The Washington Post (3/18/14) is reporting, based on the files of whistleblower Edward Snowden, that the NSA is able to store every phone call made in an entire nation and replay them for up to 30 days. Not only can the agency do this, but there is a country where it’s actually doing this now—the Post knows where, but they won’t say.
As Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani report, “The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording ‘100 percent’ of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place.”
They add:
A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine—one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.
The voice interception program, called MYSTIC, began in 2009. Its RETRO tool, short for “retrospective retrieval,” and related projects reached full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere.
Interesting stuff, but the Post is withholding one crucial piece of the puzzle:
At the request of US officials, the Washington Post is withholding details that could be used to identify the country where the system is being employed or other countries where its use was envisioned.
Of course, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened; the Post‘s Dana Priest uncovered shocking details about the US government’s overseas prisons—”black sites”—but would not reveal the countries that were hosting the CIA’s secret jails (FAIR Action Alert, 11/4/05).
Last year, the Post revealed that the CIA had a drone base in Saudi Arabia—something the paper had apparently known for a while, but decided not to report at the behest of the US government (FAIR Blog, 2/6/13). The Post revealed the location of the base only after learning that another media outlet was going to make it known, “effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organizations.”
It’s impossible to know why this information is being withheld, but it’s safe to assume that the public reaction—here and elsewhere—could be very different depending on the country is being targeted.
And it shouldn’t be assumed that the government has an especially strong rationale for pressuring the Post; as New York Times Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan (Huffington Post, 2/11/14) noted, “I worry that their requests to withhold information have become almost blanket policy.”
It’s easy to imagine why the NSA, which is in the business of secrecy, would want to keep the target of its surveillance secret. It’s less clear why the Washington Post, which is supposed to be in the business of informing the public, would decide to go along.
“It’s less clear why the Washington Post, which is supposed to be in the business of informing the public, would decide to go along.”
I’m not a bit bemused by it.
Anyone else … ?
The current discussion of governmental secrecy is naive. We cannot prevent our national security agencies from operating in secret, nor should they. If we somehow got them to stop gathering this information or that, foreign governments would have a huge advantage over the United States.
Attributed to pro-imperial Rudyard Kipling: “You cannot bribe the British journalist. But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no need to.”
Just for fun, FAIR could compile WashPo comments deriding media in other countries for being pro-government. Start with Venezuela or Russia …
It’s easy to imagine why the NSA, which is in the business of secrecy, would want to keep the target of its surveillance secret. It’s less clear why the Washington Post, which is supposed to be in the business of informing the public, would decide to go along.
Actually it is not hard at all to figure out. One Symbol Uber Allies = U$A. They want the exclusives from the white house, with the Government keeping a long standing tradition of the White House booting any of those not in total sycophantic mode.
LOL, well it’s in the US of course, and in a very small area, known as Congress. That’s for starters, just working small at first. : )
However I would like to warn the NSA that all of those gamers you’re hiring? First, it’s the thrill of just listening in to just anybody and then world leaders, and many celebrities—–but then——this will soon seem boring. They’ll need a bigger challenge like the real Big Fish! Who will that be? The top of the NSA, of course. They will just have to wonder what Mr. Clapper does in his free time, and gosh all that power too well …….you know what happens! : 0 Yes, that will be the only challenge left, and won’t the NSA be sorry. : )
WashPost is a Corporate PERSON, is It NOT! Waterboard it into revelation of the target country identity!! Maybe we can thereby force its admission that such Washposting is Indeed TORTURE, as well !!!
when will people stop calling the Washington post or the new york times “papers of record” ? unless we mean that they’re the official records of slick, deep-state propaganda, mixing up truth with lies and covertly covering up huge economic and military crimes and making us all ….tolerant of the intolerable?
here’s a good article- original to salon and posted at alternet :
” the propaganda and nonsense masking America’s noxious role in the world.” by Patrick smith, posted march 6 at alternet.
the HONORABLE Stephen cohen spoken of in the article and shown in the linked video of cnn with him and christiana amanpour and wolf blitzer (or at mediaite )- (so worth watching) .. mr cohen is the same Stephen cohen who was also up against a CFR man last night on Charlie rose (march 20).
Patrick smith’s article talks about the coverage by cnn and by the new York times which both show putin as being the only military aggressor in Ukraine and overlooking all we know about 5 billion dollars of neocon state dept planning and support to cause the coup and violence against the elected Ukraine president.
the very same kind of omissions and deceptions pertain to coverage of the disgusting, unconstitutional, Orwellian spying -and the reports about torture, and secret bases, and armies ,and other armies, around the world- all paid for by u.s. taxpayers and orchestrated by u.s. government agencies, but we can’t know about them, nevermind debate about them.
the ‘papers of record” and MSM tv and radio reporting are more than any citizenry should tolerate anymore, and we shouldn’t continue calling them world class newspapers or respectable broadcasting corporations, should we?
Greenwald and others also have the data used for the WaPo article. Maybe one or more of them will have the courage do the right thing and divulge the missing information.
mike whitney also published and wrote about the same general problem, in his article at counterpunch, also at informationclearinghouse, regards the newyorktimes’ report on the newly released transcripts of the federal reserve’s communications before the bailout in 2008. he
… mike whitney wrote, “good propaganda…uses factual, sometimes documented material in a coordinated campaign with other major media to cobble-together a narrative that is credible but false.”
it’s a brilliant article about what he called, our “financial 911” –
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37787.htm
Margaret Kimberly, too, hit hard on the same issue, regarding the geopolitical mess. she writes at blackagendareport and has also been posted at ICH.
I suppose readers here have already read some of these, and I wish more and more people would read at these sites rather than (or at least, as well as ) the old “paper of record”.
(… sorry my comment here got sent by mistake halfway through. )
This whole thing is a show, approved now by USG and NSA..how you ask?
Reporting is allowed with the approval of the Content of NSA and USG, if No Approval is given.. Well journalists and or Media could and will most likely endup in a “Treason” court case. Yup, the info is/was/has been taken and read… How it is released Can and Is being Controlled thru…..
Judicial/Gitmo/Black Prison/National Security THREAT.
TheMedia canNot be Trusted as is evident!!
Experment