Inside Operation Highlander: the NSA’s Wiretapping of Americans Abroad

A top secret NSA wiretapping facility in Georgia accused of spying on Americans illegally was hastily staffed with inexperienced reservists in the months following September 11, where they worked under conflicting orders and with little supervision, according to three former workers at the spy complex. …

Now a second former Arabic linguist with the Navy has corroborated her claims to ABC, and to NSA expert James Bamford, who includes the story in his upcoming book Shadow Factory.

If the allegations are true, it would seem to indicate that warrantless spying of Americans approved by President Bush following 9/11 expanded rapidly beyond U.S. borders to citizens overseas, notwithstanding United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, or USSID 18 — an NSA rule that bars overseas surveillance of Americans without authorization and probable cause.

… At first, Kinne didn’t think they were doing anything wrong because in mid-2002, several months after the surveillance began, a supervisor told her group of linguists and analysts that they had received a “waiver” that allowed them to intercept and listen to the conversations of Americans. The waiver also gave them permission to spy on British, Canadian and Australian citizens Kinne said.

Under federal law, such a waiver would usually require special national security circumstances –- such as an imminent threat of death or attack. But Kinne said the people whose conversations she targeted didn’t discuss information of a military or terrorist nature, and the interceptions occurred over the entire Middle East –- not just in war zones. The surveillance was still going on when Kinne left active reserve duty in August 2003. …

Kinne filed several reports about the aid workers and gave their location to her supervisor, believing that U.S. military personnel might help the aid workers, or at least refrain from shooting their vehicle. But while she was monitoring the workers, a fax arrived, several pages long and written in Arabic. Even though the fax was from a phone number with a higher priority, Kinne ignored it because she felt the lives of the aid workers were more important.

When another worker later read the fax and realized its significance, all of the workers were instructed to drop everything to translate it. Kinne said the fax purported to describe the location of chemical, biological and other weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

As soon as her group completed the translation, she said it was sent to the White House -– the only time information was sent directly in this manner.

After the information was on its way, Kinne looked at the source of the document and began to doubt its authenticity. She said it came from the Iraqi National Congress or Iraqi National Accord — she couldn’t remember which.

Kinne said she expressed doubts to her commanding officer, John Berry, about the authenticity of the information and was told that her job was to collect the information, not analyze it. “He said I didn’t care about our mission or our country … and I needed to stop asking questions,” she said.

Kinne was written up in an incident report for having ignored the fax when it came in.

When she later read news reports confirming that an Iraqi group had fed the military intelligence false information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, she suspected the fax had been deliberately sent through an open satellite network so that her unit would intercept it and give it to the White House.

The only other conversations Kinne recalled with any detail involved journalists staying at a hotel in Baghdad around the time of the U.S. invasion. The journalists revealed their location in calls to U.S. family members. Kinne said she’d been monitoring the conversations of journalists at the hotel for a while, when the name of the hotel appeared on a military list of targets for bombing. Kinne said she brought the information to Berry’s attention.

“I told him, you realize there are journalists staying in that hotel and we have just said that we are going to bomb it,” she said. “I assumed that … whoever made the targeting list didn’t know journalists were staying there.”

She didn’t know if the information was passed on to anyone, but in April 2003, a U.S. tank fired on The Palestine hotel, which was serving as a base for many journalists. Two journalists were killed. Two subsequent investigations by the army and the Committee to Protect Journalists concluded that the gunners had never been told journalists were at the hotel. … - wired

Pentagon Wants $450 Billion Increase Over Next Five Years

Pentagon officials have prepared a new estimate for defense spending that is $450 billion more over the next five years than previously announced figures.

The new estimate, which the Pentagon plans to release shortly before President Bush leaves office, would serve as a marker for the new president and is meant to place pressure on him to either drastically increase the size of the defense budget or defend any reluctance to do so, according to several former senior budget officials who are close to the discussions.

Experts note that releasing such documents in the twilight of an administration is a well-worn tactic, and that incoming presidents often disregard such guidance in order to pursue their own priorities.

