NSA, CIA and the FBI consider themselves First Amendment-free agencies....

NSA, CIA and the FBI consider themselves First Amendment-free agencies....

Intelligence insiders: Corruption in contracting still rampant at NSA.....

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com

January , 2012 -- FBI/NSA continue maintaining "mug shots" of journalists....

As WMR has reported in past articles, the National Security Agency (NSA) has maintained a series of "mug shots" of journalists it suspects have sources inside the NSA. Often, NSA personnel thought to have been speaking to journalists are called into NSA's "Q" security group and questioned on whether they have spoken to various journalists. Along with the names of the journalists, are photographs, described by NSA insiders, as "mug shots," likely culled from the Internet.

WMR previously reported on NSA's "rogue gallery" of journalists. From WMR, July 3, 2009: "Since the revelation of the NSA journalist monitoring database, which later added communications intercepts of journalist phone calls, emails, and faxes to its database, NSA Security has, according to information received by WMR, conducted physical surveillance of journalists it deems to be threats to the operations of the agency. The top targeted journalists, who make up a virtual 'rogues' gallery' at NSA Security, complete with photographs and other personal information, are: former Baltimore Sun and current Wall Street Journal reporter Siobhan Gorman, Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, former Baltimore Sun and current New York Times reporter Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun reporter Phil McGowan, author James Bamford, New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, and this editor, Wayne Madsen."

WMR has now learned from NSA sources that NSA and FBI counter-intelligence branches are maintaining "mug shots" of journalists. Two to three pages of journalists, along with their photographs, are known to be in the possession of FBI counter-intelligence agent Laura Pino and NSA counter-intelligence officer Ethan Andreas. Each page has two rows of photographs across with four photographs and names of journalists on each row -- a total of eight photographs and names per page. The number of journalists on the pages, therefore, could be between 16 and 24.

Three names are known to be on the pages maintained by the FBI and NSA, according to our sources: Siobhan Gorman, James Bamford, and this editor, Wayne Madsen. Gorman was believed to have been the journalist former NSA official Tom Drake was in contact with before he was criminally charged under various counts, including the Espionage Act. Drake was a witness to high-level contract fraud and corruption within the NSA. WMR submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to NSA two years ago requesting information on the editor's photograph being used as a security warning device. After being granted expedited processing by NSA as news media for purposes of the FOIA request, NSA reversed course, denying us media status and then stonewalled responding to the request....

More high-level fraud at NSA uncovered....

WMR's sources at the National Security Agency (NSA) have reported more high-level fraud at the agency that now combines signals intelligence and cyber-warfare functions under one officer, Army General Keith Alexander, the NSA director and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.

When Alexander's predecessor at NSA, Air Force General Michael Hayden, was shopping for his own replacement, Alexander was the Deputy Chief of Staff for G-2 for the U.S. Army. Alexander would only take the job, according to our sources who were embedded in the Director of NSA's office, if Dr. James Heath became the senior science adviser to Alexander at NSA.

There was only one problem. Heath had his own company, Object Sciences Corporation, a firm which was intimately involved with tracking "Al-Qaeda" operatives prior to the 9/11 attacks. Object Sciences provided deep data mining services to the Army's Land Information Warfare Agency's and Defense Intelligence Agency's ABLE DANGER and its affiliated DORHAWK GALLEY data mining programs.

At the same time, Hayden had shown favoritism to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in awarding the firm, as prime contractor, the over one billion dollar signals intelligence overhaul program known as TRAILBLAZER. Hayden hired William Black, a former NSA official who had retired and went to work for SAIC, as his Deputy Director at NSA. The issue with Heath was solved when SAIC purchased Object Sciences, providing a handsome profit to Heath prior to his taking the science adviser position under his friend Alexander. Black eventually returned to SAIC from his stint as NSA deputy director.

The following press release was issued on May 12, 2005:

"Science Applications International Corp. has completed its acquisition of Object Sciences Corp., the company announced today. Terms of the deal were not disclosed . . .

OSC's involvement in reshaping how intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance information is processed and analyzed has provided critical assistance to combat forces in specific theaters, such as Iraq and Korea, as well as the war on global terrorism in general, SAIC said."

Alexander took over as NSA director on August 1, 2005, a few months after the SAIC-OSC deal. Heath then became Alexander's chief science adviser.

