The warrantless wiretapping conducted on American citizens by the US government following 9/11 was far more expansive and legally questionable than previously understood, according to a new book.
Kurt Eichenwald’s “500 Days” is a book about the government’s decision in the 500 days following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington 11 years ago. One revelation in the book is that the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was secret at the time, was proposed and put into practice in a matter of days.
The book reveals that it was three weeks after the plan was in place and fully operating that the Bush administration even decided to examine whether it was legal.
The program’s stated aim was to intercept communications in an out of the United States among potential terrorist suspects. Eichenwald writes that it was “the most dramatic expansion of NSA’s power and authority in the agency’s 49 year history.”
Aside from surveillance, the book explains, the NSA’s plan would gather and analyze billion publicly available documents online using American databases, including property records, phone numbers, registration’s for ownership of airplanes, boats and cars, etc.
William Binney, the former NSA analyst-turned whistleblower, was at the forefront of the surveillance program that came to be known as “Stellar Wind.” He has come out and said that the Bush administration committed “a direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country,” and that the NSA was and is currently collecting information on “virtually every US citizen.”
Binney has also condemned the Obama administration, warning that “the real problem I see is that the [Obama Department of Justice] is covering up for all the crimes that this administration and the previous administration has been committing against every one in the public.”
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, up for renewal in Congress, authorizes a secret court to govern the surveillance program. But many are skeptical there has been much improvement.
The Obama administration still refuses to say how many times the government’s controversial surveillance program has gathered intelligence about US citizens. In July, it was publicized that the program had exceeded legal limits on at least one occasion in which it collected intelligence in an effort that was “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”
It is a known fact that under the FISA Amendments Act “the government can and does intercept the communications of US citizens, even in the absence of any particularized warrant or showing of probable cause,” according to the dissenting members of the House Judiciary Committee in a report last month.
“The only thing the public really knows about it so far,” writes Julian Sanchez, a policy scholar at the Cato Institute, “is that it was almost immediately misused, resulting in ‘significant and systemic’ overcollection of Americans’ purely domestic communications. Subsequent reporting revealed that the improperly ‘overcollected’ communications could number in the millions, and included former president Clinton’s private e-mails.”
A few members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Laura Poitras wrote in the New York Times last month, “have been warning about ‘secret interpretations‘ of laws and backdoor ‘loopholes’ that allow the government to collect our private communications. Thirteen senators have signed a letter expressing concern about a ‘loophole’ in the law that permits the collection of United States data.”
The Obama administration, as is usual in cases where they disregard the Constitution, promises this mass surveillance comes with strong safeguards and accountability. In reality, the war on terrorism is continuing to be used to justify major infringements on the civil liberties of Americans.
Time to buy from amazon.com
Considering the books I usually buy through it, I like to think some NSA bod will have work to do as red flags light up on his screen due to my activity.
I'm going to guess that for anyone who has been paying attention whatever Mr. Eichenwald may tell us will not come as much of a surprise. Going back to John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness the government has been relentless in it's drive to see and hear and store what the American people are doing.
Here is another case where the author John Glaser and an expert discuss the vast surveillance of U.S. and foreign citizens… shortly after 911 and beyond. The prevailing ASSUMPTION is that the government was rushing to find out if ANY more attacks had been planned or were being planned. But there's another scenario that in many ways, does a better job of explaining Bush Administration"s actions…..
O.K., we need to pause a moment now…to consider two 911 incidents which were unexplained by the facts, but none the less were accepted as ordinary and reasonable actions…. but both of these actions were clearly extraordinary on their face. Both of these actions involved DESTROYING EVIDENCE from the CRIME of 911 and left us with less to work with in the investigation of that crime. .
This wasn't a purse snatching mind you………. This was one of the biggest crimes in American History…… Perhaps the biggest ever crime against America and Americans….. Certainly it ranks in the top three or five greatest ever crimes against America!! So why would anyone willfully destroy any evidence at all, in an investigation of such an important crime with it's huge loss of life..??
The first of the two incidents I cite, was the destruction of the recordings of questioning of 911 "terror" suspects including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:
"The CIA destroyed 92 videotapes showing interrogation of terrorism suspects that included waterboarding and other “enhanced” techniques critics say amount to torture, a far greater number than previously known, court documents say.
The disclosure came in a letter filed by acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin in a court case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU said the letter showed the CIA had deliberately defied a 2004 court order and sought to cover up the illegal use of torture against a handful of so-called “high-value” detainees. The detainees included the self-confessed architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed" …It's here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/03/c…
End of first part.
Part Two:
“The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed,” said the letter submitted by Mr. Dassin. “Ninety-two videotapes were destroyed.”
