The NSA's Project SHAMROCK
Nice history of Project SHAMROCK, the NSA’s illegal domestic surveillance program from the 1970s. It targeted telegrams.
Comments
ChristianO • July 10, 2013 3:44 PM
Nothing will change if you atill vote for the same two parties that made the NSA do this…
… or at least stop laughing about one party system countries who call themself democracies.
Rich • July 10, 2013 6:00 PM
What does it mean when the Pirate Party seems to be the sane one?
Simon • July 10, 2013 6:16 PM
Good luck changing. Until you Yanks stop allowing corporations and other special interest groups to fund your politicians (legalized bribery), nothing will change.
Dirk Praet • July 10, 2013 7:05 PM
Those were different days.
Recommended reading: Daniel Ellsberg’s WaPo op-ed why Edward Snowden made the right call when he fled the US at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html .
There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon’s era — and figured in his resignation in the face of impeachment — but are today all regarded as legal (including an attempt to “incapacitate me totally”).
Nick P • July 10, 2013 8:27 PM
“Good luck changing. Until you Yanks stop allowing corporations and other special interest groups to fund your politicians (legalized bribery), nothing will change.”
This is true with one qualification: it’s part allowed and part coerced. Quite a few politicians and activists that got far in interfering with the elite power/financial interests had their livelihoods (or lives) destroyed as a result. And the same stuff goes on in other Western nations in other forms. As it would here if we banned all official means of financial influence. The rich and powerful will always gain control when the public won’t fight them.
(The only good thing about an official, legalized means of financial influence is that you get the see who owns who and pushes for what right out in the open. And the conflicts of interest can tell the voter where problems are likely to happen for any given initiative.)
pointless_hack • July 10, 2013 11:50 PM
This story led me to compose this blog entry.
“Why Democracy” is more about simple answers to complicated questions and the underpinnings of political theory, than it is about politics.
I had previously recorded this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvjVdXJT5Ac
Z.Lozinski • July 11, 2013 8:50 AM
I tried to find an online version of the 1976 Church Committee report, with limited success. This was the Senate Committee that investigated the SHAMROCK allegations, as well as other such as spying on Dr. Martin Luther King.
I did locate a dead-tree format, was available via amazon.com
“Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans: 1976 US Senate Report on Illegal Wiretaps and Domestic Spying by the FBI, CIA and NSA. Church Committee (US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities Within the United States).
2007, Red & Black Publishers, St.Petersburg, FL.
ISBN 978-1-934941-21-8
Looks like Red and Black have reprinted the original report. As a work of the US Government, there is no copyright in a US Senate report. (Yes, I did check).
I have no affiliation with Red and Black, or the US Senate.
I do recommend reading the original US Senate report.
Nick P • July 11, 2013 6:12 PM
@ Z.Lozinski
I have this in my bookmarks
http://aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm
This is the start of the section on how the surveillance and police powers were abused against MLK. Largely the FBI’s doing.
http://aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book2/html/ChurchB2_0118a.htm
tc> • July 12, 2013 3:24 PM
Unsolicited Movie Plot:
After weeks of rumors, the sometimes-struggling cellular carrier announced it’s new promotion: Unlimited for Everyone.
“No more running out of minutes”, the CEO announce, “And more important, no more tracking who you call. We no longer track how long you call, so there’s no business need for us to make a record. We just connect you. We don’t log it, because we don’t use it. It’s a radical idea, but I was tired of hearing ‘we have always done it that way.'”
The burden of providing records to the government had become larger than the income from tracking individual usage, so it just made business sense to stop gathering information only the government could use.
“The government can force you to disclose a business record, but my legal team believes that they can’t force us to keep a record we don’t need.” For once, the lawyers were the good guys.
tc>
Brian S. • July 12, 2013 3:57 PM
Interesting read, thanks for sharing.
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Bob T • July 10, 2013 2:45 PM
Nothing will change until these criminals in politics and the financial system start doing time for their crimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSCBJz7Mz3M