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Topic Summary - Displaying 21 post(s). |
Posted by: retcopper Posted on: May 15th, 2006 at 7:35pm |
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Quote:
Those who don't mind their calling records being provided to the NSA because they like and trust George W. Bush should consider the possibility of their records falling under the control of a Hillary Rodham Clinton administration. George: Now THAT is a horrific thought. |
Posted by: NSAreject Posted on: May 14th, 2006 at 6:15pm |
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All terrorists would have to do, is purchase disposable
cell phones - that would put an end to this B.S... |
Posted by: George W. Maschke Posted on: May 14th, 2006 at 3:34pm |
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Skeptic wrote on May 13th, 2006 at 10:12pm:
I rather think it befits a small and shrinking minority of craven pro-Bush'ers who are concerned with power and party over country. But you say potato, I say potahto... Those who don't mind their calling records being provided to the NSA because they like and trust George W. Bush should consider the possibility of their records falling under the control of a Hillary Rodham Clinton administration. |
Posted by: NSAreject Posted on: May 14th, 2006 at 1:55am |
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Skeptic,
Right on ! I am an ex-NSA'er, but with clearances from other agencies. I worked there for many years and I am not one bit surprised at what is going on. They have thousands of databses full of USSID-18 violations and don't even bother to purge the information, like they are supposed to. My Brother now works there and does "data mining", probably of this illegal information - I hope he is real proud of his mission - what a patriot ! NSA is an agency without boundries, due to people without boundries (because of their backgrounds). Never again, will I have anything to do with NSA - a f'uped place to work, with f'uped people. Good for Qwest, for not turning over their phone records - if I can, I will be switching from Verizon to Qwest... |
Posted by: Skeptic Posted on: May 13th, 2006 at 10:40pm |
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One more comment to the NSA'ers who read this board: what your agency is doing is illegal. You know it, and we know it. The truth WILL come out (it already is), and those responsible and involved will go to prison. NSA, an agency with a critical mission, will suffer further great damage to its reputation and possibly the ability to carry out even its legitimate activites.
Is it worth it? In order to run a program that by all accounts has turned up pretty much nil in terms of actually stopping terrorists, is it worth it to run roughshod over the Constitution and laws all federal employees are sworn to protect? Is your job worth being involved in such vile crimes against the American People? The American People want to be protected. But they're not the cowards you seem to think they are. They care about the rights and the democratic traditions that make this country worth fighting for. If you have respect and love for your country, how can you be involved in what your agency is doing? Food for thought. |
Posted by: Skeptic Posted on: May 13th, 2006 at 10:28pm |
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Quote:
Try about 50% Hardly decisive. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11592 Worse. Newsweek puts it at about 40% supporting the NSA "program" -- and that's before the full details have come out and been digested. Realistically, though, the popularity isn't an issue, since we don't decide laws by popular vote (thank God). Only the legality matters. And on that score, the laws' pretty blatant. |
Posted by: Skeptic Posted on: May 13th, 2006 at 10:26pm |
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retcopper wrote on May 12th, 2006 at 3:35pm:
Sgt., I have to apologize because I posted my above message just to see what kid of response I would get in here. I also happen to agree wiht George on some matters but thinkk about it. What if the NSA had information of another imminent 9/11 type attack and they could stop if they vioalted the law by illegally listening to some phone converstions. Who in here would or wouldnt condone their actions? I still don't agree that the NSA broke the law and if they didn't then the whistle blower should be prosecuted. There are specific "ticking time bomb scenario" procedures by which the word could get out and the situation could be dealt with, not the least of which is the fact that under current FISA law, NSA and law enforcement can get warrants after the fact in emergencies. It should be noted that true "ticking time bomb scenarios" are pretty unlikely. And when it comes right down to it, if all else fails and they have to break the law to save Americans, the correct course of action isn't to cover it up. The correct action, as detailed by Justice Charles Black, is to break the law if absolutely necessary, resign immediately thereafter and await trial and acquittal/pardon/conviction. By contrast, it is the coward's way out to use the fictional ticking time bomb scenario to justify an "anything goes" mentality. Too many good Americans have given their lives over the last two and a half centuries to make this a country of laws and principles to throw those principles away the moment things get a little rough. |
Posted by: Skeptic Posted on: May 13th, 2006 at 10:12pm |
