Automating Installations of Linux

Red Hat and its many clones and offspring, like Fedora, CentOS, White Box
Linux, and so forth have long had a simple built-in mechanism for cloning
installations on diverse hardware: Kickstart… SUSE has AutoYaST… Debian is no exception

read more | digg story

KDE audio player amaroK 1.4 released: Fast Forward

Version 1.4 of the popular and advanced KDE audio player amaroK was released today. The long anticipated release features enhanced support for media devices like the iPod, improved visual styles, gap-less playback, an improved rating system and a revised configurability besides others.
Screenshots and more information inside.

read more | digg story

Sun puts its weight behind Ubuntu Linux

“We will be aggressively supporting the fork that Ubuntu has been doing,” Sun chief executive Jonathan Schwartz said at the conference.

“The ideals of that community are relatively familiar to us.”

read more | digg story

Russell Tice

EXCLUSIVE: National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic
Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a “Police State”

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/03/1435201

Former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice condemns reports that the
Agency has been engaged in eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court
warrants. Tice has volunteered to testify before Congress about illegal
black ops programs at the NSA. Tice said, “The freedom of the American
people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are
ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.” [includes rush
transcript]

---

We turn now to the growing controversy over President Bush’s
decision to order the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S.
citizens inside the country without the legally required court
warrants. Bush’s decision was first revealed in the New York Times in
mid-December. The Times published the expose after holding the story
for more than a year under pressure from the White House. The paper
reportedly first uncovered the illegal order prior to the 2004
election. When the editors at the Times decided last month to go ahead
with the article, President Bush personally summoned the paper’s
publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and executive editor, Bill Keller, to the
Oval Office in an attempt to talk them out of running the story. Since
the story broke, calls for Congressional hearings and the possible
impeachment of the president have intensified. Conservative legal
experts have even admitted Bush may have committed an impeachable
offense by ordering the NSA to break the law.

On Sunday, the New York
Times revealed there was dissent within the upper echelon of the Bush
administration over the legality of the president’s order. According to
the Times, Attorney General John Ashcroft’s top deputy, James Comey,
refused to sign on to the continuation of the secret program in 2004
amid concerns about its legality and oversight. At the time, Comey was
serving in place of then Attorney General John Ashcroft while Ashcroft
was hospitalized for a medical condition. Comey’s refusal prompted
senior Presidential aides Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to visit
Ashcroft in his hospital room to grant the approval. The Times reports
Ashcroft expressed reluctance to sign on to the program. It is unclear
if he eventually relented. Both Ashcroft and Comey’s concerns appear to
have led to a temporary suspension of parts of the program for several
months. But the administration has repeatedly defended its actions.

• President Bush, speaking on Sunday:
  “If somebody from al-Qaeda is
  calling you, we’d like to know why. In the meantime, this program is
  conscious of people’s civil liberties as am I. This is is a limited program
  designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America – and I repeat
  limited. It is limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within
  the United States. But, they are of known numbers of known al Qaeda members or
  affiliates. I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the
  enemy is thinking. And that’s what we are doing. We’re at war with a bunch of
  cold blooded killers who will kill in a moment’s notice. I have a
  responsibility to act within the law which I am doing. The program has been
  reviewed constantly by Justice Department officials. A program to which the
  Congress has been briefed. A program that is in my judgment necessary to win
  this war and to protect the American people.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting that the NSA passed on
records of intercepted email and phone calls to other government
agencies including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA
and the Department of Homeland Security. This news come on the heels of
several other reports that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force,
military intelligence and local police departments have all been
engaged in monitoring peaceful groups including Greenpeace, PETA – the
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Catholic Worker, anti-war
groups and even bicyclists in New York City. During the 1960s and
1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace
activists. It was this domestic surveillance that led Congress to
intervene and pass Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 in
order to prevent future such abuses. The statute permits domestic
intelligence surveillance with the approval of a court order from the
FISA court.

In 1975, Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, said, “We
have a particular obligation to examine the NSA, in light of its
tremendous potential for abuse. . . . The interception of international
communications signals sent through the air is the job of NSA; and,
thanks to modern technological developments, it does its job very well.
The danger lies in the ability of the NSA to turn its awesome
technology against domestic communications.”

