It was actually way more then "just wiretaps", but rather a
multi billion program to suck in every single kind of communication the
FBI, NSA, CIA and other could wrap their fingers around illegally, but
which technology existed to permit access. This ranged from pressuring
Network Operation Centers or NOCs to provide full unsupervised access,
forced the phone companies to hire hordes of new employees and pay for
them to obtain Top Secret Security clearances to manage the illegal
access, and even forced major Internet Services Providers, Yahoo,
Hotmail, and others to hire people just to run the inside portion of the
program. All of the major switching centers, fiber head-ends, cellular
control facilities all had special hardware installed to provide access
to raw data, and thousands of miles of new fiber optic cable was laid
just to support the newly increased bandwidth.
The end result is that they caught nobody, stopped nothing, and they
wasted billions of dollars just to stomp all over the Constitution and
wipe-their-backsides with it..
List members may recall that back in 2002 and 2003 there was a huge surge
from all phone companies, cell phone providers, ISP, server farm
operators, backbone providers, and any other major infrastructure
providers to hire anybody who could qualify for a Top Secret Security
Clearance, and who could qualify for Special Compartmented programs...
this is what they were trying to hire people for.
But of course, all of these companies who provided all of this illegal
access, and who did huge amounts of illegal surveillance and who helped
to stop all over the pubic can never be held civilly responsible as the
President provided them with a get-out-of-jail-free card.
-jma
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/12/bush.wiretap/index.html
Bush-era wiretap program had limited results, report finds
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal agents found much of the information produced
by the Bush administration's top-secret warrantless surveillance program
vague and difficult to use, a sweeping review of the program
found.
Then-President George Bush and other top administration officials have
said the program was a critical tool in preventing terrorist attacks.
However, a report Friday by the inspectors general of the CIA, the
Justice Department, the Pentagon and other agencies found that some FBI
and CIA agents were frustrated by the secrecy surrounding the
program.
Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden and Porter Goss told investigators the
wiretaps filled a gap in U.S. intelligence. One senior official quoted in
the report called the wiretaps, dubbed the "President's Surveillance
Program" by the report, "a key resource," while the FBI
considered it "one tool of many" in their efforts to head off
terrorist plots, the report states.
"Even though most PSP leads were determined not to have any
connection to terrorism, many of the FBI witnesses believed the mere
possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating
the leads worthwhile," the report states.
The program was hugely controversial when Bush acknowledged its existence
in 2005. Critics said the program violated the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, a 1978 law passed to rein in the wiretapping abuses of
the Watergate era.
Bush's approval allowed the National Security Agency to intercept
communications between people in the United States and overseas who were
suspected of having ties to terrorists without getting a court order. He
and other officials said the program "prevented attacks and saved
lives," as Vice President Dick Cheney put it in a May speech
critical of their successors in the Obama administration.
But Friday's report found that the intelligence gathered was only a small
part of counterterrorism work, and most intelligence officials
interviewed for the report had trouble "citing specific instances
where PSP reporting had directly contributed to counterterrorism
successes."
In addition, the CIA "did not implement procedures to assess the
usefulness of the product of the PSP, and did not routinely document
whether particular PSP reporting had contributed to successful
counterterrorism operations," the report states.
At another point, it noted that some FBI agents "criticized the
PSP-derived information they received for providing insufficient details,
and the agents who managed counterterrorism programs at the FBI field
offices the DOJ IG visited said the FBI's process for disseminating
PSP-derived information failed to adequately prioritize the information
for investigation.
Meanwhile, CIA officers were unable to make "full use" of the
data because too few people had been briefed on the closely held
program.
"According to one CIA manager, the tight control over access to the
PSP prevented some officers who could have made effective use of the
program reporting from being read in," the report states.
The report also confirmed that the PSP was not limited to the electronic
intercepts, referring repeatedly to "other intelligence
activities" that remain classified.
The report concluded the program was built on a "factually
flawed" legal analysis inappropriately provided by a single Justice
Department official, John Yoo, in 2001. Yoo did not immediately respond
to a CNN request for comment, and he was not interviewed for the
report.
A 2004 review by the Justice Department triggered a dramatic
confrontation in 2004 between White House and Justice officials who
concluded the program would not pass legal muster. Former Deputy Attorney
General James Comey, who took part in that face-off, told investigators
that the program's original authorization "involved ignoring an act
of Congress, and doing so without full congressional
notification."
That line drew the ire of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who issued a
statement Friday declaring that "no president should be able to
operate outside the law."
"The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees will closely
examine the findings and recommendations of the classified and
unclassified reports, and will conduct appropriate oversight of
electronic surveillance activities," the California Democrat
said.
Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who sits on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said the report "highlights just how
outrageous and damaging the illegal warrantless wiretapping program
really was."
"This report leaves no doubt that the warrantless wiretapping
program was blatantly illegal and an unconstitutional assertion of
executive power," Feingold said. "I once again call on the
Obama administration and its Justice Department to withdraw the flawed
legal memoranda that justified the program and that remain in effect
today."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James M.
Atkinson
Phone: (978) 546-3803
Granite Island
Group
Fax: (978) 546-9467
127 Eastern Avenue
#291
Web:
http://www.tscm.com/
Gloucester, MA
01931-8008
E-mail:
mailto:jm..._at_tscm.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmatkinson
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No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the
enemy until it is ripe for execution. - Machiavelli, The Prince,
1521
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:23 CST