And with the nation’s economy caught up in a global financial meltdown, it remains unclear whether either Sen. John McCain , R-Ariz., Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill., or a Democratic Congress would support such large increases for defense next year.

“This is a political document,” said one former senior budget official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It sets up the new administration immediately to have to make a decision of how to deal with the perception that they are either cutting defense or adding to it.”

Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s top budget official from 2001 to 2004, who is not involved in the current discussions, agreed.

“The thinking behind it is pretty straightforward,” Zakheim said. “They are setting a baseline for a new administration that then will have to defend cutting it.” - cq

See: Secret Pentagon Funding Near All-Time High

Bush’s Iraq Madness helped destroy the US financial system

Foreclosure-proof homes?

Who owns your home?

That seems like a pretty straightforward question. But the answer might not be as clear-cut as you think.

A U.S. District Court judge in Cleveland tossed out 14 foreclosure cases Oct. 31 on the grounds that the bank suing to repossess the properties, Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., didn’t actually own them. Deutsche Bank held debt securities that were linked to the mortgage loans on the properties, not the mortgages themselves. And the judge ruled that a security backed by a mortgage is not the same as a mortgage.

That’s a distinction that could make all the difference in the world — especially to the millions of Americans facing potential foreclosure in our crumbling housing market.

Most people in the U.S. buy houses using mortgage loans from banks and other lending institutions. In theory, the firm that issues your mortgage owns your property until you pay off the loan. In practice, however, that’s not how the modern mortgage business works.

Instead, mortgage lenders typically pool collections of loans and then sell off pieces of the portfolios to Wall Street investors in the form of mortgage-backed securities. Basically, mortgage-backed securities enable lenders to spread the risk so one institution isn’t on the hook when a few people can’t make their monthly payments.

… we’ve seen an explosion in mortgage securities. In 1981, there were $367 billion of these debt instruments outstanding; by the end of last year, there were roughly $6.5 trillion. Mortgage-related securities account for nearly a quarter of today’s total U.S. bond market, more than any other debt sector, including Treasuries and corporate bonds. …The trouble is, these securities are now so complex that it’s become nearly impossible to know who actually owns the underlying properties in a typical mortgage pool. The mortgages are like sticks of chalk pounded into powder. When the dust settles, no one can tell what the original pieces looked like.This, in effect, is why Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the federal District Court in Cleveland dismissed those foreclosure cases. Boyko had asked Deutsche Bank to produce documentation proving that the company held the mortgages on each property it wanted to seize. But after reviewing the paperwork, Boyko ruled that “none [emphasis his] of the assignments show [Deutsche Bank] to be owner of the rights, title and interest under the mortgage at issue.” Essentially, Boyko found that the people who believed they owned the rights to the mortgages couldn’t prove it. And without a legal owner, there was nobody to foreclose on the properties, even if the borrowers had violated the terms of their loans. Case dismissed.

Boyko’s decision challenges one of the central tenets of mortgage-backed securities: The holders have the right to foreclose on delinquent properties. Since the ruling, other Ohio judges have thrown out more than 50 other foreclosure cases on similar grounds.

… if you’re having trouble making your mortgage payments, before you start preparing for the worst, you might want to do a little digging and see who actually owns your home. Because you never know, it may turn out to be no one. - lat

Financial Plan World Reports * US Bankrupt

“The United States is bankrupt and is essentially in the hands of its creditors. The Refunding Program, which should have been kick-started in June 2006, will address and rectify this state of affairs, providing both immediate and long-term relief to the American people and the whole world.” — Christopher Story FRSA, Editor and Publisher, International Currency Review, World Reports Limited, London and New York

Free Thought Day in Old Sacramento - This Sunday, Oct 12

Free Thought Day: Come enjoy music speakers and celebrations this Sunday Oct 12 at Waterfront Park in Old Sacramento.

According to the latest I’ve heard about the line up, I, Xeno, (the real Xenophilius Lovegood) along with Keith L Jensen (the real guy on the freeway off ramp in a banana suit) will be on stage right after Lori Lipman Brown and right before Michael Newdow … which will be sometime between 2 and 3:30 PM. I’ll have some music, free CDs and perhaps some some million year old fossil teeth to give away.

