How to catch very bad guys legally
From a msg from Valdis Krebs:
[The right wing] is crowing about how illegal massive data mining uncloaked the recent London terror network. Actually just the opposite happened! MI5 followed the legal, find-a-suspect, uncloak the network, approach I outlined back in 2002.
From The Scotsman…
Based on the information from Pakistan, MI5 began its watching operation last year. The BBC last night reported the operation began in July, but The Scotsman understands it started several months earlier.
In the initial stages, counter-terrorism officers watched from a distance. By sifting telephone records, e-mails and bank records, the MI5 officers built up what insiders call “concentric circles” of information, gradually connecting each suspect to others and building up a detailed picture of the conspiracy.
Valdis notes that Glen Greenwald has blogged about this:
From the very beginning of the NSA scandal, this has been the point — the principal, overarching, never-answered point. There is no reason for the Bush administration to eavesdrop in secret, with no judicial oversight, and in violation of the law precisely because the legal framework that has been in place for the last 28 years empowers the government to eavesdrop aggressively on all of the terrorists they want, with ease.
…Legal eavesdropping, within the FISA framework, is exactly the eavesdropping which Bush critics advocate, and it was precisely that legal eavesdropping which was used to engage in surveillance of suspected terrorists here.
Imagine if we invested the $100 billion we’re spending a year (accurate and realistic numbers are hard to come by) in Iraq to actually make ourselves safer! [Tags: terrorism valdis_krebs]
Categories: Uncategorized dw
