Saturday, June 26, 2010

Would you sign on to a letter to the director of teh NSA?

Friends,

 

Below is a letter the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore intends to send to Keith Alexander. NSA director, in anticipation of a July 3 visit to Fort Meade.  Please let me know if you would like to sign on.  Best wishes.

 

Kagiso,

 

Max

 

Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore

325 East 25th Street

Baltimore, MD  21218

 

June 25, 2010

 

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander

Director, National Security Agency

Chief, Central Security Service

National Security Agency

Fort George G. Meade, MD  20755

 

Dear General Alexander:

 

As members of a peace and justice group with grave concern for the National Security Agency’s role in the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, we wrote to you on July 1, 2007 requesting a meeting: “In light of the alarming revelations regarding the illegal wiretapping and wholesale collection of Americans’ phone records, infiltration of peace groups opposed to the policies of this government and the NSA’s surveillance of our group, we request that you meet with us to discuss these issues.  We believe that the NSA, which has conducted covert and illegal operations against U.S. citizens, may be involved in other illegal practices.”

 

You never responded to that letter, or one sent in 2008.  So we are renewing our request for a meeting.

 

The NSA continues to be involved in the methodical and purposeful destruction of our civil liberties and infringements on Constitutionally-protected dissent.  In an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic phone and email traffic without a warrant.  He replied, “I wouldn’t rule it out.”  In his confirmation hearings to become the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA, declared that only “reasonableness” and not a warrant was necessary to conduct warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.

 

As you are aware, since the NSA sees our group as a threat to its security it is willing to waste time and taxpayers’ money monitoring us. But the Pledge of Resistance only engages in nonviolent action, and its members are citizen activists who want to see our government hold officials accountable for illegal activities.   

 

General Hayden played a key role in crafting Colin Powell’s February, 2003 speech before the UN.  In response to Sen. Carl Levin's question about the legal standard for declassifying information in the public interest, Hayden said, "We used that in Powell's speech. George [Tenet] had to call me for three tapes."  General Hayden was instrumental in providing false information to Colin Powell, at George Bush’s request, so that the invasion of Iraq could proceed.  Of course, no weapons of mass destruction were found. And as the peace movement predicted – civil war, the breakup of the country and the destruction of Iraqi society – did happen.  So the NSA is complicit in possibly one of the worst debacles and humanitarian crises in this nation’s history.

 

Also the NSA was involved in the wiretapping of the UN Security Council in 2003.  The NSA asked British intelligence to tap the phones of the UN Security Council members’ offices so the US would know how each country would vote on the resolution to invade Iraq.  Luckily, Katherine Gunn, a courageous British intelligence linguist, alerted the world to that illegal operation.

 

The latest scandal to hit the National Security Agency was the arrest and indictment of Thomas A. Drake, a former employee.  He recognized that the Agency, in catching up with the volume of e-mail and cell phone traffic, spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars on programs for your eavesdroppers.  Instead of letting taxpayers know that the money was wasted, you hid this costly boondoggle.  Taking a significant risk, Drake took his concerns “everywhere inside the secret world: to his bosses, to the agency’s inspector general, to the Defense Department’s inspector general and to the Congressional intelligence committees. But he felt his message was not getting through.” [New York Times, June 11, 2010] What is particularly revealing in the Drake case is that he wanted to do what he believed was best for the NSA. 

 

So he went to the media and became a whistleblower.  Now he faces years of incarceration because he is charged with an incredible ten felonies. Obviously, the government is trying to silence future whistleblowers.  As you know, Drake was considered the source who revealed the NSA’s illegal eavesdropping activities without warrants.  However, Drake is not charged with that leak. 

 

You should have revealed to the general public that tax dollars were wasted on costly technology programs which were ineffective.  Not revealing this is an indication of inept management. There would have been no need for a whistleblower if you had come clean. 

 

General Alexander, we wish to discuss these critically important matters with you.  Also we request that the NSA turn over to us unredacted files on Baltimore-area peace and justice organizations.  What we have received is heavily redacted.

 

Our system of government, based on laws and checks and balances, hangs by a thread.  As concerned citizens, we will continue our efforts to challenge government agencies which show a disdain for the Constitution.  We are available at your convenience and look forward to hearing from you about a meeting.

 

In peace,

 

Max Obuszewski, for the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore

410-366-1637

mobuszewski@verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

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