Now Congress is
considering holding a new round of hearings on Bush’s domestic spying
program. A bipartisan group series of Senators have already issued
their public support including several top Republicans including
Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Two weeks ago, a former NSA intelligence officer publicly
announced that he wants to testify before Congress. His name is Russell
Tice. For the past two decades he has worked in the intelligence field
both inside and outside government, most recently with the National
Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. He was fired in May
2005 after he spoke out as a whistleblower.

In
his letter, Tice wrote, “It is with my oath as a US intelligence
officer weighing heavy on my mind that I wish to report to Congress
acts that I believe are unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of
the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional
liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.”

• Russell Tice, former intelligence agent at
  the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. He worked
  at the NSA up until May 2005.

---

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations
help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on
our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.

Donate – $25,
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AMY GOODMAN: This is President Bush speaking on Sunday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I can say that if somebody
from al-Qaeda is calling you, we’d like to know why. In the meantime,
this program is conscious of people’s civil liberties, as am I. This is
a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of
America. And I repeat: limited. And it’s limited to calls from outside
the United States to calls within the United States. But, they are of
known numbers of known al Qaeda members or affiliates. And I think most
Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy is thinking.
And that’s what we are doing. We’re at war with a bunch of cold-blooded
killers who will kill on a moment’s notice. And I have a
responsibility, obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing.
It’s a program has been reviewed constantly by Justice Department
officials, a program to which the Congress has been briefed, and a
program that is in my judgment necessary to win this war and to protect
the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Bush speaking Sunday. Meanwhile, The Washington Post
is reporting the N.S.A. passed on records of intercepted email and
phone calls to other government agencies, including the F.B.I., the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the C.I.A. and the Department of Homeland
Security. This news comes on the heels of several other reports that
the F.B.I.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, military intelligence and
local police departments have all been engaged in monitoring peaceful
groups, including Greenpeace, PETA (the People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals), the Catholic Worker antiwar groups, and even
cyclists in New York City.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the military used N.S.A.
intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace activists. It was this
domestic surveillance that led Congress to intervene and pass the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, in order to prevent
future such abuses. The statute permits domestic intelligence
surveillance with the approval of a court order from the FISA court.

In 1975, Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, said,
quote, “We have a particular obligation to examine the N.S.A. in light
of its tremendous potential for abuse. The interception of
international communications signals sent through the air is the job of
N.S.A., and thanks to modern technological developments, it does its
job very well. The danger lies in the ability of the N.S.A. to turn its
awesome technology against domestic communications,” Church said.

Congress is now considering holding a new round of hearings on
Bush’s domestic spying program. A bipartisan group of senators have
already issued their public support, including several top Republicans,
including Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. This is Democratic Senator
Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: This warrant-less eavesdropping
program is not authorized by the PATRIOT Act, it’s not authorized by
any act of Congress, and it’s not overseen by any court. According to
the reports it’s being conducted under a secret presidential order,
based on secret legal opinions by the same Justice Department, lawyers,
the same ones who argued secretly that the President could order the
use of torture. Mr. President, it is time to have some checks and
balances in this country. We are a democracy. We are a democracy. Let’s
have checks and balances, not secret orders and secret courts and
secret torture, and on and on.

AMY GOODMAN: That was
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. Two weeks ago, a former N.S.A.
intelligence officer publicly announced he wants to testify before
Congress. His name is Russell Tice. For the past two decades he has
worked in the intelligence field, both inside and outside of
government, most recently with the National Security Agency and the
Defense Intelligence Agency. He was fired in May 2005, after he spoke
out as a whistleblower.

In his letter, Tice wrote, quote, “It’s with my oath as a U.S.
intelligence officer weighing heavy on my mind that I wish to report to
Congress acts I believe are unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom
of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional
liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.”

Russell Tice joins us now in our Washington studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!

RUSSELL TICE: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us.

RUSSELL TICE: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: What made you decide to come forward? You
worked for the top-secret agency of this government, one that is far
larger and even more secret than the C.I.A.

