Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans

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Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:47:28 -0800 (PST)

Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to

eavesdrop on Americans

 

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15cnd-program.html?oref=login

 

 

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.

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15cnd-program.html?oref=login