[Kzyxtalk] NSA Whistleblower Russ Tice on KMEC

[sako4 at comcast.net]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NSA WHISTLEBLOWER RUSS TICE ON KMEC ----- 

John Sakowicz moves his show, "All About Money" to Mendocino County's true community radio station, all-volunteer, KMEC, this Monday at 1:00 PM, Pacific Time. The show will air weekly at this time slot. 

Our guest for our show is Russ Tice, who was the very first whistleblower at the NSA. Tice gives very few interviews, so we are very proud to have him on the air for our inaugural show at KMEC. 

ABOUT OUR SHOW AT KMEC 

http://www.kmecradio.org/ 

KMEC, located at the Mendocino Environmental Center, is heard throughout the Ukiah Valley. Our shows also stream live from the web at the above website. Our shows will be archived at KMEC's website. 

We also soon hope to be Skyping with our guests and creating a Youtube channel for our shows. Our shows will also air on Channel 65 in Mendocino County. 

We further hope to create a channel for our shows at Blog Talk Radio. 

Taken together, "All About Money"" will be a media platform that will include a live broadcast, Internet radio, Internet television, archives, podcasts, links to other media and link to a blog. 

Our production team includes Ed Nieves, Sid Cooperrider, Govinda Dalton, and others. "All About Money" at KMEC is a team effort. 

ABOUT RUSS TICE 

Russell D. Tice (born 1961) is a former intelligence analyst for the United States Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Security Agency (NSA). 

In December, 2005, Tice helped spark a national controversy over claims that the NSA and the DIA were engaged in unlawful and unconstitutional wiretaps on American citizens. He later admitted that he was one of the sources for the 2005 New York Times reporting on the wiretapping activities. After speaking publicly about the need for legislation to protect whistleblowers, Tice received national attention as the first NSA-whistleblower in May 2005 before William Binney, Thomas Andrews Drake, Mark Klein, Thomas Tamm, and Edward Snowden came forward. 

Tice was dismissed by the NSA in May 2005, just days after publicly urging Congress to pass stronger protections for federal intelligence agency whistleblowers facing retaliation, and claiming that whistleblowers were being punished. 

In December 2005, Tice alleged that both (NSA) and the DIA were engaged in unlawful and unconstitutional conduct against the American people, sparking a national controversy. Tice stated that the activities involved the Director of the NSA, the Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as special access programs (SAP), more commonly referred to as "black world" programs, or "black ops". Tice was a technical intelligence specialist dealing with SAP programs and operations at both NSA and DIA. 

On December 16, the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Media reports on January 10, 2006, indicated Tice was a source of the Times leak, which revealed that, under the direction of the White House and without requisite court orders, the NSA has been intercepting international communications to and from points within the United States. 

Fast forwarding to 2013, on the heels of the first Edward Snowden NSA disclosures in 2013, Tice was asked during an interview on All In With Chris Hayes, "What was your experience in trying to blow the whistle from inside the NSA? And does it make you understand why Snowden might have done what he did?" 

Tice replied: 

"Oh, absolutely. I learned the hard way, you cannot trust any of the internal supposed mechanisms that are there at NSA for oversight. At the NSA chain of command, the NSA Inspector General's office, even at the DOD Inspector General, I found was basically putting a knife in my own back." 

Tice continued, "The Whistleblower Protection Act does not apply to the intelligence community. They're exempt from it. And most people in the intelligence community, they don't realize that. So, you can't even go to the Office of Special Counsel because they're exempt from that, too, and the merit system protection board." 

Tice summed up, "So even if you use the whistleblower- intelligence community's Whistleblower Protection Act, the only thing that it gives you is the right to go to Congress. But it does and it doesn't - it doesn't have any teeth there to protect you against retribution from the agency that you're reporting abuse on." 

Asked in June 2013 by The Guardian to comment on the early revelations about phone data collection by the NSA, Tice said: "What is going on is much larger and more systemic than anything anyone has ever suspected or imagined ... I figured it would probably be about 2015 [before the NSA had] the computer capacity ... to collect all digital communications word for word ... But I think I'm wrong. I think they have it right now." 

Later during the summer of 2013 Tice alleged that during his employment with the NSA, the agency had a program that targeted the phone and computer conversations, word for word, members of Congress, the Supreme Court, Admirals and Generals, and that the NSA had wiretapped Barack Obama while he was a Senate candidate, saying he had seen and held papers ordering such actions. 

Tice claimed the surveillance extended to lawyers and law firms, judges (one of whom, Samuel Alito "is now sitting on the Supreme Court ... two are former FISA court judges"). 

Other surveillance targeted State Department officials, people "in the executive service that were part of the White House", antiwar groups, US companies and banking and financial firms that do international business, NGOs and humanitarian groups such as the Red Cross, and antiwar civil rights groups. 

In his opinion, this "wide-ranging' surveillance could offer intelligence agencies 'unthinkable power to blackmail their opponents." 

Tice said he was "worried that the intelligence community now has sway over almost everything that is going on in Washington". Tice gave an example in an interview with the Russia Today TV Network, saying "I noticed that the intelligence community is not being hit with the sequester budget cuts... Is there some kind of leverage that is being placed on our three branches of government to make sure that the intelligence community gets everything that they want, including money? In other words, is the intelligence community running this country, not our government." 

Tice raises an interesting question: Is the U.S. government being blackmailed by the NSA? Is Obama being blackmailed by the NSA? 

"PAY ANY PRICE: GREED, POWER, AND ENDLESS WAR" -- A BOOK BY JAMES RISEN 

The book, "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War", by James Risen of the New York Times was released last week on October 14, 2014. The government has demanded he identify a confidential source under threat of imprisonment. 

Risen then appeared on “Democracy Now!” See: http://www.democracynow.org /…/james_risen_prepared_to_pay_a… 

See also a fine article by Norman Solomon : “Risen’s New Book Exposes Corrupt Zealotry of ‘U.S. War on Terror". Link at: http://www.commondreams.org /…/risens-new-book-exposes-corru… 

Finally, Tice just wrote the piece “In Response to the Government’s Lynching of James Risen,” which criticizes Risen for not including more information in his original piece, but still calls him a true “American hero.” 

KMEC 105.1 FM | Home 
KMECRADIO.ORG 

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