This will crack you up: US drug squad's phone call megaslurp dates back to 1990s Further revelations have emerged about the US Drug Enforcement Administration's snooping on Americans' calls to international numbers – including the date it started and the operation that has since replaced it. As The Register reported in January, court documents [PDF] revealed that the drug-busters were engaged in the bulk …
WHO was President of the USA from 1993 to 2001?
Demoncrat "Slick Willy Clinton" that's who. The Bush family wouldn't have had time to get the DEA to do this "megaslurp".
But don't let the opportunity for anti-American, anti-Republican comments to slip by now that the Register is little more than yes men for the Democratic machine.
Data collection has been going on for much longer.
In the late '40s, Henry Stimson, former Secretary of War, famously declared "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". Twenty years earlier he had shut down Yardley's MI-8 code-breaking and SIGINT group in the State Department. His was a minority opinion in government then, and almost certainly always has been. Data collection no doubt has been conducted since the idea first occurred to someone in a position of authority.
And that's why no US President, nor any Congress, will stop data collection by the NSA and other agencies. Even if they really wanted to - which for the most part they don't - and had the political will to do so (which they don't), issuing the order would have no effect except possibly to make the activity more clandestine. Intelligence officers are addicts; they will not give up their drug.
On the other hand, property seizure under anti-drug laws has been a huge profit center for smaller government units. So we can consider the DEA another way for the Federal government to transfer funds to local governments, at the minor expense of trampling yet more civil rights.
cos people gettin off their face and falling asleep has always been a threat to life, limb and society. And as much as I wouldn't like someone to die or loose a limb cos dey taking drugs, it is because most addicts wanna kill to get them that death/crime cos of said drugs happens to happen. If peeps wanna kill themselves with drugs let them. Make drugs available to everyone for a nice price and use the proceeds to support the families of those dumb enough to kill themselves with them.
And again, remind me just exactly why and how anyone was surprised at all about what Snowden told them? This particular shit with the DEA has been common knowledge in Florida at least for as long as its been going on, they said they were going to do it even. It was a point of fucking pride for DEA, FDLE and the Governor's Office, the Coastal Sheriff's Offices, and the Coast Guard that the DEA could do this. They used to tell them all the time, at least once a month, they could hear them and then send one of the Helicopters from HITRON-1 in Jacksonville flying up and down the coasts to shoot out the engines on their boat a few minutes to an hour later.
And, now that I'm thinking about it, NSA used to have it very clearly stated on their website that they're explicitly authorized to collect on narcotics trafficking, they even had a link to the Executive Order authorizing it that Reagan issued back when we thought the drug war was winnable. Why anyone would think they wouldn't or weren't collecting when an agency that isn't known for their transparency in targeting were saying they were doing mass collection of communications related to narcotics trafficking is beyond me. I always thought it was stupid they were telling them so as well, but I guess they were trying to deter trafficking. Not like it worked or anything, it just moved overland to Mexico and was orders of magnitude easier for everyone involved except the cops and the spies.
Regardless of any of that, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find someone who lived in Florida the 80's and 90's possessing a modicum of intelligence and critical thinking ability who didn't strongly believe the DEA, FBI, CIA, NSA, SOUTHCOM via Army INSCOM through the 470th MI Brigade, HQDA G-2 and JSOC's Intelligence Support Activity, XVIII Airborne Corps, 1SFOD-D and 5th SF Group's S-2 offices, and the NSA's CENTRA SPIKE program, and whatever/whoever else was listening to every conversation to Latin America that originated from here. Only fools and idealists didn't, and I don't know many fools or idealists. People "knew" (and still think) they were being listened to if they were calling family in Colombia, Jamaica, Peru, the Bahamas, or Bolivia and it was a safe bet to assume the same for Mexico, way before the drug war went insane there. Its just how it is.
Then again, keep in mind that what most of my friends figure now and figured back then is that not only is the US Government listening, wherever they're calling is listening too and in the case of my Colombian, Venezuelan and Cuban friends that still have family or close friends in country at least, they're probably right.
I'd be willing to bet that they were also intercepting Key West and Puerto Rico at the same damned time and they're not fucking saying anything about it because its still ongoing/operational. I wouldn't be surprised in any way, the Federal Government acted like the Keys and Monroe County were a separate country quite a bit in the 80's, to the point where the people living on Key West had enough and they "seceded". Also whenever it suits the Feds they act like PR is foreign. When it suits them to act like its ours, they do instead. Sometimes in the same press conference.
The operation was suspended in September 2013 following revelations of mass surveillance by the NSA and ultimately terminated.
The program would have continued to slurp up data to this day without Snowden's intervention. Snowden has done more for your rights than the feds are capable of. Federal, state, and local governments are all addicted to power and require a "traitor" to set them straight. Snowden's leaking was responsible and necessary; I have enjoyed reading the minority of anti-Snowden comments on El Reg.
@Dan Paul, both main parties have proven to be anti-privacy and anti-personal liberties. El Reg is British, and operates in a country with a functional multi-party system. They are not going to go over the miniscule differences between the US's main two political parties (in a proper multi-party system, the mainstream of these two parties would be a single party, with the religious Republican element, the Libertarian Republican element, and the farther left Democratic element, each having their own seperate parties.)
Bush gets the blame for instituting this program; each and every president since then (including Clinton, yes) who has failed to reign these powers in also gets the blame. Don't worry there's plenty of blame to go around!
The greatest trick the main two political parties pulled is convincing America that they are the only two options. At the end of the day, they generally vote the same way, except in cases like these days where petty Republican senators vote the opposite of whatever the Democrats do to keep the pack mentality strong. The shocking thing that a lot of people don't realize is that because only half of adults vote, and these parties only command half of that vote a piece, the two major political parties only have the support of 1/4 of the country a piece. Now consider that, of the people who vote for a major political party, half have their foot in the door (moderates voting democrat, libertarians voting republican, etc). So, despite how hopeless we like to make "3rd party candidates" out to be, all it would take is for half of the people who don't vote to match their numbers and their grasp of the USA would quickly dismantle. Apathy, however, is hard to overcome.
...then if there still is a need for some aspects of those, re-create those parts of them and staff them with completely new people.
Just think of it. If you would spend all the money poured into secret services on education and social services, the US could become a major country again.
Until 1911 the US had no nation wide drug law to enforce. We were not falling apart back then, despite a history going back since time started; but somebody decided we needed this folly! I say it pays WAY more to spend money helping folks quit addiction, than landing thousands in jail at great tax payer expense to put them away for a term that might as well be for ever!! I thought the US was a Christian nation????
We here in the United States have not seemingly realized that just preventing people from driving drunk has reduced drinking to a tremendously low level!! I can't help noticing one beer and liquor joint has gone out of business every 3 months as more strict driving laws come into play. No out and out prohibition of any controlled substance is required, just the use of such in a civilized world!
"...or at least back since 1776. I think time started a little earlier..."
Last summer, heard an American tourist asking - probably unthinkingly - why a local building couldn't have air conditioning fitted (it was a little hot & sticky); tour guide explained that it is because the building is a little too old for that to be allowed. "How old?" "Older than your country, sir".
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