14/05/06 - Administration Bush et espionnage domestique : Au delà de l'imaginable !

Inside Bush's Secret Spy Net
Time 14/05/06

"...To reporters, Bush offered no denial, or even much by way of explanation. "The intelligence activities I authorized are lawful," he said, without specifying which laws in particular had authorized them.

And he added, "So far, we've been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil."..."


Bush Aide Defends Acts by N.S.A.
NYT 14/05/06

"...a top adviser to President Bush said Sunday that the programs were lawful and had not invaded the privacy rights of millions of Americans.

The adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, the assistant to the president for national security affairs, declined to confirm the details of a telephone surveillance program operated by the N.S.A. that was publicly disclosed on Thursday in an article in USA Today. But Mr. Hadley said that surveillance efforts had been "narrowly designed" and pointed out that the USA Today article had emphasized in its description of the program that it did not involve listening to individual calls.

"The president has been very clear that we are to pursue our intelligence programs within the law," Mr. Hadley said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. He also said that leading lawmakers in the House and the Senate had been given details of the surveillance programs.

"They have been briefed to appropriate members of the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee," he said.

But some lawmakers said Sunday that Congress had been kept in the dark.

"There has been no meaningful Congressional oversight of these programs," said Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee..."


Cheney Pushed US to Widen Eavesdropping
The New York Times 14/05/06

"In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials.

But N.S.A. lawyers, trained in the agency's strict rules against domestic spying and reluctant to approve any eavesdropping without warrants, insisted that it should be limited to communications into and out of the country, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the debate inside the Bush administration late in 2001..."


CIA nominee Hayden defends NSA programs
AP 12/05/06

"CIA director nominee Gen. Michael Hayden on Friday defended the secret surveillance programs he oversaw while head of another spy agency as lawful and designed to "preserve the security and the liberty of the American people."..."


Former NSA officer alleges illegal activities under Hayden
Govexec 12/05/06

"A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens..."


Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry
USA Today 11/05/06

"The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter..."


NSA secret database report triggers fierce debate in Washington
USA Today 11/05/06

"A massive government database containing the phone records of tens of millions of Americans — reported by USA TODAY on Thursday — marks the modern intersection of two powerful emerging forces: terrorism and technology.

And the firestorm sparked by disclosure of the National Security Agency project mirrors a debate that dates to the nation's founding, and before, over balancing the interests of the government with the rights of individuals.

"It's an issue of our times — a huge issue," said Clayton Northouse, editor of Protecting What Matters: Technology, Security, and Liberty since 9/11, published last month.

"In the lead-up to 9/11, a lot of the terrorists left a lot of information trails that could have potentially been tracked down. ... But then we bump up against the need to protect civil liberties in this new environment. How can we maintain people's privacy while maintaining the usefulness of the information?"

The White House moved quickly to try to shape the debate. President Bush appeared before TV cameras midday Thursday to say the administration has always acted within the law and protected Americans' privacy while doing everything possible to prevent terrorist attacks.


Bush defends spying after NSA database report
NBC 11/05/06

"Following a report that the U.S. agency in charge of a domestic spying program is building a database of every phone call made in the country, President Bush on Thursday told the nation from the White House that all anti-terrorism efforts are within the law..."


NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
USA Today 10/05/06

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added..."


Lire également, Read also :

Telephone Records are just the Tip of NSA's Iceberg
William M. Arkin Blog 13/05/06

"The National Security Agency and other U.S. government organizations have developed hundreds of software programs and analytic tools to "harvest" intelligence, and they've created dozens of gigantic databases designed to discover potential terrorist activity both inside the United States and overseas.

These cutting edge tools -- some highly classified because of their functions and capabilities -- continually process hundreds of billions of what are called "structured" data records, including telephone call records and e-mail headers contained in information "feeds" that have been established to flow into the intelligence agencies.

The multi-billion dollar program, which began before 9/11 but has been accelerated since then. Well over 100 government contractors have participated, including both small boutique companies whose products include commercial off-the-shelf software and some of the largest defense contractors, who have developed specialized software and tools exclusively for government use..."


Spy Agency Watching Americans From Space
AP 13/05/06

"A little-known spy agency that analyzes imagery taken from the skies has been spending significantly more time watching U.S. soil.

In an era when other intelligence agencies try to hide those operations, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, is proud of that domestic mission.

He said the work the agency did after hurricanes Rita and Katrina was the best he'd seen an intelligence agency do in his 42 years in the spy business..."


