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.
i love democracy now and think it's 'always worth watching' like marcia always quoted saying at the common ills (i think her new phrase is 'always informing you' for 2006 judging by c.i.'s latest entry). but i figure that most of you are already watching. i watch. but you can also listen to the show or you can read the transcripts. i'm pulling from a transcript, in fact.
so if you can't watch it and maybe can't get listen either through radio or the net, you can read the transcripts. here's 1 that you should, 'National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a "Police State."'
this is your country. are you going to go through 2006 wasting your time and the time of people around you focusing on trivia or are you going to take part in your country?
did you make some resolutions on 2005? i think they're pretty useless. but maybe you do that.
how are they going? have you stuck by them? if so good for you. if not, well start over. and regardless we can make a resolution, even me, to be better informed in 2006. that requires information, access to it, and it requires paying attention.
democracy now is one hour a day monday through friday. don't have an hour to give? are you a speed reader? you can probably read the transcripts quickly.
janeane garofalo often tells people that they can spare ten minutes a day and with just that they can watch or listen to or read the daily headlines at democracy now. so listen to janeane if you won't listen to me.
but we saw huge changes in 2005. i don't just mean the crimes of the bully boy. we know about that. we've discussed that. but we saw the people get involved in large numbers. we need to keep that trend going in 2006.
for my high school readers (and my now 3 middle school readers), you do a wonderful job. you talk about the events and get the word out. you put some adults in this country to shame. if you're an adult and you're reading this, have you wasted 2005 talking about trivia or have you made a point to use time with your friends to talk about things that matter to you and to the country?
everybody likes to have fun. i like to have fun. but there's a place for that and there's a place for doing things that matter. in 2006, we'll have fun here. we'll talk about men's bodies, we'll laugh, we'll joke, we'll dish. but we'll also continue to address important issues. that includes railing against sexism because sexism is still very real and still with us. we'll talk about the bully boy and the war.
we can do that and much more.
but a lot of e-mails came in, usually after people spent the holidays with their families, about how they were surrounded by trivia.
if that's a problem facing you, take the lead and make the change. don't wait for someone to talk about something that matters, bring it up yourself.
that's how we'll make a difference. that's how we'll participate in the world around us.
that doesn't mean you can't talk music. kat does. but she's not whining that britney's pregnant or some such nonsense. she's talking about how music matters to us, how it can matter to us, what it can say and the reality that these days there's a lot of crap out there.
are you a couch potato? c.i. and ava, who aren't couch potatoes, take on tv every week in their reviews at the third estate sunday review. but, unlike the pristine types, they aren't blindly gushing over tv shows. they don't, for instance, see a woman, usually in a push up bra, and think it's a break through for feminism. they're looking at what the show's saying and what it isn't saying. they're looking at representation, and if you read their latest you know that african-americans are still under represented in the midseason replacement shows. you can discuss entertainment and do it in a way that matters as opposed to blindly shouting out 'watch veronica mars it is so cool and it's like my hero joss is back!' now hearing that from a teenager would be sad enough but from a middle aged woman? but, as readers know, there exists such a woman who apparently suffered through high school and therefore the country must suffer as she desparately searches for a tv show aimed at teenagers that can restore her wounded ego by allowing her to relive high school her way.
my young readers are too young to remember this in real time but hopefully they've heard it. bill clinton was elected in 1992 and 1 of his campaign promises was to lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. guess what? didn't happen. huge b.s. from the right and colin powell throwing road blocks. oh it would destroy the military! oh the military has to be beyond sexual relations and gays and lesbians would harm that! oh the fears in the showers! forget that gays and lesbians have always made up a part of the armed services. that was the lie repeated over and over. so bill did the best that he could do (i hope it was the best that he could do at that time) for the time and created the don't ask don't tell policy. that says that no 1 can be asked what their sexuality is and that you don't tell. as long as you keep your head down (and continue the message of shame - the compromise was a deal with the devil), you can serve.