RUSSELL TICE: Well, the main reason is, you know, I’m
involved with some certain aspects of the intelligence community, which
are very closely held, and I believe I have seen some things that are
illegal. Ultimately it’s Congress’s responsibility to conduct oversight
in these things. I don’t see it happening. Another reason is there was
a certain roadblock that was sort of lifted that allowed me to do this,
and I can’t explain, but I will to Congress if allowed to.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the letter you have written to Congress, your request to testify?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, it’s just a simple request under the
Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which is a legal
means to contact Congress and tell them that you believe that something
has gone wrong in the intelligence community.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you start off by talking overall?
Since most people until recently, until this latest story of President
Bush engaging in these wiretaps of American citizens, as well as
foreign nationals in this country, perhaps hadn’t even heard of the
N.S.A., can you just describe for us what is the National Security
Agency? How does it monitor these communications?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, the National Security Agency is an
agency that deals with monitoring communications for the defense of the
country. The charter basically says that the N.S.A. will deal with
communications of — overseas. We’re not allowed to go after Americans,
and I think ultimately that’s what the big fuss is now. But as far as
the details of how N.S.A. does that, unfortunately, I’m not at liberty
to say that. I don’t want to walk out of here and end up in an F.B.I.
interrogation room.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Tice, you have worked for the National Security Agency. Can you talk about your response to the revelations that the Times,
you know, revealed in — perhaps late, knowing the story well before
the election, yet revealing it a few weeks ago — the revelation of the
wiretapping of American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, as far as an intelligence officer,
especially a SIGINT officer at N.S.A., we’re taught from very early on
in our careers that you just do not do this. This is probably the
number one commandment of the SIGINT Ten Commandments as a SIGINT
officer. You will not spy on Americans. It is drilled into our head
over and over and over again in security briefings, at least twice a
year, where you ultimately have to sign a paper that says you have
gotten the briefing. Everyone at N.S.A. who’s a SIGINT officer knows
that you do not do this. Ultimately, so do the leaders of N.S.A., and
apparently the leaders of N.S.A. have decided that they were just going
to go against the tenets of something that’s a gospel to a SIGINT
officer.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Russell Tice. We will go
to break and come back to him. He’s a former intelligence agent with
the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency,
worked at the N.S.A. up until May of this past year, May of 2005.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We talk to Russell Tice, former intelligence
agent with the National Security Agency, formerly with the Defense
Intelligence Agency, worked with the N.S.A. up until May 2005. Russell
Tice, what happened then? What happened in May 2005?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, basically I was given my walking papers and told I was no longer a federal employee. So –

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

RUSSELL TICE: Some time ago I had some concerns about a
co-worker at D.I.A. who exhibited the classic signs of being involved
in espionage, and I reported that and basically got blown off by the
counterintelligence office at D.I.A. and kind of pushed the issue,
because I continued to see a pattern of there being a problem. And once
I got back to N.S.A., I pretty much dropped the issue, but there was a
report that came across my desk in April of 2003 about two F.B.I.
agents that were possibly passing secret counterintelligence
information to a Chinese double agent, Katrina Leung, and I sent a
secure message back to the D.I.A. counterintelligence officer, and I
said I think the F.B.I. is incompetent, and the retaliation came down
on me like a ton of bricks.

AMY GOODMAN: What would you say to those who say you are speaking out now simply because you are disgruntled?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, I guess that’s a valid argument. You
know, I was fired. But, you know, I’ve kind of held my tongue for a
long time now, and basically, you know, I have known these things have
been going on for a while. The classification level of the stuff I deal
with, basically what we call black world programs and operations, are
very, very closely held. And you know, whether you think this is
retaliation or not, I have something important to tell Congress, and I
think they need to hear it. I’d like to think my motives aren’t
retaliation, but, you know, after what I have been through, I can
understand someone’s argument to think I have been jaded.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the risks you take as a
whistleblower? I wanted to play a clip of F.B.I. whistleblower, Sibel
Edmonds. She was working for the F.B.I. after 9/11 as a translator,
translating intercepts, and ultimately she lost her job. And I asked
her if she was afraid of speaking out.

SIBEL EDMONDS: There are times that I am afraid,
but then again, I have to remind myself that this is my civic duty and
this is for the country, because what they are doing by pushing this
stuff under this blanket of secrecy, what they are hiding is against
the public’s welfare and interest. And reminding that to myself just
helps me, to a certain degree, overcome that fear.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sibel Edmonds. Russell Tice, you are a member of her group, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

RUSSELL TICE: That, I am. National Security Whistleblower
Coalition is basically put together of people who are in sort of the
same boat that I am in, that have brought whistleblower concerns to the
public or to their perspective chain of supervisors and have been
retaliated against. And the intelligence community, all of the
whistleblower protection laws are — pretty much exempt the
intelligence community. So the intelligence community can put forth
their lip service about, ‘Oh, yeah, we want you to put report waste
fraud abuse,’ or ‘You shall report suspicions of espionage,’ but when
they retaliate you for doing so, you pretty much have no recourse. I
think a lot of people don’t realize that.

