<=
B>
From: James M. Atkinson <=
j..._at_tscm.com>
To: TS=
CM-L <TSC..._at_googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 8:10:13 PM
Subject: [TSCM-L] {3577} N.S.A.’s=
Intercepts Exceed Limits Set by Congress
Fox guarding th=
e hen house.
This all smacks of the COINTELPRO program, and
the =
DOJ stomping all over the Constitution during
the 60's and 70;'s with i=
llegal buggings, break-ins, and burglaries.
-jma
=
April 16, 2009 New York Times
N.S.A.’s Intercepts Exceed Limits =
Set by Congress
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
and JAMES RISEN
=
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency
intercepted private e-=
mail messages and
phone calls of Americans in
recent months on a scale that went beyond t=
he broad legal limits
established by Congress last year, according to go=
vernment officials.
Several intelligence officials, as well as l=
awyers briefed about the
matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in =
over-collection” of
domestic communications of Americans. =
They described the practice as
significant and systemic, although one of=
ficial said it was believed to
be unintentional.
The N.S.A. l=
egal and operational issues have come under scrutiny from
the Obama admi=
nistration, congressional intelligence committees, and a
secret national=
security court, said the intelligence officials, who
were speaking only=
on condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities
are classified. A s=
eries of classified government briefings have been
held in recent weeks =
in response to a brewing controversy that some
officials worry could dam=
age
the credibility of legitimate
intelligence-gathering efforts.
The Justice Department, in response to inquiries from The New York
Tim=
es, acknowledged in a statement Wednesday night that there had been
prob=
lems with the N.S.A. surveillance operation but that they had been
resol=
ved.
As part of a periodic review of the agency’s activi=
ties, the department
“detected issues that raised concerns,=
the statement said. Justice
officials then “took comprehe=
nsive steps to correct the situation and
bring the program into complian=
ce” with both the law and court orders,
the statement said. It a=
dded that Attorney General Eric H. Holder
<http://topics.nytimes.com/=
top/reference/timestopics/people/h/eric_h_holder_jr/index.html?inline=nyt=
-per>
went to the national security court to seek a renewal of t=
he
surveillance program only after new safeguards were put in place.
=
N.S.A. officials
did not comment. The Office of the Director of National
Intelligence, w=
hich oversees the intelligence community, did not
specifically address q=
uestions about the surveillance issue but said in
a statement that =
when inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very
seriously and =
work immediately to correct them.”
The questions may not=
be settled yet. Intelligence officials say they
are still examining the=
extent of the N.S.A. practices, and
congressional investigators say the=
y hope to determine if any violations
of Americans’ privacy occu=
rred. It is not clear to what extent the
agency may have actively listen=
ed in on conversations or read e-mails of
Americans without proper court=
authority, rather than simply obtain
access to them.
The int=
elligence officials said that the problems have grown out of
changes ena=
cted by Congress last July in the law that regulates the
government=
s wiretapping
powers, and the challenges posed by enacting a
new framework for collec=
ting intelligence on suspected terrorists and
spies.
While N.=
S.A.’s operations in recent months have come under examination,
=
new details are also emerging about earlier domestic surveillance
activi=
ties, including the agency’s attempt to wiretap a congressman
wi=
thout court approval on an overseas trip, according to interviews with
c=
urrent and former intelligence officials.
After a contentious th=
ree-year debate that was triggered by the 2005
disclosure of the warrant=
less wiretapping program approved after the
Sept. 11 attacks by Presiden=
t Bush, Congress gave the N.S.A. broad new
authority to collect, without=
court-approved warrants, vast streams of
international phone and email =
traffic as it passed through American
telecommunications gateways. The t=
argets of the eavesdropping had to be
“reasonably believed=
to be outside
the United States. Under the new
legislation, however, the N.S.A. still=
needed court approval to monitor
the purely domestic communications of =
Americans who came under suspicion.
In recent weeks, the eavesdr=
opping agency notified members of the
congressional intelligence committ=
ees that it has encountered
operational and legal problems in complying =
with the new wiretapping
law, according to congressional officials .
=
Officials would not discuss details of the over-collection problem<=
BR>because it involves classified intelligence-gathering techniques. Butthe issue appears focused in part on technical problems in the N.S.A.=
s
inability at times to distinguish between communications inside =
the
United States and those overseas as it uses its access to Americantelecommunications companies’ fiber-optic lines and its own spysatellites to intercept millions of calls and e-mails.
One off=
icial
said that led the agency to inadvertently “target” groups<=
BR>of Americans and collect their domestic communications without propercourt authority. Officials are still trying to determine how many
viola=
tions may have occurred.
The over-collection problems appear to =
have been uncovered as part of a
twice-annual certification that the Jus=
tice Department and the Director
of National Intelligence are required t=
o give to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court on the protocols t=
hat the N.S.A. is
using in its wiretapping operations. That review, offi=
cials said, began
in the waning days of the Bush administration and was =
continued by the
Obama administration. It led intelligence officials to =
realize that the
N.S.A. was improperly capturing information involving s=
ignificant
amounts of American traffic.
Notified of the probl=
ems by the N.S.A., officials with both the House
and Senate intelligence
committees said they had concerns that the
N.S.A. had ignored civil lib=
erties safeguards built into last year’s
wiretapping law.
“We have received notice of a serious issue involving the N.S.=
A., and
we’ve begun inquires into it,” said a congressio=
nal staff member.
Separate from the new inquries, the Justice De=
partment has been
conducting an investigation for more than two years in=
to aspects of the
N.S.A.’s warrantless wiretapping program.
<=
BR>
As part of that investigation, a senior F.B.I.
<http://topics.=
nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_bureau_of_inv=
estigation/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
agent recently came forw=
ard with what the inspector general’s office
described as allega=
tions of “significant misconduct” in the surveillance
pr=
ogram, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those
allegation=
s are said to involve the question of
whether the N.S.A.
targeted Americans in eavesdropping operations based=
on insufficient
evidence tying them to terrorism.
And in one=
previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a
member of=
Congress without a warrant, according to a U.S. intelligence
official w=
ith direct knowledge of the matter.
The agency believed that the=
congressman, whose identity could not be
determined, was in contact as =
part of a congressional delegation to the
Middle East in 2005 or 2006 wi=
th an extremist who had possible terrorist
ties and was already under su=
rveillance, the official said. The agency
then sought to eavesdrop on th=
e congressman’s conversations to gather
more intelligence, the o=
fficial said.
The official said the plan was ultimately blocked =
because of concerns
from some officials in the intelligence community ab=
out the idea of
using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a
member of Congress.
-----------------------------------=
-----------------------------------------------------------------
=
James M. Atkinson &=
nbsp; Phone: (978) 546-3803=
Granite Island Group &n=
bsp; Fax: (97=
8) 546-9467
127 Eastern Avenue #291 &n=
bsp; Web: http://www.tscm.com/
=
Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 E=
-mail: mailto:jm..._at_tscm.com
----------------------------------------=
------------------------------------------------------------
No e=
nterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from
the
enemy until it is ripe for execution. - Machiavelli, The Pri=
nce, 1521
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:16 CST