14/05/06 - Affaire Palme, le filet se referme autour de Dick Cheney et Karl Rove

A Fresh Focus on Cheney
Newsweek 14/05/06

"...The role of Vice President Dick Cheney in the criminal case stemming from the outing of White House critic Joseph Wilson's CIA wife is likely to get fresh attention as a result of newly disclosed notes showing that Cheney personally asked whether Wilson had been sent by his wife on a "junket" to Africa..."


Notes Are Said to Reveal Close Cheney Interest in a Critic of Iraq Policy
The New York Times 14/05/06

"Vice President Dick Cheney made handwritten notations on a July 2003 newspaper column that indicate he was focused on a critic of the administration's Iraq policy, according to a court filing in the C.I.A. leak case.

Mr. Cheney's notes were cited in a prosecution brief in the case against the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr. The entries were made on a copy of an Op-Ed article by Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, that was published in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. The leak case involves the disclosure that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie, was a C.I.A. officer.

"Those annotations support the proposition that publication of the Wilson Op-Ed acutely focused the attention of the vice president and the defendant - his chief of staff - on Mr. Wilson, on the assertions made in his article, and on responding to those assertions," said the legal papers filed Friday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case..."


Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators
truthout 13/05/06

"Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning..."


Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted
truthout 12/05/06

"Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources..."


14/05/06 - Quelle est la stratégie réelle des  USA ? George W. Bush refuse toujours toutes négociations directe avec l'Iran

White House dismisses calls for direct Iran talks
Reuters 14/05/06

"The White House on Sunday dismissed calls for direct talks with Iran to resolve the stand-off over its nuclear program, saying the United Nations was the best forum for those discussions.

"We think the framework we have is even better, we have a number of countries that are engaged with Iran on this issue, we are supportive of those discussions," White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley told CNN.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United States on Friday to enter into direct talks with Tehran, as have others.

But Hadley said the United Nations was the preferred forum for the talks..."


Iran Nuclear Conflict Is About US Dominance
By Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service 12/05/06

"As the George W. Bush administration pushes for a showdown over Iran's nuclear programme in the U.N. Security Council, it has presented the issue as a matter of global security - an Iranian nuclear threat in defiance of the international community. But the history of the conflict and the private strategic thinking of both sides reveal that the dispute is really about the administration's drive for greater dominance in the Middle East and Iran's demand for recognition as a regional power..."


The US's Geopolitical Nightmare
By F. William Engdahl, Asia Times 09/05/06

"By drawing attention to Iraq and the obvious role oil plays in US policy today, the George W Bush-Dick Cheney administration has done just that: it has drawn the world's energy-deficit powers' attention firmly to the strategic battle over energy, and especially oil.

This is already having consequences for the global economy in terms of US$75-a-barrel crude-oil price levels. Now it is taking on the dimension of what one former US defense secretary rightly calls a "geopolitical nightmare" for the United States.

The creation by Bush and Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and company of a geopolitical nightmare is also the backdrop to comprehend the dramatic political shift within the US establishment in the past six months, away from the Bush presidency. Simply put: Bush and Cheney and their band of neo-conservative war hawks, with their special relationship to the capacities of Israel in Iraq and across the Mideast, were given a chance.

The chance was to deliver on the US strategic goal of control of petroleum resources globally, to ensure the US role as first among equals over the next decade and beyond. Not only have they failed to "deliver" that goal of US strategic dominance, they have also threatened the very basis of continued US hegemony, or as the Rumsfeld Pentagon likes to term it, "Full Spectrum Dominance"..."


14/05/06 - Livraison secrète d'armes US en Irak via la Bosnie ?

US in Secret Gun Deal
Guardian 12/05/06

"The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN.

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient.

Senior western officials in the Balkans fear that some of the guns may have fallen into the wrong hands.

A Nato official described the trade as the largest arms shipments from Bosnia since the second world war..."


Authorities Fear Guns Shipped to Iraq Went to Insurgents
KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO 11/05/06

"Fears have surfaced that as many as 200,000 AK-47s shipped by the U.S. to Iraqi security forces may have ended up in the hands of terrorists..."


14/05/06 - Perquisitions et soupçons de corruption à la CIA ? (suite)

Ousted CIA No. 3 Is Target of Raids
WaPo 13/05/06

"Federal agents yesterday searched the CIA offices and Northern Virginia home of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the spy agency's No. 3 official who was forced to resign this week amid a widening criminal investigation into allegations of government corruption and bribery.

Officials inside CIA headquarters saw agents hauling away items from Foggo's seventh-floor suite, and neighbors outside his rented house in the Oakdale Park section of Vienna said officers, some wearing plastic gloves, placed materials in vans parked at the front and rear of the split-level brick home.

Aside from well-publicized espionage cases, veteran intelligence officers said they could not recall another time when FBI agents picked through offices at the CIA's Langley headquarters..."