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Bullshit. The Bush administration knows damned well that what they're doing is illegal. That's why they circumvented the courts. Ya gotta admit, "Retcopper", that the administration looks awfully guilty about this. They avoid having anything on these programs tested in court like the plague, and they actively avoided informing just about everyone about this program, including most in Congress who normally should have been informed. Those who were informed were sworn to secrecy and couldn't have done anything about it if they wanted to. What's more, NSA just stopped a Justice Department inqury by refusing (laughably) Justice's investigators' security clearances. If they don't think this is illegal, they're sure going out of their way to look like they do. Finally, just about everyone without a vested political interest in defending the administration has said that these programs are unequivocally illegal. And it looks like the participating telcom companies have been drawn into the illegality by violating explicit Communications Act statutes against sharing customer info with the Government barring warrants. By all appearances, they're on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in damages to their customers, plus possible criminal charges. Quote: Your attitude befits a nation of slaves. But not a democratic republic. I rather think it befits a small and shrinking minority of craven pro-Bush'ers who are concerned with power and party over country. But you say potato, I say potahto... |
Posted by: George W. Maschke Posted on: May 13th, 2006 at 10:01am |
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I share the concerns expressed in the following USA Today editorial:
Quote: NSA has your phone records; 'trust us' isn't good enough
Posted 5/11/2006 10:55 PM ET The government is secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans. Stop and think for a moment about the meaning of that simple, startling fact, exposed Thursday in a remarkable report by USA TODAY's Leslie Cauley. In the narrowest interpretation, of course, it is benign. Possibly even helpful. It means that the National Security Agency (NSA) the Pentagon-run spy agency that monitors communications is using a new tool to hunt terrorists: Monitor phone traffic to identify threats and stop them. This is all it means, President Bush told the public Thursday in a brief appearance aimed at quelling the instant outrage provoked by the story. He assured Americans that their civil liberties were being "fiercely protected" and that the government was "not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." In other words, never mind appearances. Trust us. Well, that is not all it means. Nor can the president's promise to protect privacy be reliably kept. The fact that the government is trying to track (but not wiretap) every call you make and every call you receive at home or on your cellphone is, to say the least, disturbing. It means that your phone company (if you are a customer of AT&T, BellSouth or Verizon) tossed your privacy to the wind and collaborated with this extraordinary intrusion, and that it did so secretly and without following any court order. That is, unless you're lucky enough to be served by Qwest, the one major phone company that had the integrity to resist government pressure. It means that unless public opposition changes the government's course, this database will be compiled, updated and expanded into the indeterminate future, through countless administrations with who-knows-what interests and motives. Only the most naive and unsuspicious soul could trust that it will remain safe, secured and for the eyes only of those hunting terrorists. One need look no further than past abuses of power to be uncomfortable about the future. Richard Nixon during Watergate. Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. J. Edgar Hoover during his long reign as FBI director. Even assuming that the Bush administration's motives are pure, and that this program merely looks for patterns of calls that could reveal terror networks, it raises a number of troubling questions: Is it legal? Bush insists it is, but that's questionable. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires a court order to gather a person's current phone records. A 1934 law requires phone companies to protect customers' privacy. And the Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures." Is it useful? Taken as a whole, such a database is of dubious utility. U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies are already suffering from an abundance of raw information and a dearth of good intelligence. Looking for suspicious patterns among billions of phone numbers seems like the ultimate search for a needle in a haystack. Is it foolproof? These types of databases invariably have errors. The federal terrorist "watch list," which is used to screen airline passengers, has ensnared a number of innocent travelers among them Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and a 23-month-old toddler whose names are similar to, or the same as, suspects on the list. Once you're mistakenly targeted, the error can be nearly impossible to fix and your life can be turned upside down. Will it be abused? Maybe not at first. Over time, however, this vast quantity of data is a potentially irresistible tool for government officials who want to zero in on individual Americans. At the very least, one can imagine this information being used by law enforcement agencies trying to trace people who have attracted their attention but about whom they don't have enough information to justify a court order. Or to look for whistle-blowers who have leaked sensitive information to reporters. Consider what happened in the 1960s and '70s, the last time federal law enforcement and national security agencies launched mass snooping expeditions against U.S. citizens. The FBI, which became a clearinghouse for the data, sent them to the CIA, the Justice Department and the IRS, where some of the data were used in tax probes. "Information that should not have been gathered in the first place has gone beyond the initial agency to numerous other agencies and officials, thus compounding the original intrusion," concluded a committee chaired by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, which investigated and reported on the abuses in 1976. The amount of information was "so voluminous," it was difficult "to separate useful data from worthless detail." NSA's technological capabilities, the Church Committee wrote, are a "sensitive national asset" valuable to the national defense. Even so, it warned, "if not properly controlled ... this same technological capability could be turned against the American people, at great cost to liberty." The panel's conclusions about NSA are as valid today as they were then. The phone record program serves as a powerful reminder of how, in a digital age, records can be compiled and analyzed in ways you are unaware of. And combined with a separate NSA program (revealed in December by The New York Times) to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls from the USA, it raises the question of what other secret and constitutionally suspect programs the Bush administration might still be shielding. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA for six years and is now Bush's nominee to be CIA director, is a master of evasion. Speaking in January about the international eavesdropping, he said the program is not a widely cast "drift net" but is narrowly "focused" and "targeted." Perhaps. But, at the time, he was fully aware of a program that is many of the things the other is not. A 2006 version of the Church Committee is needed to investigate the anti-terror programs created in the scary aftermath of 9/11, and the Senate should hold up Hayden's nomination until all its questions are answered. Creating a huge, secret database of Americans' phone records does far more than threaten terrorists. It is a deeply troubling act that undermines U.S. freedoms and threatens us all. The White House declined to provide an opposing view to this editorial. |
Posted by: EosJupiter Posted on: May 12th, 2006 at 4:54pm |
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retcopper wrote on May 12th, 2006 at 3:35pm:
Sgt., I have to apologize because I posted my above message just to see what kid of response I would get in here. I also happen to agree wiht George on some matters but thinkk about it. What if the NSA had information of another imminent 9/11 type attack and they could stop if they vioalted the law by illegally listening to some phone converstions. Who in here would or wouldnt condone their actions? I still don't agree that the NSA broke the law and if they didn't then the whistle blower should be prosecuted. Retcopper, You are entitled to your opinion, but what parts of the 4th amendment haven't been trampled here. Not even executive power has the power to break these base laws of our land. Now add that all the intelligence heads are military officers, loyal and reporting to the commander in chief, not much else left before we really are a police state, or Dictatorship. I for one will not bugde one inch in my condemnation of this behavior. And if you know history, the Partriot act and the Enabling Act (Nazi Germany 1938) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act BOth documents have the same rhetoric and intent. Where they allow the circumvention of the constitution. Try reading it, and tell me we are not heading in the same direction. But as predicted and banked upon, people are willing to be subjugated. for safety. Regards .... |
Posted by: retcopper Posted on: May 12th, 2006 at 3:35pm |
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Sgt., I have to apologize because I posted my above message just to see what kid of response I would get in here. I also happen to agree wiht George on some matters but thinkk about it. What if the NSA had information of another imminent 9/11 type attack and they could stop if they vioalted the law by illegally listening to some phone converstions. Who in here would or wouldnt condone their actions?
I still don't agree that the NSA broke the law and if they didn't then the whistle blower should be prosecuted. |
Posted by: George W. Maschke Posted on: May 12th, 2006 at 12:39pm |
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CNN's Jack Cafferty had sharp words regarding the latest NSA revelations. Video available here:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/11.html#a8245 |
Posted by: George W. Maschke Posted on: May 12th, 2006 at 8:22am |
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It's remarkable that President Bush has the effrontery to state "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans" when the USA Today article reports that the NSA is doing precisely that with Americans' calling records -- again, without our knowledge (until a courageous whistleblower talked to the press) or consent. The President must think we're pretty stupid.
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Posted by: Mr. Mystery Posted on: May 12th, 2006 at 5:49am |
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retcopper wrote on May 11th, 2006 at 7:09pm:
I bet 90% of the American public think the same way. Try about 50% Hardly decisive. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11592 |
Posted by: Sergeant1107 Posted on: May 12th, 2006 at 12:47am |
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retcopper wrote on May 11th, 2006 at 7:09pm:
I dont know if what they are doing is illegal. The jury is still out on that. If it prevents another 9/11 I dont care if it is legal or not. It's better to be safe than close the barn door after the horses have been left out. I bet 90% of the American public think the same way. I see. You don't know if their actions are illegal, and you don't know if what they are doing will help identify terrorists. Do you even know why you are cheering? Or have you just mindlessly decided to be in favor of anything George is against? |
Posted by: George W. Maschke Posted on: May 11th, 2006 at 7:53pm |
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retcopper wrote on May 11th, 2006 at 7:09pm:
I dont know if what they are doing is illegal. The jury is still out on that. Bullshit. The Bush administration knows damned well that what they're doing is illegal. That's why they circumvented the courts. Quote: If it prevents another 9/11 I dont care if it is legal or not. It's better to be safe than close the barn door after the horses have been left out. I bet 90% of the American public think the same way. I don't know what percentage of the American people are happy to have their calling records provided to the government without their knowledge or consent. But I'm afraid your attitude is shared by all too many in the national security establishment who view the Bill of Rights as a laundry list of annoying technicalities that make it more difficult to do their jobs. Your attitude befits a nation of slaves. But not a democratic republic. |
Posted by: JunkMan Posted on: May 11th, 2006 at 7:38pm |
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Once again STUPIDITY takes the Day!
