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John “Chris” Inglis just revealed to the world that the NSA was–is?–intercepting every single email, text message, and phone-location signal in real time for th
by minimax 13y ago
John “Chris” Inglis just revealed to the world that the NSA was–is?–intercepting every single email, text message, and phone-location signal in real time for the entire country of Iraq. Obviously, the fact that the NSA has this capability, and used it, is Top Secret. What authority did Chris Inglis have to disclose this?
This capability in Iraq had already been publicly disclosed. It's detailed in Bob Woodward's 2011 book, "Obama's Wars". Search for "RTRG" in the excerpt.† It isn't clear who disclosed the program to Woodward, but I think it's pretty clear they wanted the capability to counter the (very real) IED threat in Iraq. It actually sounds pretty reasonable and not so Orwellian in that context.
† http://books.simonandschuster.com/Obamas-Wars/Bob-Woodward/9781439172506/excerpt http://books.simonandschuster.com/Obamas-Wars/Bob-Woodward/9...
- pekk 13y agoIt doesn't sound so reasonable if you are Iraqi, particularly if like most Iraqis you already regarded the presence of the Americans as a colonialist occupation.
- sitkack 13y agoThe 'need' for this program in Iraq is dubious. It (the program) was a training run in a country we already had complete control over. They could already defeat IEDs with microcells (either shutdown or ring all the phones within 5km). Be wary when someone feeds you a line you already want to accept.