“Clearly, this is a cover-up of illegal activity … in violation of a court order,” ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh told United Press International.
“The sheer number [of tapes destroyed] demonstrates that this was a deliberate and systematic attempt to hide these unlawful activities from the American people.”
The existence of the tapes – and the fact that they had been destroyed in 2005 – came to light in December 2007. Then-CIA Director Michael Hayden said the tapes were made “as an additional, internal check on the [interrogation] program in its early stages.”
CIA officials, he added in a note to agency staff released to the press, decided to destroy them “only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries.”
“The sheer number [of tapes destroyed] demonstrates that this was a deliberate and systematic attempt to hide these unlawful activities from the American people.”
"The ACLU said the letter showed the CIA had deliberately defied a 2004 court order and sought to cover up the illegal use of torture against a handful of so-called “high-value” detainees"
Here again we are FED an assumption: That the cover up was to hide the illegal use of torture against a handful of so-called “high-value” detainees" But was it really? Couldn't the faces of those doing the interrogation be fuzzed and even the area where the water is applied, but still retain the content of what the witnesses SAID…. or even darken the scene until it's impossible to discern what is actually happening…. But keep the words spoken and preserve the evidentiary content of the voice track….. Rather than take these simple steps we have seen on television and crime shows to hide the parts that could show" the illegal use of torture against a handful of so-called “high-value” detainees"
It isn't like it was any secret that they were torturing people… They were bragging about their torture program,…. Cheney was saying how effective it had beed and he said would do it again…… so it wasn't to hide torture that those tapes were destroyed…… What if it was what the "detainees" were saying that was the REAL problem. Wouldn't that be a more compelling reason to destroy those tapes instead of just fuzzing the faces of the interrogators…… When the government employees are committing crimes, why are we presented with the most innocent of assumptions..???
End of part two..
Part Three:
No assumptions here:
WASHINGTON – A tape made hours after the Sept. 11 attacks that recorded statements of air-traffic controllers on Long Island was destroyed and never given to authorities, a federal investigation found yesterday.
The hour long tape of six controllers who tracked the planes flying toward the World Trade Center was shredded a few months later by a manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma.
[It was made by the controllers who actually spoke with the "hikacked" planes]
The manager, identified by officials as Kevin Delaney, told investigators that making the tape contradicted Federal Aviation Administration policy and that the recordings were "of minimal value" because controllers also gave written statements about the hijackings.
Delaney added that because controllers were stressed on Sept. 11, 2001, they "were not in the correct frame of mind to have properly consented to the taping," said a report by Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead.
Delaney faces a 20-day unpaid suspension but filed an administrative appeal, an official familiar with the probe said.
The FAA is looking into disciplining center manager Mike McCormick, who withheld the tape from superiors after agreeing to the controllers' union condition that the tape be destroyed once written statements were recorded.
The tape's value is unclear because no one ever listened to it, transcribed it or duplicated it, the investigation found.
Its existence was not known outside the Ronkonkoma center until October, when the independent commission investigating Sept. 11 was gathering records from the FAA and found an evidence log that mentioned the tape. The center monitors high-altitude planes in the metropolitan area, keeping them a safe distance apart.
FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the tape "would not have added in any significant way to the information already provided." The FAA has given the commission 150,000 pages of documents, 230 hours of tapes from Sept. 11, radar trackings of the planes and digital recordings, Martin said.
Kristen Breitweiser of New Jersey, whose husband, Ronald, was killed in the trade center and who closely monitors the commission, was "furious."
"That's destruction of crucial evidence, and the person [who destroyed it] should be held criminally liable," she said.
Mead, the investigator, said he gave information to the office of Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who declined to bring charges in light of "lack of criminal intent and prosecutive merit."
Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had requested Mead's investigation, called the destruction of the tape "disturbing" and said he might hold a hearing.
The commission said it would consider Mead's investigation in its report on what allowed the attacks to occur and how to prevent future attacks.
McCormick, the manager, made the tape starting at 11:40 a.m. Sept. 11 by having controllers gather in a windowless room and speak into a microphone for five to 10 minutes each. McCormick told investigators he feared controllers would take sick leave, and he wanted a record of their accounts "to be immediately available for law enforcement."
The "Quality Assuirance Manager " who destroyed the tape got twenty days of unpaid leave…….
Yo wouldn't think that destroying the tape gave the FAA time to pressure those who "Didn't quite get the story right"…????? Would you..???
You can google it, the NY times story is a lot better….. It crashes my junk…..
Obviously the gov did not like what was on that tape ….. But with 3000 dead, can anyone believe the lame brain story those who destroyed the tape tell…