so when ava and c.i. looked at navy ncis, which is t's favorite of all their reviews, they noticed when the show opened with two officers, a male and a female, rolling around on top of each other. pretending to have sex. the show has military advisors and they didn't object. so the whole sex issue is phoney. it's only an issue when it's same-sex. and that's the approach ava and c.i. took in discussing the show. that's how you can talk intelligently about entertainment, that's called perspective. a middle aged woman typing 'joss is so dreamy' isn't contributing anything but to her further decline as a semi-rational adult.
so let's all try to be as mature as my high school (and 3 middle school) readers are. i think we can pull that off. let's look at the world around us and talk about it. we can still have fun. and we can have blow off days where all we do is have fun. but let's make 2006 about something more than trivia.
"The Common Ills Year in Review 2005" is a must read and so is kat's "Kat's Korner: 2005 in Music" but tonight i want to make a comment about "Ruth's Year End Report" because i had some e-mails on that. ruth is talking about when kenny tomlinson was out to destroy npr and pbs. my attitude, and it's up here in real time, was 'what's the point?' ruth and i have discussed it back then and since. there isn't a problem between ruth and i; however, some who didn't know the history read it today and e-mailed to ask me why ruth was mad at me? she's not.
and it's not that she suddenly agrees with my point of view. she just remembers what happens everytime the left fights a brave battle to 'save' npr or pbs. we give our time, we give our money and after it's over npr and pbs give us shit in return. they don't make a point to say 'hey, the left fought for us so they are out there. maybe we should put some more of them on as guests?' they keep doing the same crap they did before which is center-right and right guests who are officials from the government or elected officials or from center and center-right think tanks and the people, all the people not just the left, are once again left out in the cold.
that's why my attitude was 'what's the point?'
pbs espeically. they're about to turn their back on the public. the transfer to digital broadcast, when complete, will mean the 'public' will have to pay for cable or digital tv to receive pbs. that's not 'public television' - not when over 73 million americans do not currently have cable or digital tv. not when a healthy portion of the public won't be able to afford it.
they take all this corporate money and it keeps them from airing anything to hard hitting, no matter how true the thing is. so quit calling yourself 'public television.' you're not public television. and does the public really need to see suze orman at 1 of her fundraiser/workshops spouting her easy nonsense into a microphone while she works the room? that's good television? that's an informercial and pbs hawks her tapes, her books, her videos.
so my attitude is if they go away i won't cry. i'll watch if something interesting is on (which is about once every three months) but i don't 'pledge.' my tax payer dollars already take care of my 'pledge' and their programming doesn't reflect my interests.
npr is even worse with their silly shows on the morning that straddle the fence between pure waste of time and a few morsels of information.
i've done the pbs/npr battle before and learned then that they didn't give a damn about the public. they care about not offending the right wing members of congress. that's the basis of every decision, 'how much can we do and not upset the republicans' and that makes for crummy broadcasting. it doesn't make for public television or public radio.
but that was my opinion back then and i was open about it. ruth knew it and we talked about it then. i also, because ruth has become a good friend, made a point to note a few 'save pbs' and 'save npr' things while noting that i was doing that out of respect for ruth.
we have no problem, ruth and i. but to some readers who didn't know the background, there was a question of 'is ruth mad at you' and she's not. people can disagree and get along. back then ruth and i disagreed on the need to save npr and pbs. we didn't hate each other. i didn't pull a pristine and slam ruth's writing and suggest that she's a no talent the way pristine did when she attacked kat. ruth and i and it was on a topic that was important to ruth so i tossed out a few links to help out a friend on a cause they were supporting. i don't regret that. i doubt ruth does. and she shouldn't regret trying to defend npr and pbs because that was her honest reaction and where she was at. she's no longer at the same place and that's fine too.
she mentioned me, i think, largely because we are friends and she was attempting to give me a link but also because she was talking about realizing how you can fight and fight for pbs and npr and they never appreciate you. that's why she uses the word 'manipulated' to describe how she feels since the last big battles.
hope that clears it up for the readers who had missed the original discussions on npr and pbs.