And Sibel has basically started this organization to bring
these sort of concerns out into the public and ultimately to get
Congress to start passing some laws to protect folks that are going to
be in a position to let the public or just, you know, to let Congress
know that crimes are being committed. And that’s what we’re talking
about. We’re talking about a crime here. So, you know, all of this
running around and looking for someone who dropped the dime on a crime
is a whole lot different than something like the Valerie Plame case.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the Justice
Department launching an investigation into the leak, who leaked the
fact that President Bush was spying on American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, I think this is an attempt to make
sure that no intelligence officer ever considers doing this. What was
done to me was basically an attempt to tell other intelligence
officers, ‘Hey, if you do something like this, if you do something to
tick us off, we’re going to take your job from you, we’re gonna do some
unpleasant things to you.’

So, right now, the atmosphere at N.S.A. and D.I.A., for that
matter, is fear. The security services basically rule over the
employees with fear, and people are afraid to come forward. People know
if they come forward even in the legal means, like coming to Congress
with a concern, your career is over. And that’s just the best scenario.
There’s all sorts of other unfortunate things like, perhaps, if someone
gets thrown in jail for either a witch-hunt or something trumping up
charges or, you know, this guy who is basically reporting a crime.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of the news that the
National Security Agency spying on American citizens without a court
order and foreign nationals is now sharing this information with other
agencies like, well, the other agency you worked for, the Defense
Intelligence Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: Intelligence officers work with one
another all the time. As an analyst, you might have a problem.
Everybody gets together. It’s just common sense to find out what
everybody knows, you know, come to a consensus as to what the answer
is. It’s sort of like a puzzle, you know, chunks of the puzzle. And
maybe you have a few chunks as a SIGINT officer, and the C.I.A. has a
few chunks in their arena and D.I.A. has a few elements of it, and
everybody gets together and does a little mind meld to try to figure
out what’s going on. So it’s not unusual for the intelligence community
to share information. But when we’re talking about information on the
American public, which is a violation of the FISA law, then I think
it’s even something more to be concerned about.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you ever asked to engage in this?

RUSSELL TICE: No, no, and if I did so, I did so
unwittingly, which I have a feeling would be the case for many of the
people involved in this. More than likely this was very closely held at
the upper echelons at N.S.A., and mainly because these people knew –
General Hayden, Bill Black, and probably the new one, Keith Alexander,
they all knew this was illegal. So, you know, they kept it from the
populace of N.S.A., because every N.S.A. officer certainly knows this
is illegal.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean if you did so, you did so unwittingly?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, there are certain elements of the
aspects of what is done where there are functionaries or technicians or
analysts that are given information, and you just process that
information. You don’t necessarily know the nitty gritty as to where
the information came from or the — it’s called compartmentalization.
It’s ironic, but you could be working on programs, and the very person
sitting next to you is not cleared for the programs you’re working on,
and they’re working on their own programs, and each person knows to
keep their nose out of the other person’s business, because
everything’s compartmentalized, and you’re only allowed to work on what
you have a need to know to work on.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the telecoms, the
telecommunications corporations working with the Bush administration to
open up a back door to eavesdropping, to wiretapping?

RUSSELL TICE: If that was done and, you know, I use a
big “if” here, and, remember, I can’t tell you what I know of how
N.S.A. does its business, but I can use the wiggle words like “if” and
scenarios that don’t incorporate specifics, but nonetheless, if U.S.
gateways and junction points in the United States were used to siphon
off information, I would think that the corporate executives of these
companies need to be held accountable, as well, because they would
certainly also know that what they’re doing is wrong and illegal. And
if they have some sort of court order or some sort of paper or
something signed from some government official, Congress needs to look
at those papers and look at the bottom line and see whose signature is
there. And these corporations know that this is illegal, as well. So
everyone needs to be held accountable in this mess.