Don't care if it is against the LAW... Maybe you would like to take away everyones inalienable rights! Perhaps you would like them to come into your house, in the middle of the night when your family is sleeping, and check out what's in your underwear drawer. |
Posted by: retcopper Posted on: May 11th, 2006 at 7:09pm |
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I dont know if what they are doing is illegal. The jury is still out on that. If it prevents another 9/11 I dont care if it is legal or not. It's better to be safe than close the barn door after the horses have been left out. I bet 90% of the American public think the same way.
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Posted by: Sergeant1107 Posted on: May 11th, 2006 at 3:39pm |
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retcopper wrote on May 11th, 2006 at 3:06pm:
Way to go NSA! Why would you be cheering for a violation of law? If it is necessary to intercept and record domestic phone conversations in order to track suspected terrorists (and it may very well be) then a law must be enacted specifically for that purpose. The PATRIOT Act does not include such a clause. An illegal act does not become any less illegal because a local, state, or federal agency is doing it. I would have thought anyone with a law enforcement background would know that. |
Posted by: retcopper Posted on: May 11th, 2006 at 3:06pm |
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Way to go NSA!
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Posted by: George W. Maschke Posted on: May 11th, 2006 at 12:18pm |
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If you have telephone service with AT&T, Verizon, or BellSouth, your calling records are being provided to the NSA in violation of federal law. Thanks to the patriots who blew the whistle on yet another illegal domestic surveillance program:
Quote: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls Updated 5/11/2006 12:30 AM ET By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The NSA record collection program "It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added. For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made across town or across the country to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others. The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said. The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden declined to comment about the program. The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database. In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States." As a result, domestic call records those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders were believed to be private. Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information. Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's operations. "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide," he said. "However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law." The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. "There is no domestic surveillance without court approval," said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping. She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal government "are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists." All government-sponsored intelligence activities "are carefully reviewed and monitored," Perino said. She also noted that "all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States." The government is collecting "external" data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting "internals," a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for "social network analysis," the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together. Carriers uniquely positioned AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers. The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans. Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants. Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some services primarily long-distance and wireless to people who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that area. Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is charged with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. The agency was considered so secret that for years the government refused to even confirm its existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA stood for "No Such Agency." In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named "Shamrock," led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping. Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must follow to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people believed to be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States. A special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for adjudicating requests under FISA. Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve along with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the practice of "data mining" sifting through reams of information in search of patterns. Data mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and mathematicians use to crack codes and track international communications. Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining operations. "FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining," said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C. The caveat, he said, is that "personal identifiers" such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses can't be included as part of the search. "That requires an additional level of probable cause," he said. The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes. The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and the regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to present a court order before they would even consider turning over a customer's calling data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old Bell Telephone System, out of which those companies grew. Ma Bell's bedrock principle protection of the customer guided the company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers Union. "No court order, no customer information period. That's how it was for decades," he said. The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered. The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of "violation." In practice, that means a single "violation" could cover one customer or 1 million. In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree. Companies approached The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the country from attacks. The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their "call-detail records," a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits. The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg. With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest. AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA TODAY: "We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting national security in strict accordance with the law." In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: "BellSouth does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without proper legal authority." Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this statement: "We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy." Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: "We can't talk about this. It's a classified situation." In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: "I wouldn't rule it out." His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority. Similarities in programs The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, "I can say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation from future attacks." The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment. One company differs One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest. According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order or approval under FISA to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used. Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial. The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information known as "product" in intelligence circles with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said. The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard. Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled. In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more. Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused. The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events. In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained. Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said. Contributing: John Diamond |
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