'"

Adrienne Kinne, who like Faulk is an Arab linguist, said she had received the same orders and had listened to hundreds of Americans in the Middle East simply calling home. She emphasized that these were "Americans who are not in any way, shape, or form associated with anything to do with terrorism. It was just personal conversations that really nobody else should have been listening to."

When asked about President Bush's statement that the intercepts were directed only at known al-Qaeda suspects, Kinne stated, "That is completely a lie." She said that military officers, journalists, and Red Cross workers were among the people whose calls she transcribed.

Faulk told ABC that certain calls were even passed around among the intercept operators like office jokes. "I was told, 'Hey, check this out, there's some good phone sex.' ... It was there, stored the way you'd look at songs on your iPod."

"I feel that was something the people should not have been doing, including me," Faulk acknowledged.

Both whistleblowers' stories are included in a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford, The Shadow Factory. Bamford told ABC that although Americans were told the surveillance program was needed to keep us safe, "What it turns out to be is for a more prurient reason, listening for the sake of listening and then laughing."

CIA Director Michael Hayden, who was previously head of the NSA, has issued a statement saying that "any suggestion General Hayden sanctioned or tolerated illegalities of any sort is ridiculous on its face."

More details are available from ABC.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5987804&page=1

This video is from ABC's Good Morning America, broadcast October 9, 2008.

No opinion huh..

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Well let's see, what freedom's exactly are the "terrorist's" after if it is now apparent that these so called freedom's never existed in the first place?

The real terrorists are wearing the five thousand dollar suits and running america I might add.

Great report by ABC. I'm one to say George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, and possible others should be brought before the Hague for war crimes. Either that, you prosecuted for treason, for the crime of betraying CIA operative Valerie Plame.



every single one of them..of course, only if found guilty..they deserve the same punishment of the Nazi leaders at Nuremburg...

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quote:

Originally posted by Krypton

You are being to lenient.

Yeah, I saw this.

In posts in the past this is exactly some of the reasons why I pointed out that the surveillence programs in this country are dangerous. I'll rehash them here again:

- The NSA/CIA are organizations filled with individuals who are TRAINED to kill, lie, and steal. It's organized scum all packed into one system.

- Human beings are not mature enough to be given this kind of power over other people's personal communication.

- If someone deserves to be spied on, there must be a reason that a panel of peers (IE: a judge) gives the go ahead regarding.

It's crazy to me that people HATE being spied on solely because we've all got crazy shit in our heads we're afraid others will find out about, yet at the same time we LOVE spying on others. It's internal, natural hypocrisy.

There needs to be oversight in these things.

i'm not condoning those individual's behavior, but i bet you f**king morons didn't know it's not exactly illegal to eavesdrop on soldiers in a warzone.

...and forgive me if i didn't notice any of your violent indignant outrage at someone's personal e-mails recently being hacked into and posted on the internet for mere political gain. hypocrites

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo i'm not condoning those individual's behavior, but i bet you f**king morons didn't know it's not exactly illegal to eavesdrop on soldiers in a warzone. ...and forgive me if i didn't notice any of your violent indignant outrage at someone's personal e-mails recently being hacked into and posted on the internet for mere political gain. hypocrites

War zone? Who did Congress declare war against?

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quote:

Originally posted by culorut ABC: NSA agents admit spying on Americans' private calls David Edwards and Muriel Kane Thursday October 9, 2008 The Bush administration has repeatedly defended its warrantless surveillance of Americans as being directed only against "people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations." Now two intercept operators who worked for the National Security Agency at Fort Gordon in Georgia have come forward to tell ABC News that isn't true. David Murfee Faulk described to ABC's Brian Ross how he had listened to "personal phone calls of American officers, mostly in the Green Zone [in Baghdad], calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses and sometimes their girlfriends." "Co-workers of mine were ordered to transcribe these calls," Faulk stated. "When one of my co-workers went to a supervisor and said, 'But sir, these are personal calls,' the supervisor said, 'My orders were to transcribe everything.'" Adrienne Kinne, who like Faulk is an Arab linguist, said she had received the same orders and had listened to hundreds of Americans in the Middle East simply calling home. She emphasized that these were "Americans who are not in any way, shape, or form associated with anything to do with terrorism. It was just personal conversations that really nobody else should have been listening to." When asked about President Bush's statement that the intercepts were directed only at known al-Qaeda suspects, Kinne stated, "That is completely a lie." She said that military officers, journalists, and Red Cross workers were among the people whose calls she transcribed. Faulk told ABC that certain calls were even passed around among the intercept operators like office jokes. "I was told, 'Hey, check this out, there's some good phone sex.' ... It was there, stored the way you'd look at songs on your iPod." "I feel that was something the people should not have been doing, including me," Faulk acknowledged. Both whistleblowers' stories are included in a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford, The Shadow Factory. Bamford told ABC that although Americans were told the surveillance program was needed to keep us safe, "What it turns out to be is for a more prurient reason, listening for the sake of listening and then laughing." CIA Director Michael Hayden, who was previously head of the NSA, has issued a statement saying that "any suggestion General Hayden sanctioned or tolerated illegalities of any sort is ridiculous on its face." More details are available from ABC. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5987804&page=1 This video is from ABC's Good Morning America, broadcast October 9, 2008.

so what? if they weren't plotting anything then they have nothing to worry about. Even if they were, the conversations couldn't be used against them in court. I don't get why people get all bent-out-of-shape because someone MAY have listened to a conversation. All this privacy BS is stupid considering the person listening could probably give a shit, and the person on the phone doesn't even know. How can you be embarrased or violated if you don't even know it happens.

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton War zone? Who did Congress declare war against?

thats right, change the subject when you know you've just vommited stupid crap without thinking.

be a man for once and admit you jumped the gun

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo i'm not condoning those individual's behavior, but i bet you f**king morons didn't know it's not exactly illegal to eavesdrop on soldiers in a warzone. ...and forgive me if i didn't notice any of your violent indignant outrage at someone's personal e-mails recently being hacked into and posted on the internet for mere political gain. hypocrites

Are you really trying to attach Palin's hacked email by a 23 year old kid to a broader Democrat agenda? Shouldn't you be at a GOP rally chanting hateful slogans?

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo thats right, change the subject when you know you've just vommited stupid crap without thinking. be a man for once and admit you jumped the gun

Because PDD is peppered with all the times you've admitted your mistakes. Or maybe you're just never wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo thats right, change the subject when you know you've just vommited stupid crap without thinking. be a man for once and admit you jumped the gun

WTF is your problem? Depressed? I may disagree with you on many things, but I don't insult your intelligence. I feel sorry for you that you must rely on childish insults as your arguments......but I get it...authoritarians are intolerant of criticism. I understand. You hate dissenters. You'de rather have a king of America. We get it...

And changing the subject...hardly...you said...

quote:

it's not exactly illegal to eavesdrop on soldiers in a warzone.

Well tough guy, Congress never declared war. So what war zone are we talking about? Because to be in a war zone, we have to declare war, right? And by that logic, Iraq is not a war zone, and thus, the legality of monitoring personal communications of Americans from the region is in question. So where you coughed up, "YOU'RE CHANGING THE SUBJECT!!!", I wouldn't know...

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