AMY GOODMAN: When you come on board at these
intelligence agencies, as at the National Security Agency, what are you
told? I mean, were you aware of the Church hearings in the 1970s that
went into the illegal spying on monitoring, of surveilling, of
wiretapping of American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, that’s something that’s really not
drummed in your head. That’s more of a history lesson, I think. And the
reasoning, ultimately, for the FISA laws and for what’s called USSID
18, which is sort of the SIGINTer’s bible of how they conduct their
business, but the law itself is drilled into your head, as well as the
tenets of USSID 18, of which the number one commandment is ‘Thou shalt
not spy on Americans.’

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Russell Tice, former
intelligence agent with the National Security Agency, worked at the
N.S.A. up until May of 2005. What is data mining?

RUSSELL TICE: Data mining is a means by which you –
you have information, and you go searching for all associated elements
of that information in whatever sort of data banks or databases that
you put together with information. So if you have a phone number and
you want to associate it with, say, a terrorist or something, and you
want to associate it with, you know, ‘Who is this terrorist talking
to?’ you start doing data on what sort of information or what sort of
numbers does that person call or the frequency of time, that sort of
thing. And you start basically putting together a bubble chart of, you
know, where everybody is.

Lord help you if you’ve got a wrong phone call from one of
these guys, a terrorist overseas or something, and you’re American.
You’re liable to have the F.B.I. camping out your doorstep, apparently,
from everything that’s going on. But it’s basically a way of searching
all of the data that exists, and that’s things like credit card records
and driver’s license, anything that you can get your hands on and try
to associate it with some activity. I think if we were doing that
overseas with known information, it would be a good thing if we’re
pinning them down. But ultimately, when we’re using that on — if
we’re using that with U.S. databases, then ultimately, once again, the
American people are — their civil rights are being violated.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect you are being monitored, surveilled, wiretapped right now?

RUSSELL TICE: Yes, I do. As a matter of fact, in – you
know, sometimes you just don’t know. And being, you know — what
they’ve basically accused me of, I can’t just walk around thinking that
everybody is looking at my heels and are following me around. But in
one scenario I turned the tables on someone I thought was following me,
and he ducked into a convenience store, and I just walked down there –
and I saw him out of my peripheral vision — and I basically walked
down to where he ducked into and in the store, I walked up behind him.
He was buying a cup of coffee, and he had a Glock on his hip and his
F.B.I. badge. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out
what was going on there.

AMY GOODMAN: The National Security Agency, or I should
say the United Nations Security Council, there was a scandal a year or
two ago about the monitoring of the diplomats there. It was in the lead
up to the invasion, the U.S. wanting to know and put pressure on these
Security Council ambassadors to know what they were saying before any
kind of vote. What is the difference between that kind of monitoring
and the monitoring of American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, if the monitoring was done against
foreigners and the monitoring was done overseas, as far as I know,
that’s perfectly legal. It’s just a matter of who you are monitoring
and where you’re doing the monitoring. If it’s done at home and they’re
Americans, then you have a different scenario.

And we’re all trained that, you know, hands off. If you
inadvertently run across something like that in the conduct of what
you’re doing, you immediately let someone know; if it’s involved in
something being recorded, it’s immediately erased. So, you know, it’s
something that we all know you just don’t do. Overseas, okay; here at
home, not so okay.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you the clip that we
ran of President Bush earlier and get your response. This is President
Bush on Sunday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I can say that if
somebody from al-Qaeda is calling you, we’d like to know why. In the
meantime, this program is conscious of people’s civil liberties, as am
I. This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United
States of America. And I repeat: limited. And it’s limited to calls
from outside the United States to calls within the United States. But,
they are of known numbers of known al Qaeda members or affiliates. And
I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy
is thinking. And that’s what we are doing. We’re at war with a bunch of
cold-blooded killers who will kill on a moment’s notice. And I have a
responsibility, obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing.
It’s a program has been reviewed constantly by Justice Department
officials, a program to which the Congress has been briefed, and a
program that is in my judgment necessary to win this war and to protect
the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush. Russell Tice, you’re with the
National Security Agency, or you were until May 2005. If al-Qaeda’s
calling, the U.S. government wants to know. Your response?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, that’s probably a good thing to
know. But that’s why we have a FISA court and FISA laws. The FISA court
– it’s not very difficult to get something through a FISA court. I
kinda liken the FISA court to a monkey with a rubber stamp. The monkey
sees a name, the monkey sees a word justification with a block of
information. It can’t read the block, but it just stamps “affirmed” on
the block, and a banana chip rolls out, and then the next paper rolls
in front of the monkey. When you have like 20,000 requests and only, I
think, four were turned down, you can’t look at the FISA court as
anything different.

