Usa spy`s on security councils members

bluelight

The thing was not that they spied.....the thing is...they did it in the UN.....an organisation created explicitly for cooperation and for to (if possible) handling big issues togheter.

No other nation can....do the same.The sole reason Usa can do it...is because all the telephone wires in the UN...are part of NewYorks telephomne system...

That is why it was ugly..business.


Bluelight

UberLord

Whilst I agree with the respect of the troops thing, I think you picked the wrong guy there JV. Didn't Oliver North sell illegal arms to Iraq or a similar country? I seem to recall reading it in the news many years ago. Maybe thats why the anti-war hippe threw blood over him.

Just because he was in the army does not absolve him of anything.

Frodo301

I'm glad to hear that raid. I've been very concerned that with the current attitudes that returning soldiers may face the same hardships that Vietnam era soldiers faced after Gulf War Round 2. As a veteran of the 1st Gulf War and Somalia I would find this very disappointing if this happened and would hope that people understand as a military member you are in very little control over where you are sent and what you may or may not have to fight for.

Frodo301

I think OL sold arms to Iran, but I think the incident in question actually happened when returning from Vietnam. And as stated above, you have very little control over who, when, and where you fight.

raid517

Erm... Maybe I'm wrong... But as far as I recall those events were seperated by about a decade or more... Oliver North is hailed by many far right Conservatives as an all American hero, someone who acted in a way that was above and beyond the call of duty. More commonly he is viewed as a down and dirty renegade career soldier who more than once over stepped his authority and openly indulged in selling illegal drugs and arms to known terrorist groups on the international market. http://www.metroactive.com/papers/so...llie-9739.html Some evidence perhaps that history, reality and memory are not always the same thing.

Q

The_Neon_Cowboy

not really... this is fact!....their has been a live tap on all us phone lines since around 1960's say someing like president and bomb in the same converation ... then the entire conversation is forworded CIA/FBI for review... funny enough the bill/law has never made much news....itn't nice the things hidden from us? but in plain view!

Smoothdrive

Better cancel my teleconference with Saddam than

Doesn't the UN use some kind of scramblers on their phones ? First thing i would think of if i were going to talk about disclosed informatin on the phone..

The_Neon_Cowboy

i dunno scramblers don't work becouse some one always has the descrambler. (lol .... just ask HBO, or other pay stations on cable )

Smoothdrive

Not standard scramblers of course..you try and decipher a 128 bit encrypted audio message without knowing the key..see you in a millenium or so.

The_Neon_Cowboy

I wish a 512 bit cypher were "legal" here...... 128 bit yea forver but you gotta think the goverments would be useing supercomputers so not nearly as long to crack as you would think... not to mention they would probubly just bug the phones or building much easyer

Falstaff

Spying is such a dirty word...how about monitoring for potentiol threats....information collection, gathering information, collating, etc etc etc.....

raid517

Na... its still a fithy business no matter what way you look at it. Doing it with your enemies is pretty bad, but understandable. Doing it with your friends too just stinks, even though we know it happens. However on this occasion, it should be remembered too that under UN and international legal conventions, this specific activity is against international law. I guess they will just have to work to tighten up their security.

Q

Falstaff

if you found out that this kind of activity is condoned and even supported by members of the U.N.?

raid517

Condoned by certain members perhaps. But in this instance it appears that ony one country had specific access to the resources that enabled them to gain access to this information.

But yes maybe if the UN was based in Moscow, or somewhere similar it would have happened there. Although when information was passed to the UK secret service about UN members and activities and requests made to gather more information about them, it seems the UK secret service recognised they were being asked to break the law and leaked the story instead. Again this was done in revenge because much of the intelligence community believes that politicians are trying to subvert their mission to achieve purely political goals. There have been many similar notes of discontent emanating from the CIA. I guess you have to ask the question whether tour secret services mission should be purely political, or purely concerned with national security. Many secret service personnel believe it should exclusively be the latter. Which not so coincidentally is also how their mission is defined in law. It is illegal for politicians to use them to simply further their own political goals. Is this what the politicians are doing? I don't know. But it certainly seems to be what a fair proportion of the intelligence community believes they are doing. It seems the Bush administration is more content to rely on a crystal ball for their intelligence rather than listen to the advice of trained professionals.

