Re: I dreamed of a super-earthquake !

In article
<ZGVyY29hY2g=.e0992d35360f3c79a56799e965ac4f21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
DerCoach@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Der Coach) wrote:

*snip*

Maybe you haven't read this yet?

http://tinyurl.com/7jwvk

NY Times:
December 15, 2005

Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11,
Officials Say

By JAMES RISEN
and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 ­- Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President
Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on
Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence
of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily
required for domestic spying, according to government officials.


Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has
monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail
messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United
States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to
track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said.
The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely
domestic communications.


The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping
inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in
American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the
National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications
abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing
operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if
not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.


"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who
specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this
country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."


Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted
anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed
it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns
about the operation's legality and oversight.


According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of
the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller
IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that
oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the
agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the
operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said.


The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the
agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose
threats to this country, the officials said. Defenders of the program
say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and
prevent attacks inside the United States.


Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are
sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans,
the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department
eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to
include communications confined within the United States. The
officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders
about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that
deals with national security issues.


The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article,
arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert
would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting
with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the
newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional
reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could
be useful to terrorists has been omitted.


While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar
with it said the N.S.A. eavesdropped without warrants on up to 500
people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as
some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in
this country may have reached into the thousands over the past three
years, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people
suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to
those officials.


Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a
plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who
pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring
down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another
Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and
train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the
officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A.
monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an
Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because
of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.


Dealing With a New Threat


The eavesdropping program grew out of concerns after the Sept. 11
attacks that the nation's intelligence agencies were not poised to
deal effectively with the new threat of Al Qaeda and that they were
handcuffed by legal and bureaucratic restrictions better suited to
peacetime than war, according to officials. In response, President
Bush significantly eased limits on American intelligence and law
enforcement agencies and the military.


But some of the administration's antiterrorism initiatives have
provoked an outcry from members of Congress, watchdog groups,
immigrants and others who argue that the measures erode protections
for civil liberties and intrude on Americans' privacy. Opponents have
challenged provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the focus of contentious
debate on Capitol Hill this week, that expand domestic surveillance by
giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation more power to collect
information like library lending lists or Internet use. Military and
F.B.I. officials have drawn criticism for monitoring what were largely
peaceful antiwar protests. The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland
Security were forced to retreat on plans to use public and private
databases to hunt for possible terrorists. And last year, the Supreme
Court rejected the administration's claim that those labeled "enemy
combatants" were not entitled to judicial review of their open-ended
detention.


Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on
those inside the United States ­ including American citizens,
permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners ­ is based on
classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad
powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001
Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the
N.S.A. operation.


The National Security Agency, which is based at Fort Meade, Md., is
the nation's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, so intent
on remaining out of public view that it has long been nicknamed "No
Such Agency.'' It breaks codes and maintains listening posts around
the world to eavesdrop on foreign governments, diplomats and trade
negotiators as well as drug lords and terrorists. But the agency
ordinarily operates under tight restrictions on any spying on
Americans, even if they are overseas, or disseminating information
about them.


What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after
the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism.
The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence
Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu
Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A.
seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone
directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A.
surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as
quickly as possible, the officials said.


In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail
messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring
others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the
numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United
States, the officials said.


Under the agency's longstanding rules, the N.S.A. can target for
interception phone calls or e-mail messages on foreign soil, even if
the recipients of those communications are in the United States.
Usually, though, the government can only target phones and e-mail
messages in this country by first obtaining a court order from the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which holds its closed
sessions at the Justice Department.


Traditionally, the F.B.I., not the N.S.A., seeks such warrants and
conducts most domestic eavesdropping. Until the new program began, the
N.S.A. typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign
embassies and missions in Washington, New York and other cities, and
obtained court orders to do so.


Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless
eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if
indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers
and e-mail addresses, according to several officials who know of the
operation. Under the special program, the agency monitors their
international communications, the officials said. The agency, for
example, can target phone calls from someone in New York to someone in
Afghanistan.