Here is a diagram, kind of. There is much more going on as well.

-> Lori Lipman Brown

Lori Lipman Brown has served as a state senator, lobbyist, lawyer, educator, and social worker supporter. Additionally, her political views have been secularist and civil libertarian and describes herself as an atheist humanist Jew. She served as a Nevada Senator from 1992-1994, advocating for repeals of consensual sex crimes. This led to her being named Civil Libertarian of the Year by the Nevadan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.  - wiki

-> Keith and Xeno here

-> Michael Newdow

(Michael Newdow) is best known for his efforts to bar public schools in the United States from leading recitations of the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance because of its inclusion of the phrase “under God”. Newdow is an atheist and an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. - wiki

Ron Paul: IRS to monitor EVERY credit card transaction!

Presidential Debates Part II

I’m watching the second Presidential debates. Whoever wins, it sounds like we will be working on many new sources of energy. If McCain wins someone better invent “Nuke-Away” to get rid of nuclear waste because he wants nuclear plants all over the place … probably more than Obama will have.

U.S. Navy Sonar Linked To Whale Strandings, Environmental Scientists Argue

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a series of lower court rulings that restrict the Navy’s use of sonar in submarine detection training exercises off the coast of Southern California. The court is due to hear the case after its term begins again this month.

For many years, professor Chris Parsons has been tracking the patterns of mass whale strandings around the world. In his most recent paper, “Navy Sonar and Cetaceans: Just how much does the gun need to smoke before we act?” Parsons and his co-authors bring together all of the major whale and dolphin strandings in the past eight years and discuss the different kinds of species that have been affected worldwide. They also strongly argue for stricter environmental policies related to this issue.

“Generally, if there is a large whale stranding, there is a military exercise in the area,” says Parsons. “Sonar is killing more whales than we know about.”

Parsons is a national delegate for the International Whaling Commission’s scientific and conservation committees, and on the board of directors of the marine section of the Society for Conservation Biology. He has been involved in whale and dolphin research for more than a decade and has conducted projects in South Africa, India, China and the Caribbean as well as the United Kingdom.

Though Parsons believes that there is a good chance the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in favor of the Navy, he thinks there is a chance for a win-win situation on both sides. … read more

CIA Doument: Radiation Hazards on Soviet Moon Base

I found some interesting reading tonight on the CIA’s freedom of information web site. I’ve been interested in the Moon landings and the belief by some conspiracy theorists that the Apollo Moon Landings were faked. This document from around 1969 has some interesting information on the real conditions on the surface of the moon:

(EST PUB DATE) STIR: BIOMEDICAL ASPECTS OF ESTABLISHING A SOVIET MANNED LUNAR B

Excerpt:

A spacesuit (shielding of 0.15 gm/cm2) offers little if any protection for the cosmonaut on the lunar surface during solar falre activity. He could receive a dose from a solar flare proton event up to 1,000 rad (a lethal dose) if not warned to take cover. A thin walled vehicle such as the US lunar module (0.1 gm/cm2) would also provide little protection against raditaiton.

There is a nice table in the document showing acute whole-body raditation dose (rads) and the biological effect.

0-25: No observable effects
25-50: Minor blood changes, no discomfort
50-100: Nausea and vomiting for about 1 day in 10% of persons, no deaths.
100-200: Fatigue, nausea and vomiting. Within 3 hrs in 50% of peersons.
200-300: Nausea, vomiting in 90% of persons along with other signs of radiation sickness. Death of 10-50%  of persons within 2-8 weeks.
350 and up: High probability of death in 90-100% of persons.

The estimated dose for a one way trip through the Van Allen belts behind 1.0 gm/cm2 of aluminum shielding: about 10 rads. So, as far as I understand it, you don’t get a leathal dose going through the Van Allen belts as some have suggested. Also, as far as I know, no Apollo missions got hit with solar flares while on the surface of the moon.