NSA Puts Cookies on Computers

Thanks to several Friends of Rall for pointing me to the news that I undoubtedly now have National Security Agency cookies on my computer. It’s not that big a deal in the greater scheme of things–see my column this week for what constitutes a big deal–but still worth noting. What assholes.

Pentagon’s Fictional Afghan Pay Phones

An anonymous soldier writes:

When General Hayden said that someone in Afghanistan used a pay phone, he did not lie. He merely did not explain what was used.

You’re right about there being no fixed line infrastructure. However, Afghanistan did have Thuraya coverage in 2001. You can buy a Thuraya calling card just like you can for any other phone, and just like a normal pay phone, you can set a static location and charge fees. Yet there are two big differences. One and foremost is the cost. It’s an expensive service. The second difference is rather than going through a PSTN, it is sent via sat. link. Or it could have been a HPCP. To a journalist who knows nothing of telecommunications, mentioning Thuraya or HPCP would require an explanation, and why explain when you can merely say “Pay phone” because that is what it was?

And, from my quick search, Afghanistan had no fiber. So every bit of communication would be radio wave based.

Thuraya phones receive spotty coverage in Afghanistan; they’re particularly good for travel around the Persian Gulf and Middle East. When they do function in Afghanistan, they are satellite phones. And while it is theoretically possible to purchase calling cards for a Thuraya phone and switch the cards around, it is extremely unlikely that anyone in Afghanistan would do so for one simple reason–there’s no place there to purchase them.

More to the point, Americans–the audience to which the General was presumably addressing himself–think of “pay phones” as a fixed phone that takes coins or calling card. That’s what the New York Times assumed, but that’s not what was in Afghanistan in 2001–or, for that matter, now. Thuraya phones are mobile, portable satellite phones.

Inventing your own vocabulary isn’t acceptable. It is a lie. And that’s giving the guy the benefit of the doubt.

Today’s New York Times includes a factual error of stupidity. In a piece about the National Security Agency and its post-9/11 domestic surveillance programs, James Bamford writes, without irony, that Afghanistan had pay phones in 2001:

According to an interview last year with Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A.’s director, intercepting calls during the war on terrorism has become a much more complex endeavor. On Sept. 10, 2001, for example, the N.S.A. intercepted two messages. The first warned, “The match begins tomorrow,” and the second said, “Tomorrow is zero hour.” But even though they came from suspected Al Qaeda locations in Afghanistan, the messages were never translated until after the attack on Sept. 11, and not distributed until Sept. 12.
What made the intercepts particularly difficult, General Hayden said, was that they were not “targeted” but intercepted randomly from Afghan pay phones.
This makes identification of the caller extremely difficult and slow. “Know how many international calls are made out of Afghanistan on a given day? Thousands,” General Hayden said.

With all due respect, Hayden is a goddamned fucking liar. And, with more due respect, since Bamford is too stupid to see through his lies, the New York Times ought to employ at least one editor smart enough to recognize them.

Afghanistan did not have a single pay phone in 2001, at the end of the Taliban regime. It did not have a standard land-based telephone system. Electricity was virtually non-existent, with the exception of scattered impromptu electrical grids set up in some neighborhoods in some cities by regional warlords. In fact, according to the Afghan government’s ministry of communication, which is still trying to get them installed, there are still no pay phones in the entire country. Anyone who wanted to place a call from Afghanistan did it, as I did in the fall of 2001, via satellite phone. And satellite phones have, for the most part, unique users. They are easy to trace and, because they use radio waves, are not even illegal to intercept.

Of course, this is the same paper that once ran a half-page feature on the strategic importance of Kyrgyzstan because of its “border with Afghanistan.” Trouble is, there is no such border. The two countries are separated by the nation of Tajikistan. When I wrote the paper to point out that they might invest in a globe, a one-inch correction appeared amid a myriad of others.

2006 Ted Rall Subscription Service

It’s that time of the year again! Once again I’m offering you the chance to join the exclusive group of Americans who get my cartoons, columns and exclusive non-syndicated content delivered directly to their email boxes–a day, and often several days, before they appear anywhere on the Internet. Subscribers receive my work with the ink still wet, and without the inconvenience of meandering through websites that may or may not be working properly at the time. It’s also a chance to show your support for a commentator who never shies away from controversy or uncomfortable truths during difficult times.

To subscribe you should send $25 for one year. Payment may be made by PayPal–email chet@rall.com for information–or via mail to: Ted Rall, PO Box 1134, New York NY 10027. In either case please don’t forget to include the email address you’d like me to use to send you your cartoons and essays.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

No Show

George W. Bush’s minions may take joy in but one bit of news: The Ted Rall Show will not air Sunday, December 25 or Sunday, January 1 because 106.9 FM San Francisco will be shut down for the holidays. The bad news for them: I’ll be back on Sunday, January 8, at a new time: 9 am to 12 noon local (West Coast) time.

Broadcast Delay

A thunderstorm in San Francisco has knocked out power to KIFR-FM, thus marking the first time God has knocked The Ted Rall Show off the air. I’m standing by waiting for the good men and women of Pacific Gas & Electric to bring the station’s transmitter back on the air. As soon as power is restored (if before 2 pm West Coast time), the Ted Rall Show will begin at 106.9 FM, or online at 1069freefm.com.

