back to article Ex-Prez Bush, Cheney sued for email, phone spying during Olympics

Ex-US president George W Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and senior law enforcement officials have been named in a class-action lawsuit for authorizing blanket phone, email, and text message surveillance of Utah citizens during the 2002 Winter Olympics. In 2013 the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI and NSA had …

  1. Youngone Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    No Chance

    This suit will fail, as if there's one thing we've learned, there is no way anyone involved in mass spying is going to stop doing it, or admit they're doing it, unless they really have to.

    The discovery process will be very long and spawn it's own series of suits as the agencies claim "National Interest" or whatever to avoid disclosure.

    There's also the general immunity wealthy connected Americans enjoy from criminal prosecution.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No Chance (You're Right!)

      This investigation will fail but for the reason that the Olympics require this level of security as the event attracts the worst kind of terrorists and warrant this kind of attention from the government.

      The government is truly afraid of the lone wolf type of terrorist and rightly so. The only ways to find them involve looking at every piece of phone and internet traffic at a local level. If they keep their mouth shut and don't brag these types rarely get caught.

      After Ruby Ridge and Waco there are a whole lot of people with an axe to grind against the Feds and their bunkers aren't very far from Salt Lake City

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No Chance (You're Right!)

        It's 650 miles from Salt Lake City to Northern Idaho and almost 1,300 miles to Waco; I wouldn't describe either location as not "very far" from Salt Lake City.

        For context, Los Angeles is 680 miles from Salt Lake City and Chicago is a notch under 1,400. Or, putting it another way, Portland is only 450 miles from Northern Idaho and Miami is just over 1,300 miles from Waco (and both Washington, DC and LA are only slightly further than that).

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: No Chance (You're Right!)

        the Olympics require this level of security as the event attracts the worst kind of terrorists

        Namely, the imaginary kind, who are the worst because they can be used to justify any idiocy, in perpetuity.

        1. tom dial Silver badge

          Re: No Chance (You're Right!)

          It is likely that since the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany (if not before), every host country has conducted intense surveillance, both physical and electronic, of the entire area and its surround for months before and during the events. Given the nearness in time of the 2002 Winter Olympics to the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US might have increased surveillance beyond initial plans, but the surveillance probably would have been well into the planning stage by 2000 or early 2001 and probably would have included much or all of what actually took place.

  2. Mark 85

    Did the massive sweep catch any terrorists?

    If the suit is allowed, then the battle will probably be in "secret". If it's not allowed, then it will tacitly acknowledge the guilt.

    Somedays, ok.. most days.. I just despise politics, power plays, and all this theater of fear going on....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Did the massive sweep catch any terrorists?

      So if Ross can't get a judge to consider his charges legit, it's proof of a conspiracy? Suuure...

      A quick google of this Ross guy reveals he has called for impeachment of George W. many times in the past. How is this not just more of the same? And meanwhile Obama (his party's leader) is violating our rights far more than W could ever have dreamed possible.

      It's a pathetic attempt at attracting attention.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Did the massive sweep catch any terrorists?

        You're probably right. But the government has the right to not allow itself to be sued and has used it as not to expose things. Since these are former officials, I'm not sure if that rule can be applied although for the time period involved, they were part of the government.

        Any way that you look at this whole surveillance mess, it's a power play on someone's part.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The case is going to prove interesting. If it is allowed to proceed

    ah, but why not? After all, democracy and all that, and the US is not China or Russkis, or Gestapo-land, nein? And it's not like this little Britain, where some cases are not allowed to proceed "as it's not in the public interest". This one WILL proceed. Within the next 100 years or so.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    partisan hack

    hasn't bothered to sue the current President or his cronies even after Snowden shows that universal blanket surveillance is going on and even actively protected by the likes of Pelosi.

    All those who got angrily outraged about "warrantless wiretapping" have been suspiciously silent over the last 6 years...just like all the antiwar protestors who rolled up their camps and removed their Berkeley overpass signs the day after "their" president got elected even tho nothing changed at all.

    depending on the Party we'll see all the usual loud protests and worshipful media coverage of same back if "their" person doesn't get reelected, regardless of any changes of policy or not

    1. veti Silver badge

      Re: partisan hack

      In the first place, the suit is about something that happened in 2002. Blaming Obama for that seems far-fetched, even for a partisan hack.