So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would someone
want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think
the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the
President has been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner
approach may have been used, in which case you don’t get names, and
that’s ultimately why you wouldn’t go to the FISA court. And I think
that’s something Congress needs to address. They need to find out
exactly how this system was operated and ultimately determine whether
this was indeed a very focused effort or whether this was a vacuum
cleaner-type scenario.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you support the President, Russell Tice? Did you vote for President Bush?

RUSSELL TICE: I am a Republican. I voted for President
Bush both in the last election and the first election where he was up
for president. I’ve contributed to his campaign. I get a post — I
mean, a Christmas card from the White House every year, I guess,
because of my nominal contributions. But – so, you know, it’s not like,
you know — I think you’re going to find a lot of folks that are in the
Department of Defense and the intelligence community are apt to be on
the conservative side of the fence. But nonetheless, we’re all taught
that you don’t do something like this. And I’m certainly hoping that
the President has been misled in what’s going on here and that the true
crux of this problem is in the leadership of the intelligence
community.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re saying in the leadership of your own agency, the National Security Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: That’s correct, yeah, because certainly General Alexander and General Hayden and Bill Black knew that this was illegal.

AMY GOODMAN: But they clearly had to have authorization from above, and Bush is not contending that he did not know.

RUSSELL TICE: Well, that’s true. But the question has to
be asked: What did the President know? What was the President told
about this? It’s just — there’s just too many variables out there that
we don’t know yet. And, ultimately, I think Congress needs to find out
those answers. If the President was fed a bill of goods in this matter,
then that’s something that has to be addressed. Or if the President
himself knew every aspect of what’s going on, if this was some sort of
vacuum cleaner deal, then it is ultimately, I would think, the
President himself that needs to be held responsible for what’s going on
here.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think should happen to him?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, you know, it’s certainly not up to
me, but I’ve heard all of the talk about impeachment and that sort of
thing. You know, I saw our last president get impeached for what
personally I thought should have been something between his wife and
his family, and the big guy upstairs. It’s not up to me, but if the
President knew, if this was a vacuum cleaner job and the President knew
exactly what was going on — and ultimately what we’re hearing now is
nothing but a cover-up and a whitewash — and we find that to be the
case, then I think it should cause some dire consequences for even the
President of the United States, if he indeed did know exactly what was
going on and if it was a very large-scale, you know, suck-up-everything
kind of operation.

AMY GOODMAN: This investigation that the Justice
Department has launched – it’s interesting that Alberto Gonzales is now
Attorney General of the United States – the latest story of The New York Times:
Gonzales, when he was White House Counsel, when Andrew Card, chief of
staff, went to Ashcroft at his hospital bedside to get authorization
for this. Can he be a disinterested party in investigating this now, as
Attorney General himself?

RUSSELL TICE: Yeah, I think that for anyone to say that
the Attorney General is going to be totally unbiased about something
like this, I think that’s silly. Of course, the answer is “No.” He
can’t be unbiased in this. I think that a special prosecutor or
something like that may have to be involved in something like this,
otherwise we’re just liable to have a whitewash.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the term “police state”?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, anytime where you have a situation
where U.S. citizens are being arrested and thrown in jail with the key
being thrown away, you know, potentially being sent overseas to be
tortured, U.S. citizens being spied on, you know, and it doesn’t even
go to the court that deals with these secret things, you know, I mean,
think about it, you could have potentially somebody getting the wrong
phone call from a terrorist and having him spirited away to some
back-alley country to get the rubber hose treatment and who knows what
else. I think that would kind of qualify as a police state, in my
judgment.

I certainly hope that Congress or somebody sort of does
something about this, because, you know, for Americans just to say,
‘Oh, well, we have to do this because, you know, because of terrorism,’
you know, it’s the same argument that we used with communism years ago:
take away your civil liberties, but use some threat that’s, you know,
been out there for a long time.