Also: Mac users report problems livestreaming the station, whereas PC users are currently having no problem. Technicians are working on it.

Thanks for your patience!

The Ted Rall Show

Tomorrow on the Ted Rall radio show:

A California high school student is accused of murdering his father because he was afraid to tell him about low grades. How parents can avoid getting jacked up by their own kid.

Another week, another right-wing pundit discovered to be on the take. Are there any conservatives who actually believe that shit?

1 out of 20 Americans is functionally illiterate. That few?

Republicans in crisis: No torture, no Patriot Act and now: Bush admits spying on innocent ordinary Americans. It’s impeachment watch!

On Cartoonists Roundtable: Joel Pett and soon-to-be dismissed Baltimore Sun cartoonist KAL

Plus Stan Watch – breaking news from Central Asia.

More on Veterans Who Were Spat Upon

Carl, a Vietnam veteran from the bad days of ’67, writes:

Even though an entire book has been written about the alleged spitting on returning Veterans of the Vietnam War to debunk most of the stories, I still read stories from alleged Veterans who insist they experienced the ‘classic’ spitting event at an airport together with beating the living crap out of the alleged long-haired hippies.
John Kass of the Chicago Tribune quoted a Chicago restaurant owner, another Vietnam Veteran, with the same, tired story. I told Kass in an e-mail the same thing I’m repeating to you: one thing happens to one soldier in the military. He tells the story to another soldier. Years later, thousands of Veterans are telling the same story as though every one had the exact same experience. I hate to say this about my fellow Vietnam Veterans (but not the posers out there), but it didn’t happen as often as the stories say. Most of this spitting crap began after one of the biggest draft dodgers, Sylvester Stallone, pretended to be a grunt in a movie.
Long-haired hippies are the easiest and favorite target of Veterans, but we should be targeting the real bad guys, the lying presidents and congressmen who allowed wars to be started based on a lie. The hippies and freaks don’t have any power to start wars, and little to stop them. Just look at George W. Bush’s recent performance when he said he had “some extra time to answer questions” from an audience that wasn’t ‘prepared.’ Bush “didn’t hear” one question, claimed he truly didn’t hear the question, then guessed “more or less” 30,000 Iraqis died since we invaded their country. Bush’s performance that day puts the finishing touch on the truth that he is without a doubt, the dumbest muther fukker since time began, and the luckiest. What sinister force allows someone so incompetent to remain in the White House as he kills over and over and over without as much as a baby’s fart of concern? America HAS to be doomed when it allows a war criminal of Bush’s magnitude to stay in power.

Nicely said.

I’m a Gester

tshavel@kldlabs.com writes:

Why is liberal America in disarray ? Nobody has to buy your silly book to answer this question, it answers itself – the American liberals are in disarray, because they are liberals. The overwhelming majority of this country, including the left – finds your cartoons despicable. You wonder why being a liberal is a bad thing nowadays – just look at your cartoons. People like yourself, are responsible for giving liberals a bad name. You, and your ilk are the reason for the failure of your delusional agenda. Nobody agrees with you and your ilk – you are totally out of touch with mainstream America, both the right and the left. Even my hardcore liberal colleagues, reject your pathetic cartoons. Youre delusional if you think the majority of the left, accepts those sketches. You are rejected, by both the left and the right. Youre a fool, akin to something like a Court Gester.

I may be a “gester”–gesticulator?–but at least I read the news. Bush’s polls are in the toilet, the Senate threw out the Patriot Act, Republicans are revolting against Cheney’s go-go torture policies and now they’re being forced to admit that they’re spying on ordinary Americans. Liberal America in disarray? Maybe. But, at this point, does it matter?

Manufactured Soldiers’ Letters?

Henway wants to know:

Ted, I didn’t send you a link because you’d delete it for fear of virus, but here’s the story in a nutshell: A local SF Bay Area boy named Ryan was quoted in Bush’s speech the other day. The Fuehrer stated the boy wrote home to his family “I’ve seen evidence of the cowardice and ruthlessness of the enemy,” then goes on to say “the insurgents must be systematically killed or captured.” Shortly after Ryan was killed in Iraq, his parents allegedly received this letter, which somehow made a bee-line to Bush’s teleprompter.

Gosh, whatever happened to “Hi Mom & Pop, I am taking my vitamins,
don’t forget to bathe Fluffy, how is Aunt Frieda?” I don’t buy this letter for a second, and I asked the article’s writer, who works for The SF Chronicle,
if he could verify it, which seems like something cut and pasted from the Lincoln Group, and of course I got no answer. Aside from the usual lying, is this not the ultimate pissing on an innocent’s grave? What, besides seething, can be done about this?

Short answer: I don’t know. Medium answer: Since Bush and his minions lie as the day is long, it’s hardly conspiratorial to imagine that this is fakery. Longer one: There’s lots of evidence that the Bush Administration has falsified correspondence from soldiers fighting at the front in Iraq. This could be another example. Or not. Still, the fact that people have to ask this question is pretty sad.