      In the second place, "all those who got angrily outraged about 'warrantless wiretapping'" haven't been silent over the last six years. Let's start with your own example of Snowden, who's been anything but silent - then go on to count all the journalists, bloggers and miscellaneous other hacks who've written about his revelations - and what you get is not a picture of "suspicious silence", unless your definition of "all those" is really very selective indeed.

      In the third place, "Berkeley overpass signs"? You sound like you're still sore about the Vietnam War. Or are you talking about 2008/9? In which case you might want to check your facts.

  5. str8ahead

    The case is going to prove interesting. If it is allowed to proceed

    The terrorists are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. They should be tried for war crimes and the rest of the free world would love to see them at the Hague. Ain't gonna happen though. I still can't find anybody to tell me what really hit the Pentagon or why WTC-7 collapsed in on its own footprint at the speed of gravity.

  6. str8ahead
    Pint

    The case is going to prove interesting. If it is allowed to proceed

    The terrorists are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. They should be tried for war crimes and the rest of the free world would love to see them at the Hague. Ain't gonna happen though. I still can't find anybody to tell me what really hit the Pentagon or why WTC-7 collapsed in on its own footprint at the speed of gravity.

    1. Alister

      Great, you posted it twice so as to make sure you got all the downvotes...

  7. Turtle

    Gimmicks.

    "When in office, Anderson was a vocal opponent of the domestic surveillance program carried out by the government and was a fierce critic of George Bush. He called for Bush's impeachment over the Iraq War and has been active in investigating cases of surveillance overreach. '

    This guy was the fucking mayor of Salt Lake City. And he's not the only politician that uses this particular gimmick.

    For example: where I live, we have a city council that likes to pass resolutions on world affairs. Because it's much, much easier to pass resolutions and rename streets than to ameliorate the housing shortage, skyrocketing rents, barely-functional school systems, the high cost of public transportation, corruption... Shit like this gives the voters the illusion that their local elected representatives are doing something when, in fact, they're not. You know: "The school's are unsafe? But we named a street after Nelson Mandela! So everything's good."

  8. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Not a partisan hack

    " partisan hack hasn't bothered to sue the current President or his cronies even after Snowden shows that universal blanket surveillance is going on and even actively protected by the likes of Pelosi."

    This suit is over events in 2002, so suing the current President for it would not make sense. This is no partisan issue, insofar as both main parties seem to fully condone the US being a surveillance state.

  9. Your alien overlord - fear me

    EFF and ACLU too busy? Sounds like they're in the pocket of the NSA and the entire US potilical circus. now. Sad day for true free speech.

    1. Brent Beach

      Long shot

      "EFF and ACLU too busy"

      This is telling. Were they too busy or were they certain it was a waste of their time?

      No cover up, just a very low probability law suit.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, they're political organizations, and like all political organizations they're far more interested in being seen to be helping than actually helping. if this gets any more serious attention I'd expect one or both of them to lend support (via a press release or two).

  10. Hans 1

    The one thing this mayor does not understand is that the NSA took power in 1963, they rule, not the president.

  11. Drudgery Leak

    So how's the whole "Land of the free" thing working out?

    1. fishman

      <So how's the whole "Land of the free" thing working out?>

      It's "The land of the Fee".

      At least we don't have quite as many security cameras as the UK. But I'm sure they're working on it.

      1. tom dial Silver badge

        We (the US) certainly are increasing the number of surveillance cameras. On the other hand, I have not seen meaningful evidence of their use in either the UK or the US to affect personal liberty of, or even to track actively, those engaged in their ordinary activities, whether legal or not. Like telephone and internet metadata, they appear to be used to collect information that can be mined after a crime is committed to help identify and track suspects, or to track those suspected on other grounds of planning a crime. This is as one might expect based on the ratio of possible watchers to citizens, which I suspect in the US is well under about one per 10,000; this is much smaller than the number of police officers on patrol to citizens, which for New York City probably approaches 1 in 1000. In the middle sized suburb where I used to live there typically was about one officer on patrol for each 2500 residents and the 8 observation camera displays were visible to one officer, the shift supervisor, for every 50,000 residents.

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