Warrants are still required for eavesdropping on entirely
domestic-to-domestic communications, those officials say, meaning that
calls from that New Yorker to someone in California could not be
monitored without first going to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance
Court.


A White House Briefing


After the special program started, Congressional leaders from both
political parties were brought to Vice President *** Cheney's office
in the White House. The leaders, who included the chairmen and ranking
members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, learned of
the N.S.A. operation from Mr. Cheney, Gen. Michael V. Hayden of the
Air Force, who was then the agency's director and is now the principal
deputy director of national intelligence, and George J. Tenet, then
the director of the C.I.A., officials said.


It is not clear how much the members of Congress were told about the
presidential order and the eavesdropping program. Some of them
declined to comment about the matter, while others did not return
phone calls.


Later briefings were held for members of Congress as they assumed
leadership roles on the intelligence committees, officials familiar
with the program said. After a 2003 briefing, Senator Rockefeller, the
West Virginia Democrat who became vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee that year, wrote a letter to Mr. Cheney
expressing concerns about the program, officials knowledgeable about
the letter said. It could not be determined if he received a reply.
Mr. Rockefeller declined to comment. Aside from the Congressional
leaders, only a small group of people, including several cabinet
members and officials at the N.S.A., the C.I.A. and the Justice
Department, know of the program.


Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless
eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly
unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search. One government
official involved in the operation said he privately complained to a
Congressional official about his doubts about the legality of the
program. But nothing came of his inquiry. "People just looked the
other way because they didn't want to know what was going on," he
said.


A senior government official recalled that he was taken aback when he
first learned of the operation. "My first reaction was, ?We're doing
what?' " he said. While he said he eventually felt that adequate
safeguards were put in place, he added that questions about the
program's legitimacy were understandable.


Some of those who object to the operation argue that is unnecessary.
By getting warrants through the foreign intelligence court, the N.S.A.
and F.B.I. could eavesdrop on people inside the United States who
might be tied to terrorist groups without skirting longstanding rules,
they say.


The standard of proof required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court is generally considered lower than
that required for a criminal warrant ­ intelligence officials only
have to show probable cause that someone may be "an agent of a foreign
power," which includes international terrorist groups ­ and the secret
court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years.
In 2004, according to the Justice Department, 1,754 warrants were
approved. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can grant
emergency approval for wiretaps within hours, officials say.


Administration officials counter that they sometimes need to move more
urgently, the officials said. Those involved in the program also said
that the N.S.A.'s eavesdroppers might need to start monitoring large
batches of numbers all at once, and that it would be impractical to
seek permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
first, according to the officials.


Culture of Caution and Rules


The N.S.A. domestic spying operation has stirred such controversy
among some national security officials in part because of the agency's
cautious culture and longstanding rules.


Widespread abuses ­ including eavesdropping on Vietnam War protesters
and civil rights activists ­ by American intelligence agencies became
public in the 1970's and led to passage of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, which imposed strict limits on intelligence
gathering on American soil. Among other things, the law required
search warrants, approved by the secret F.I.S.A. court, for wiretaps
in national security cases. The agency, deeply scarred by the
scandals, adopted additional rules that all but ended domestic spying
on its part.


After the Sept. 11 attacks, though, the United States intelligence
community was criticized for being too risk-averse. The National
Security Agency was even cited by the independent 9/11 Commission for
adhering to self-imposed rules that were stricter than those set by
federal law.


Several senior government officials say that when the special
operation first began, there were few controls on it and little formal
oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping
targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or
other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted
nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in
an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official
said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A.
personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by
Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the
Democratic nominee, was elected president.


In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security
officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush
administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it.


For the first time, the Justice Department audited the N.S.A. program,
several officials said. And to provide more guidance, the Justice
Department and the agency expanded and refined a checklist to follow
in deciding whether probable cause existed to start monitoring
someone's communications, several officials said.


A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who
oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the
suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information
obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the
basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice
Department, according to senior government officials. While not
knowing all the details of the exchange, several government lawyers
said there appeared to be concerns that the Justice Department, by
trying to shield the existence of the N.S.A. program, was in danger of
misleading the court about the origins of the information cited to
justify the warrants.