Terrorism has been there for — certainly before 9/11 we had
terrorism problems, and I have a feeling it’s going to be around for
quite some time after whatever we deem is a victory in what we’re doing
now in the Middle East. But, you know, it’s just something that has to
be addressed. We just can’t continue to see our civil liberties
degraded. Ultimately, as Ben Franklin, I think, had said, you know,
those who would give up their essential liberties for a little freedom
deserve neither liberty or freedom, and I tend to agree with Ben
Franklin.

AMY GOODMAN: And your colleagues at the N.S.A. right now, their feelings, the National Security Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: Boy, I think most folks at N.S.A. right now
are just running scared. They have the security office hanging over
their head, which has always been a bunch of vicious folks, and now
they’ve got, you know, this potential witch hunt going on with the
Attorney General. People in the intelligence community are afraid. They
know that you can’t come forward. You have no protections as a
whistleblower. These things need to be addressed.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean you have no protection?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, like I said before, as a
whistleblower, you’re not protected by the whistleblower laws that are
out there. The intelligence community is exempt from the whistleblower
protection laws.

AMY GOODMAN: So why are you doing it?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, ultimately, I don’t have to be afraid
of losing my job, because I have already lost my job, so that’s one
reason. The other reason is because I made an oath when I became an
intelligence officer that I would protect the United States
Constitution, not a president, not some classification, you know, for
whatever, that ultimately I’m responsible to protect the Constitution
of the United States. And I think that’s the same oath the President
takes, for the most part.

So, something like — imagine if something — if we were like,
I don’t know, taking Americans and assassinating them for suspicions of
suspicions of terrorism, and then we just put some classification on it
and said, ‘Well, this is super top secret, so no one can say anything
about that.’ Well, at what point do you draw the line and say enough is
enough. We have to say something here.

AMY GOODMAN: What was your classification? How high up was your clearance?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, clearances go up to the top secret
level. But once you get to the top secret level, there are many caveats
and many programs and things that can happen beyond that point. I
specialized in what’s known as black world operations and programs that
are very closely held, things that happen in operations and programs in
the intelligence community that are closely held, and for the most part
these programs are very beneficial to ultimately getting information
and protecting the American people. But in some cases, I think,
classification levels at these special — we call them special access
programs, SAPs — could be used to mask, basically, criminal
wrongdoing. So I think that’s something ultimately Congress needs to
address, as well, because from what I can see, there is not a whole lot
of oversight when it comes to some of these deep black programs.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Tice, did you know anyone within the N.S.A. who refused to spy on Americans, who refused to follow orders?

RUSSELL TICE: No. No, I do not. As far as — of course,
I’m not witting of anyone that was told they will spy on an American.
So, ultimately, when this was going on, I have a feeling it was closely
held at some of the upper echelon levels. And you’ve got to understand,
I was a worker bee. I was a guy that wrote the reports and did the
analysis work and — you know, the detail guy. At some point, your
reports have to get sent up up the line and then, you know, the
management takes action at some point or another, but at my level, no,
I was not involved in this.

AMY GOODMAN: Has Congress responded to your letter offering to testify as a former employee of the National Security Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: Not yet. Of course, the holidays – you
know, we just had the holidays here, so everybody is out of town. I
can’t condemn Congress too much yet, because I faxed it out on, I do
believe, the 18th of December, and we’re just getting into the new
year.

AMY GOODMAN: And who did you send it to?

RUSSELL TICE: I sent it to the chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, the SSCI and the HPSCI.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, I can’t think of a whole lot, except
ultimately I think the American people need to be concerned about
allegations that the intelligence community is spying on Americans. You
know, one of my fears is that this would cause, just going into the
N.S.A. and just tearing the place up and making the good work that’s
being done at the N.S.A. ineffective, because the N.S.A. is very
important to this country’s security. And I certainly hope that some
bad apples, even if these bad apples were at the top of N.S.A., don’t
ultimately destroy the capabilities of N.S.A.’s ability to do a good
job protecting the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Tice, former intelligence agent
with the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency,
worked for the N.S.A. up until May of last year. Thanks for joining us.

RUSSELL TICE: Thank you.

Copyright © 2006
- Democracy Now!, All Rights Reserved

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