Whistleblower Tells Olbermann NSA Spied On Journalists (VIDEO)

On Keith Olbermann's show Wednesday night, former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice said that reporters were spied on inside the United States.

Watch:

Former NSA analyst Russell Tice, who has claimed to be a source for the NY Times explosive 2005 story, told Keith Olbermann last night that the NSA collected information on journalists.

Transcript, via Politico:

OLBERMANN: I mention that you say specific groups were targeted. What group or groups can you tell us about?

TICE: Well, there's sort of two avenues to look at this. What I just mentioned was sort of the low-tech dragnet look at this. The things that I specifically were involved with were more on the high-tech side. And try to envision, you know, the dragnets are out there, collecting all the fish and then ferreting out what they may. And my technical angle was to try to harpoon fish from an airplane kind of thing. So it's two separate worlds. But in the world that I was in, as to not harpoon the wrong people in some -- in one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations just supposedly so that we would not target them. So that we knew where they were, so as not to have a problem with them. Now, what I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7, and you know, 365 days a year, and it made no sense. And that's -- I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me, to fire me. But an organization that was collected on were U.S. news organizations and reporters and journalists.

OLBERMANN: To what purpose? I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every e-mail sent by all the reporters at the "New York Times?" Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York? Is it like that?

TICE: If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything. Yes. It would be everything.

Comments

[lovable]

my last comment. IF FOX TURNS DOWN THESE STORIES AND GUEST THEN CNN AND MCNBC SHOULD BLAST THEM FOR IT . !!!!!!!!

[Grunty1]

CNN won't, since they seem to be trying awfully hard to become the new Faux News.

[ErnestineBass]

If CNN doesn't have an "ethical epiphany" soon, they'll go down the tubes.

Let's face it, any network that continues to pander to a mere 22% of the American public will soon find itself with little or no advertising revenue.

[AndThenOneDay]

I'm waiting to hear from the usual band of Fox defenders.

Waiting... Waiting, sweetheart­...

[lovable]

again for the 1000 time this guy is reaching to the choir . he needs to go on fox the right wing station and force oreilly and others to justify this. and olberman needs to have conservative guest on and debate them on this. put them on record as accepting this.

[Jacqueline3]

I don't think anyone is surprised.

[johnqsittinzen]

I'm surprised that no one is OUTRAGED. Seriously, if there isn't widespread anger and activism over this, then there is a problem, and that problem is much deeper than the previous administration. This revelation should not illicit a collective 'yawn', don't you think? Seriously. This is the United States of America, not Communist Russia, not even Russia under Putin. We're not supposed tp hear this bombshell from an NSA agent and respond with, "Of course they listen to our phone calls and read our emails." Suspecting it is bad enough, having it confirmed by an NSA agent who waited until the day the former administration left office, for fear of his own well being, to blow the whistle about the full scope of the telecom wiretappin­g... I'm speechless. It's mind boggling. I watched this last night and thought, "George W. Bush is going to prison. Torture, illegal eavesdropp­ing..." I thought this would be blasted across the front pages all over this country.

Does anybody remember Watergate? When do the hearings start? When are Bush and Cheney going to be frog-marched in handcuffs for torture and domestic spying? Am I wrong? Should we just accept this as the status quo and let bygones be bygones?

Anyone? Hello? Anyone?

[Emerald1943]

100% with you!! LET'S HAVE MORE WHISTLEBLOWERS!!! I want to know it all!

[zenandpeace]

I am outraged by this, but not surprised in the least! OMFG! What else are we going to find out they did under the guise of "fighting terrorism"?

[KarenGeorgetown]

...and another really sick piece is that there is a school of thought that opines the telecom companies which complied with the NSA do their nefarious listening got to glean demographic information about us to make it easier to sell us stuff.

[AndThenOneDay]

This was broadcast on MSNBC. Was it picked up on Fox? Fair and balanced up?

[TJCole]

This is a top story and should be on the front page, it's huge..!

Bush and General Hayden seriously violated federal law on millions of counts and violated the 4th Amendment rights of every American..

Targeting and eavesdropping on Journalists makes Bush not much better than any cheap tyrant criminal..

There is also still more to come of this story, it gets even worse watch and see...

How many criminal acts, Federal crimes felonies is it that this past administration is allowed to get away with...?

[JJ30]

I watched Tice last night and could not believe what I was hearing but really was not that all surprised. The Bush/Cheney administration has placed shame on this country and it will take years for us to regain our dignity domestically and abroad.

[BBackSoon]

With no proof but perhaps a little bit of deductive reasoning I believe there is or was also a dragnet, if you will, that was watching the members of Congress and their staff. It would be easy to manipulate people to get their votes or at least their silence if you had everyone’s dirty little secrets.

Pelosi’s secrets must be pretty good to get her to take impeachment off the table. And What about Reid?