Q

Falstaff

The crystal ball your referring to, is a complex network of information collection, gathering and collation, staffed by nameless and faceless members of our armed forces and everyone else that took the "Oath". There are governments that embrace us internationally, and yet carve us up into little pieces...The Israeli's are one example, our friends, our allies and yet they refuse to obey a U.N. resolution as well. In the great social compact called the U.N. the United States looks like a rogue nation as well, we have to protect ourselves..so that people like my ex wifes and my children can continue to waste money, watch T.V. and enjoy freedom...That shiny crystal ball, gives the chance to hang on to that freedom and anticipate threats..and remain proactive...

raid517

Well when part of that crystal ball, namely the CIA voices its opposition to being politicised by the Bush administration how can you be sure any other part of it is functioning as it should?


http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle1295.htm

I have posted many similar articles like this before and indeed from the original links supplied on this topic, it seems that segments of the security services are in open revolt over this matter.

So if you can't depend on your security services, or they disbelieve your position and make this fairly openly known in public, it seems you very much are reduced to 'guessing' or in many cases second guessing, what the future may hold. If this is a crystal ball, it doesn't seem like a very reliable one.

Q

Falstaff

better than nothing, there are mechanisms within the central intelligence agency responsible for determining whether the information is relavent...

raid517

And when, as in this case they say it isn't relevant? Who do we believe then? I don't think you get it Jeff, a fair segment of the intelligence community are saying the motivations behind this war are BS. If they think its nonsense, who are we to believe? Is Bush in contact with the spirit world? Is this his alternate source of information? That is how it certainly appears. Its not just the CIA who doubt what's going on, the British intelligence services have mounted a fairly public campaign to prove that the motivations the UK govenment are putting forward for this war are BS too. Nothing in history has ever happend like this before. The French, Geman and particularly the Russian govenment all have access to the same kind of intelligence, and it appears all have assessed Iraq to be low to virtually no risk. I would at least like to know where Bush is getting his information from. A few highly paid defectors who were sponsored by the Iraqi opposition somehow just does not cut it for me. Maybe its good enough for everyone else, but before people start getting killed I would like just a little more to go on. There are even noises eminating from the Bush administration that the CIA is not to be trusted. Who next? The French, the Germans, the UN, NATO, the CIA, anybody who dares question the Bush govenment? Are we really all just a Bunch of pinko commies out to bring about the downfall of the USA? Can't you see how nuts that seems to everyone?

Well I guess not. It certainly no longer seems crazy to a great many Americans. I cannot understand people who refuse to even question their govenments motives, even if they do support them. I support Blair, but I still feel perfectly able and prepared to doubt and/or question him.

I know people will always see things differently. But these inconsistancies do make the things Bush tells us very hard to swallow.

They seem ready to dump anyone who does not agree with their perspective, even indeed the CIA itself.

Very, very, strange.

Q

Falstaff

What I am trying to point out is that we have agencies that excel in the methods of collecting and gathering information. As you pointed out, it is often how the informaiton is interpreted by those who wish to implement stratagies that makes the difference. I won't disagree, that many useful and relevent information is ignored or discarded becasuse it may not suit the Bush administrations agenda...I can point to examples during the gulf war that clearly show that "disinformation" was employed to pursuade our allies that involvement by coalition forces was impereative. And anyone representing the intelligence community at large is allowed to reveal aspects of the process under the watchful eye of the United States Government. It is absolutely possible that in my opinion, that the CIA is constantly reevaluating the information that obtain to determine how "factual" and relevent that it really is. And historically speaking, the Central Intelligenc Agency has provided bad intelligence because of external and internal factors that remain even to this day...I guess it all boils down to what is useful in real time. ..I am not saying the Crystal Ball isn't infalable, just poorly understood. It is not unknown, in the past that presidents made the last call on what was actionable or not....perhaps what we have regarding is a house of cards so to speak, but it wouldn't be the first time we went to war with bad information or made bad decisions with perfectly good information...

raid517

Well I wonder which it is is all. If the CIA and other intelligence agencies around the world are saying that the case made for war has no substance, then you have to assume that Bush is either depending on contacts from the 'other side' (and I don't mean the Iraqis) or he is listeninhg to the little voices in his head.

I think what you said is fair that the last war was fought on the basis of a lot of disinformation. Perhaps this time everyone is just much more aware of the extent of it. Although there does seem to be an awful lot more of it around.

Without good intelligence you are reduced to depending on blind faith alone. And of course, as history has shown us, blind faith can lead the world in all kinds of dangerous and uncertain directions.

Let's just hope whoever Bush is taling to, the spirit world, the voices in his head, God or whoever, that either by accident or design, in the middle of it all he somehow manges to get it right. In a sense I can't wait until this BS war is all over and then we might begin to figure out what it was really about. Because so far I don't think this administration has been very forthcomming with anything approaching the truth.

Q