Congress concerned about Public Surveillance

I was reading the New York Times (like i usually do) and i found this quite unsettling. Congress has recently been looking into the practices of the N.S.A., National Security Agency, due to improper and unethical use of email and telephone surveillance. The N.S.A. exists as security to the American people, warding off possible terrorists threats and other critical nuisances to the lives of the American people.

Several congressional committees are looking to reign in and reduce what the N.S.A. calls inadvertent overcollection. A lot of emails, domestic and foreign, pass through U.S. servers and often times it is difficult to ascertain their orgin or destination; this is why the Bush administration asked for more leeway when collecting. The N.S.A. attains court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect emails based upon reasonable assumptions of terrorist communication and activity, but in 8 of 10 court orders reviewed, the N.S.A. is believed to have crossed legal boundaries designed to protect Americans. Rush Holt, a senator from New Jersey stated, "Some actions are so flagrant they can't be accidental." If one wants to know how it works an official offered a rudimentary explanation: "Say you get an order to monitor a block of 1,000 e-mail addresses at a big corporation, and instead of just monitoring those, the N.S.A. also monitors another block of 1,000 e-mail addresses at that corporation...that is one kind of problem they had."

One of the problems Congress is having is that the legislative bodies do not understand the nuances of the software and programs enough as to where they can produce laws corralling the N.S.A., therefore very few can challenge the statements of the N.S.A. According to the NY Times article, this is part of the concerns the Obama administration inherited from Bush, along with torturing at Guantanamo Bay and others. The N.S.A. insists they are taking measures to rectify and improve software and practices, but that too may be a myth as one former N.S.A. analyst recalls in what is described as "a series of interviews", that he was trained for a program in 2005 that repeatedly examined a large volume of Americans emails messages without court warrants. Two officials confirmed that program is still in operation.

I hope that they can work this out before it gets exponentially louder in the public sector. Perhaps now that the coals are hot and the fire is going the N.S.A. will operate as intended. I think that it is extremely important that they monitor and protect the U.S. citizens but i think protecting Americans privacy is paramount.

One for W. and the Gang

The woman LinkedIn with al-Qaeda on the FBI's most wanted list was caught just a few days ago, although not without a major blunder. AAfia Siddiqui was apparently spotted outside of a government compound in Afghanistan. After being questioned, the officials ensued to search her bag. To their surprise they found numerous documents describing the creation of explosives along with various descriptions of landmarks in the United States including one of New York city, she was also in possession of substances contained in glass bottles and jars. Why she was carrying all this around with her i do not know, but i am glad she was on this particular day.

Here is the perplexing plot. Siddiqui was detained in a government building in what is described as a meeting room behind a curtain. FBI special agents, U.S. Warrant officer, and an Army Captain would all later enter the room together unaware that the highly coveted fugitive was behind the curtain. The army captain laid his U.S. issued M-4 assault rifle on the floor, you guessed it near the curtain. The following scene has Siddiqui holding the rifle pointed at the captain and yelling something negative. Army Captain lunges forward to knock away the rifle shots were fired, nobody was hit. The warrant officer revealed his 9mm handgun and blessed Siddiqui with a couple of rounds although reports indicate she was only hit once. Although she was hit she still wasn't going out without a fight, she fought and kicked as the officials tried to subdue her, eventually detained and lost consciousness Siddiqui was taken to receive medical treatment.

She is now SECURELY detained and faces multiple charges. Right now though, still innocent until proven guilty. 1 for W and the team, well that depends on how you feel about the government. But I have to ask this before i grab my coat and hat, why didn't they tell them that she was behind that curtain and extremely available to use weaponry, with both hands.