Via the NYT we get some tidbits of information regarding the activities of the NSA: Files Say Agency Initiated Growth of Spying Effort
The National Security Agency acted on its own authority, without a formal directive from President Bush, to expand its domestic surveillance operations in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to declassified documents released Tuesday.[...]
In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency began monitoring telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and Afghanistan to track possible terror suspects. That program led to the broader eavesdropping operation on other international communications, officials have said.
The agency has also tapped into some of the nation’s main telecommunications arteries to trace and analyze large volumes of phone and e-mail traffic to look for patterns of possible terrorist activity.
I am not surprised that immediately following he 9/11 attacks that the NSA would have expanded its activities, even domestically, given that it was an attack on US soil. Of course, at some point, one does have to move from dealing with an emergency to dealing with the “new normal.” That is to say, clearly the security situation pre- and post-9/11 were different, and required different operating standards.
According to the piece, the NSA operated under Executive Order 12333, which was issued by President Reagan.
We also find that:
In 2002, President Bush signed an executive order specifically authorizing the security agency to eavesdrop without warrants on the international communications of Americans inside the United States who the agency believed were connected to Al Qaeda. The disclosure of the domestic spying program last month provoked an outcry in Washington, where Congressional hearings are planned.
The end of the piece raises the basic question that I continue to underscore:
The way the N.S.A.’s role has expanded has prompted concern even from some of its former leaders, like Bobby R. Inman, a retired admiral who was N.S.A. director from 1977 to 1981. Admiral Inman said that while he supported the decision to step up eavesdropping against potential terrorists immediately after the 2001 attacks, the Bush administration should have tried to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide explicit legal authorization for what N.S.A. was doing.“What I don’t understand is why when you’re proposing the Patriot Act, you don’t set up an oversight mechanism for this?” Admiral Inman said in an interview. “I would have preferred an approach to try to gain legislation to try to operate with new technology and with an audit of how this technology was used.”
Exactly.
Again (and yes, I repeat myself): my problem all along has not been the fact that I object to the basic idea that there might be cause to listen in on phone calls to US citizens. What I object to is the fact that administration appears unwilling to ensure the appropriate checks and balances in such a process.
Sphere: Related Content
January 4th, 2006 at 8:59 am
Steven:
Your position is the responsible position, but it’s also the position of critics of the President’s program here. I don’t know of anyone who seriously contends that all wiretaps need a warrrant or that phone calls to citizens shouldn’t be listened to. The question is what sort of limits on executive power are appropriate - and, the flip side, what sort of executive assertions of unlimited and unreviewable power are appropriate.
January 4th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Are these individuals, which were spied on, card-carrying U.S. citizens? How do we know that they are not illegal immigrants? Did they go through the appropriate steps to become U.S. citizens? If they are illegal my personal view is that they do not deserve to be protected with the same rights a legal citizen has. Now, if they are legal immigrants and U.S. citizens they deserve the same rights awarded to us by the Constitution. Ultimately, the government, in my book, really has only one job and that is to protect its citizens, the debate is how far can they go to protect us. We are in a new world and there really is no line between black and white anymore, there will be challenges our country must face, the new threat of terrorism and the government’s role to protect us. Would we as citizens allow the government to protect us by possibly breaking the law to stop a horrible incident or would we be comfortable in allowing the incident to happen if we could have stopped it in the first place. Was September 11, 2001 not only a threat to the safety of U.S. economically but also to our freedoms or has the terrorist already won not by blowing up buildings but by eroding the one thing that all Americans deserve and have died for, freedom. I hope not.
January 4th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Isn’t the program reviewed and renewed every 45 days? Sounds like reasonable ‘checks and balances’ to me.
January 4th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Some day I need to write a post absolutely trashing the 20th century Congress for completely devaluing the concept of checks and balances.
But, the short summary version of it is: one part of the executive branch is not, and cannot be, a check on another part of the executive branch. Checks and balances only work when powers are separated–and having one set of presidential appointees act as the check of another set of presidential appointees is not separation of powers.
After that, I’ll write the post trashing the 21st century Congress for failing to do even the basics in terms of committee oversight of the bureaucracy.
January 4th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
[...] t claims that a mere act of Congress authorizing the war in Afghanistan covers any and all warrantless wiretapping and other activities that are contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Consti [...]
January 5th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Fear, necessity, freedom, despair, and hope
Cross-posted to Random Fate.
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A preface is needed:
One month ago I was in France, sleeping in a hotel room after my possessions had been moved from my apartm…
January 7th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Brett: In this instance I am a critic of the President’s program,
C.V.: The thing is: we don’t know, and it is unclear that anyone with oversight authority knows. You are making the assumption that the “right” people or the “bad guys” are the only ones being watched. There is no guarantee that that is the case. Indeed, it is almost certainly the case that the innocent are catch up in this situation.
Chris: yep.