Another former SAIC principal who, like Black, transitioned from SAIC to NSA and back again to SAIC was Sam Visner. After joining NSA from SAIC, Visner was the senior acquisition manager for NSA and was key to the award of the TRAILBLAZER contract to SAIC. A less expensive signals intelligence re-engineering solution code-named THIN THREAD, was rejected by NSA in favor of the TRAILBLAZER, which was later canceled after SAIC pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hayden went on to become the first deputy Director of National Intelligence and, ultimately, the CIA director. He now works with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at Chertoff Group. His pet project, TRAILBLAZER, was canceled due to cost overruns and failed deliveries and was replaced by another reported contractor boondoggle called TURBULENCE. A number of senior NSA, Justice Department, and congressional officials were harassed and one, Thomas Drake, prosecuted for revealing the corruption. Those coming under NSA and FBI scrutiny, all subjected to harassment and threat of prosecution, included, in addition to Drake, Justice Department prosecutor Thomas Tamm, House Intelligence Committee budget specialist Diane Roark, NSA officials William Binney, Kirk Wiebe, and Ed Loomis, and others, never mentioned in press accounts, who were interviewed by WMR.

One former NSA official who was terminated and then placed under NSA Security and FBI surveillance after reporting through proper channels fraud, waste, and abuse with TRAILBLAZER and associated contracts, told WMR, "we are not whistleblowers but witnesses to major crimes committed by NSA and contractors."

Among the spin-offs of TRAILBLAZER was the unconstitutional STELLAR WIND program that permitted NSA to engage in wholesale warrantless wiretapping of phone calls, emails, and faxes, particularly journalists and elected political leaders.

Hayden, who has become a national security adviser to Mitt Romney and would be assured a top-level job in a Romney administration, perhaps National Security Adviser, is also involved with a subscription web service called LIGNet, or "Langley Intelligence Group Network" as a "LIGNet adviser." WMR has been told by intelligence community insiders that LIGNet is an operational security (OPSEC) problem because a wealth of borderline classified information appears on the web site.

Some of the LIGNet information makes what was released in the WikiLeaks Department of State cable release pale in comparison. As for charges that Private First Class Bradley Manning was responsible for downloading over a quarter million classified cables from the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), a former senior NSA official told WMR: "That is impossible.... All SIPRNet drives are non-writable for CDs and as far as thumb drives are concerned, install one and security alarms are immediately set off."

NSA, DOJ, and courts conspire to cover-up NSA fraud, waste, abuse, and criminal conspiracy at trial....

Hitting the JACKPOT at NSA goes unpunished while whistle-blower is charged with espionage....

March , 2011 -- SPECIAL REPORT. NSA, DOJ, and courts conspire to cover-up NSA fraud, waste, abuse, and criminal conspiracy at trial....

In the trial of former National Security Agency (NSA) executive Thomas Drake, federal prosecutors have convinced an agreeable federal judge, Richard D. Bennett, to place under court seal previously-released trial documents because they have been deemed "For Official Use Only" or FOUO. Drake is accused of leaking classified materials to the media and is only the fourth person in U.S. history to be charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Act.

FOUO is not a national security classification and it never has been one, although there were attempts by the Reagan, George H W Bush, and George W. Bush administrations to create a "restricted" or "sensitive but unclassified" (SBU) national security classification immediately below the current lowest national security classification, which is Confidential. Expansion of national security classification categories beyond the current three -- Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential, in addition to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) special access categories -- but these have been unsuccessful. George W. Bush's creation of a Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) category was rescinded by Executive Order 13556 on November 4, 2010.

Although President Obama rescinded Bush's CUI presidential memorandum, federal prosecutors are trying to argue that CUI continues to exist as a national security classification under the guise of FOUO. The argument demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the classification scheme used by NSA. However, in past trials, notable that of NSA analyst Kenneth Ford, Jr., jailed after a political show trial waged by DOJ neocons in league with a "shopped" federal judge. In the Ford case, the NSA wanted to cover up the cooking of signals intelligence from Iraq in order to justify the attack on and occupation of Iraq....

However, NSA and Justice Department prosecutors are continuing to insist that FOUO is a security classification in the trial of Drake, however, NSA and DOJ decided to go after Drake because the documents he stands accused of passing to The Baltimore Sun, points to massive misuse of taxpayer's money and contract fraud under the NSA directorships of retired General Michael Hayden and current director General Keith Alexander. Alexander is also the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. The fraud committed by Hayden, Alexander, and senior NSA officials amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars in wasteful expenditures. In some cases, the waste on certain contractor-supplied intelligence systems were life threatening, as far as troops on the ground were concerned. The fraudulent contract expenditures were part of NSA's massive TRAILBLAZER and GROUNDBREAKER outsourced modernization and restructuring programs.