One official familiar with the episode said the judge insisted to
Justice Department lawyers at one point that any material gathered
under the special N.S.A. program not be used in seeking wiretap
warrants from her court. Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not return calls for
comment.


A related issue arose in a case in which the F.B.I. was monitoring the
communications of a terrorist suspect under a F.I.S.A.-approved
warrant, even though the National Security Agency was already
conducting warrantless eavesdropping. According to officials, F.B.I.
surveillance of Mr. Faris, the Brooklyn Bridge plotter, was dropped
for a short time because of technical problems. At the time, senior
Justice Department officials worried what would happen if the N.S.A.
picked up information that needed to be presented in court. The
government would then either have to disclose the N.S.A. program or
mislead a criminal court about how it had gotten the information.


The Civil Liberties Question


Several national security officials say the powers granted the N.S.A.
by President Bush go far beyond the expanded counterterrorism powers
granted by Congress under the USA Patriot Act, which is up for
renewal. The House on Wednesday approved a plan to reauthorize crucial
parts of the law. But final passage has been delayed under the threat
of a Senate filibuster because of concerns from both parties over
possible intrusions on Americans' civil liberties and privacy.


Under the act, law enforcement and intelligence officials are still
required to seek a F.I.S.A. warrant every time they want to eavesdrop
within the United States. A recent agreement reached by Republican
leaders and the Bush administration would modify the standard for
F.B.I. wiretap warrants, requiring, for instance, a description of a
specific target. Critics say the bar would remain too low to prevent
abuses.


Bush administration officials argue that the civil liberties concerns
are unfounded, and they say pointedly that the Patriot Act has not
freed the N.S.A. to target Americans. "Nothing could be further from
the truth," wrote John Yoo, a former official in the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and his co-author in a Wall
Street Journal opinion article in December 2003. Mr. Yoo worked on a
classified legal opinion on the N.S.A.'s domestic eavesdropping
program.


At an April hearing on the Patriot Act renewal, Senator Barbara A.
Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, asked Attorney General Alberto R.
Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., "Can
the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the
American people?"


"Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not
allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens."
President Bush did not ask Congress to include provisions for the
N.S.A. domestic surveillance program as part of the Patriot Act and
has not sought any other laws to authorize the operation. Bush
administration lawyers argued that such new laws were unnecessary,
because they believed that the Congressional resolution on the
campaign against terrorism provided ample authorization, officials
said.


Seeking Congressional approval was also viewed as politically risky
because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition on
civil liberties grounds. The administration also feared that by
publicly disclosing the existence of the operation, its usefulness in
tracking terrorists would end, officials said.


The legal opinions that support the N.S.A. operation remain
classified, but they appear to have followed private discussions among
senior administration lawyers and other officials about the need to
pursue aggressive strategies that once may have been seen as crossing
a legal line, according to senior officials who participated in the
discussions.


For example, just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York
and the Pentagon, Mr. Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer, wrote an
internal memorandum that argued that the government might use
"electronic surveillance techniques and equipment that are more
powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement
agencies in order to intercept telephonic communications and observe
the movement of persons but without obtaining warrants for such uses."


Mr. Yoo noted that while such actions could raise constitutional
issues, in the face of devastating terrorist attacks "the government
may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions
could be seen as infringements of individual liberties."


The next year, Justice Department lawyers disclosed their thinking on
the issue of warrantless wiretaps in national security cases in a
little-noticed brief in an unrelated court case. In that 2002 brief,
the government said that "the Constitution vests in the President
inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance
(electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and
Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority."


Administration officials were also encouraged by a November 2002
appeals court decision in an unrelated matter. The decision by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which sided with
the administration in dismantling a bureaucratic "wall" limiting
cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, noted "the
president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless
foreign intelligence surveillance."


But the same court suggested that national security interests should
not be grounds "to jettison the Fourth Amendment requirements"
protecting the rights of Americans against undue searches. The
dividing line, the court acknowledged, "is a very difficult one to
administer."

http://tinyurl.com/7jwvk

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