Friends, Let me know if you are interested in signing on to this letter. Thanks! Max

National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR], 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD  21218

 

October 4, 2011

 

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 of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen, we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about these matters.  As citizens, we believe we have the right to petition our government with our grievances.  We have tried on more than one occasion to speak with our legislators and have been rebuffed with the explanation that NSA's work is classified, and they (our legislators) are unable to comment.

 

We have other concerns, besides the Agency’s involvement in the various wars, such as illegal wiretapping and wholesale collection of U.S. citizens’ phone records, infiltration of peace groups opposed to the policies of this government and the NSA’s surveillance of groups involved in protests at Fort Meade.

 

As you may be aware, the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance is composed of citizen activists who want to see that government officials are held accountable for illegal activities. We believe it is a terrible waste of time and taxpayers’ money to

monitor citizens involved in First Amendment activities.

 

Yet the NSA continues to be involved in the methodical and purposeful destruction of our civil liberties and infringements on Constitutionally-protected dissent.  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.

 

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 there was pretext for the invasion of Iraq. 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.

 

Another 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.  Soon he was facing years of incarceration because he was charged with an incredible ten felonies. Obviously, the government was trying to silence future whistleblowers.  Eventually this ridiculous case collapsed, and in June 2011 Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor, unauthorized access to the intelligence agency’s intranet.  He was sentenced on July 15 to probation and community service.  In a just world, he would be feted for blowing the whistle on a wasteful NSA boondoggle.  Instead he was destroyed financially.

General Alexander, we wish to discuss these matters with you, as well as the role the NSA plays in the drone strikes, where civilians are being killed.  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 when you can meet with NCNR representatives.

 

In peace,

 

Max Obuszewski, on behalf of the national campaign for nonviolent Resistance

410-366-1637 or 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