[Emerald1943]

That this previous administration used these tactics is no surprise! I would ask everyone to recall the statement made on the floor of the House of Representatives by Rep. Sherman from California just before the elections. He stated that they were threatened by Pres. Bush that if they did not pass the bailout bill, he (Bush) would declare martial law! This would have enabled him to cancel the elections.

I saw Rep. Sherman make this statement on TV....then nothing! The story just evaporated and nothing more was mentioned about it! It should be as plain as the nose on our faces what has been going on these past 8 years! There has been no "free press"!

At that point in time, it was important to have our elections, so the Congress made the hard choice that most Americans were against. Some kind of clout! Let's hope that President Obama will restore civil rights in this country!

[Tom95134]

I was watching this and I actually got the impression that Olbermann was taken aback by this admission and the level of pervasive spying on U.S. citizens. I guess people are pretty naive when they think about the spying on U.S> citizens. Some way people think that there is some kind of magic piece of hardware (or software) that listens for "bad words". Well, there is but it can't do these things in real-time for all conversations going on at once. So the government simply records EVERYTHING and then washes it through the filters (which look for key words and determine source/end points) at a later time.

Big Brother has been, and continues to listen to everything that is said.

People will vote away all their rights when confronted with the politics of fear. This issue is why it is so important to have a balance judiciary. While Bush may not have grasped this key point it is clear that Cheney did from his years in the Nixon/Ford administration and it is why the Bush administration pushed so hard for passage of those laws that stripped Americans of their Constitutional rights.

[joshquasimoto]

As many of you have alluded to as well as Keith and Mr. Tice, one fo the most imprtant things to come out of this is tofind out what happened to the database of information. If this were to end up in partisan hands and possibly used as leverage is a serious national security concern. I would expect intelligence and legal analyist to point this fact out. No one may ever be prosecuted for these indiscretions, but nonetheless the information needs to either be destroyed and thus exposed as illegal information collected via illegal wiretap or put under strict classification with plenty of protections.

Also whistleblowers are not treated friendly by corporations or our federal government and this needs to change. Obvioulsy we can not have situation where no one can be trusted but at a bare minimum oversight and regulation are the duties of our government to support and defend the consitution of the United States of America!

[ckdogs]

Why isn't this story on the front page of the Post and the Times, and leading on all the news channels? When news of the Bush "wiretapping without warrants" became known, many of my acquaintences did not share my outrage. Their point was that it was the only way to get info on "terrorists", and why would they listen to my boring conversations ie "I'm safe". I can't say that I'm surprised that they wiretapped journalists, and others. It allowed them to keep a step ahead, and perhaps to blackmail people into silence. The Bush cancer has metastisized more than we knew. It has to be publicized, and prosecuted, so that people understand that we are all affected by it. Thanks heaven for whistleblowers!

[MathIsTruth]

My reaction exactly! This wasn't even the big headline on HuffPo.

This is so absolutely huge, it is unimaginable.

I really think it demands that Obama speak out on it immediately. Not that I'd expect Obama to have all the answers immediately, but he should condemn it and promise to get to the bottom of it, and then to report back to the American people as to what really happened, where the data is now, what was done with the data, and how he intends to go about investigating and prosecuting all the crimes.

[fedupnVa]

I assumed this was going on anyway. Didn't everyone? He stated that they were not just targeting journalists but everyone, also no big surprise. Pretty much everything told to you by your government over the last 8 years has been a lie or non full disclosure of what was really going on. The Bush administration has shamed this nation both domestically and internationally for decades and the citizens along with Congress allowed this to happen. Definitely not one of the finer periods in our history.

[ConcernedAmerican]

I think I will invest in the whistle industry as there is going to be a whole lotta blowin going on in the next few months....­.

[PoliticalAmazon]

About 3 months ago, a political author (sorry, can't remember the name) said that he had been contacted by people that work in the intelligence committee, saying, "Call me after January 20, 2009."

I think you're right. A lot of people did what they were told to and knew it was wrong, and I think these people will be looking for redemption.

[justoverit333]

I watched Tice on MSNBC last night.
This is very scary stuff here. Talk
about an arrogant administration.
This goes over and above.

[plugger]

Oh and the Clintonistas didn't?...­. ya gotta know LBJ and Kennedy and Nixon and FDR and Reagan and Carter ....

[justoverit333]

The Bushies, Nixon & McCarthy.
The Kennedys were killed, remember?
King was killed remember?

[Vige]

Actually you are incorrect about Kennedy and LBJ. J. Edgar Hoover was the one that was spying on them both. Bobby Kennedy and Hoover were mortal enemies especially when it came to Civil Rights.

[Grunty1]

But but Clinton wore itself out 8 years ago. Try to keep up.

[Telemachus]

Oh, here we go again: "They all do it." Why don't you crawl into Nixon's crypt and take a nice, long nap.

[Grunty1]

It is their only option when even they know Bush's wiretapping is indefensible.

[NWRICK]

The only thing W has in common with them WAS his address.