On March 18, in response to a request from federal prosecutors, Bennett sealed two documents that were previously available on the court's own website. The documents sealed describe the classified contents of several documents seized at Drake's home, however, the documents appear to be unclassified working papers that the government, after the fact, is trying to argue are classified at the levels of Secret and Top Secret...

Drake's federal public defenders have argued in one of the sealed documents that the government's argument that the documents found in Drake's home is flawed due to the fact that the documents could not be construed as classified at Secret or Top Secret merely because they contain the words "FOUO" and "COMINT." COMINT is communications intelligence and by itself does not mean that the document is classified at "Handle Via COMINT Channels Only," a special handling caveat for SCI special access categories. In fact, the National Cryptologic Museum, which is adjacent to NSA headquarters and open to the public, freely uses "COMINT" in its displays. In addition, the commercial International Spy Museum in downtown Washington, DC has held public seminars on issues dealing with, among other tradecraft, "COMINT."

From the sealed DOJ letter arguing that the documents found in Drake's home are classified, it is clear that NSA, which has played fast and loose with the truth in previous trials and administrative actions against its whistle-blowing employees, has tried to re-classify previous unclassified "working papers" as being Secret and Top Secret to bolster its case against Drake.

We have previously obtained NSA contractor documents that were deemed by the contractor and NSA, itself, as unclassified and the Drake documents appear to fall within the same category. The unclassified documents that were re-classified as Top Secret and Secret have titles such as "Trial and Testing," "Collections Sites," "Volume is Our Friend," "What a Success," "Regular Meetings," "Shoestring Budget," "BAG," "Buy vs. Make," "TT Notes," "Terrorism Threat," "Note Card 1", "Note Card 2," and more intriguing, "9/11 Commission...." and " The White House Murder INC, "... We previously reported that NSA's security directorate, the "Q Group," has engaged in massive surveillance of employees and journalists, including this editor, to plug any leaks on NSA information on the False Flag 9/11 attacks, and " The infamous White House Murder INC, "... . Bennett, in his ruling on March 18, agreed to NSA's and lead federal prosecutor William Welch II's request that previously unclassified court filings be placed under seal.

While NSA and DOJ seek to convict Drake for having unclassified For Official use Only documents in which the terms "FOUO" and "COMINT" appear, we have obtained a similar Unclassified For Official Use Only (FOUO) document written by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), one of the major contractors for the fraud-ridden GROUNDBREAKER program. In the document, from which is providing excerpts, there are clearly many more NSA-unique systems and terms described.

Cover terms for classified NSA systems such as HIGHCASTLE, LOOKINGGLASS, MILENIUM, FAST TRACK, ROTUNDPIPER, and BRASSCOIN are listed, along with "SIGINT" or "Signals Intelligence," an NSA mission term comparable to the "COMINT" acronym found in the working papers confiscated from Drake's home.

The CSC document, maintained by CSC contractors and sub-contractors in their cars, briefcases, and homes, were never indicted by the Justice Department on grounds they violated national security. On the other hand, many at NSA feel that companies like CSC, SAIC, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and others, should have been indicted for the massive contract fraud carried out under the watches of Michael Hayden, George Tenet and Alexander....

In post-9/11 America, the whistleblowers to fraud, waste, and abuse stand accused of being criminals while the criminals rake in billions of dollars in taxpayers' money and are lauded as critical components of the "intelligence team."

NSA's GROUNDBREAKER and TRAILBLAZER contractors were eager to compile as many NSA systems and sub-systems as possible to cash in on the billions of dollars they could make from the NSA outsourcing work. The database that contained all the NSA systems, projects, and components ripe for outsourcing work was code-named JACKPOT. For CSC, SAIC, and certain NSA officials who spun through the revolving door after retirement and landed high-paying jobs with the contractors, it certainly was a JACKPOT and one that NSA, Q Group, the FBI, Department of Justice, and " The White House Murder INC, "... earnestly want to cover-up in the trial of Thomas Drake....

During Drake's trial, which begins next month in Baltimore, FBI agents are expected to use code words to describe different aspects of the case. One code-word that will most definitely not be heard is JACKPOT, the database of NSA contracts in which contractors and NSA retirees enriched themselves -- criminality that is only met with chirping crickets from the so-called "crime fighting" Department of Justice and the utterly corrupt FBI....