The Emerging Story Behind the Wiretap Scandal

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" Zepp " <zepp

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:06:40 -0800

[Zepps_News] #The emerging story behind the wiretap scandal

 

 

 

The Emerging Story Behind the Wiretap Scandal

 

In the past few days, a deluge of reports have come out regarding the

now admitted spying on the American people. By connecting these

reports,

a possible timeline emerges, which may explain a good deal more about

the NSA-Gate/Snoop-Gate/Wiretap-No-No-Gate than we ever expected in the

first place. Also, this theory works to answer a major question critics

in the media have been asking; that being why wasn't FISA and the FBI

used legally to do the spying- instead of the NSA without warrants?

Let's connect the dots:

 

 

1. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the Bush Administration

wants

to spy on Americans. They go on a spying rampage, at this point doing

it

the official way, and using FISA regulations to obtain warrants for

wiretaps and similar surveillance. Ashcroft is in charge of this at

that

time. Unable to prove his and his cohorts suspicions about various

people and groups they want to spy on, they go nuts and lie like crazy

for several months to FISA courts in order to obtain warrants.

(explained by upcoming link)

 

2. The FISA court catches on to his lies in May of 2002, and tells

Ashcroft he's been very naughty. Read the following:

 

A May 17 opinion warrants by the court that oversees the Foreign

Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department

and

FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than

75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps

 

(source: WaPo) http://foi.missouri.edu/secretcourts/seccrtrebuffs.html

 

Before we go onto 3, a very important history lesson:

 

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [FISA] Court was supposed to put

an end to the kinds of wiretaps that were placed on the phones of

enemies of President Nixon

 

(source: NPR) Keep that in mind as we move on.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5049679

 

3. After having been caught lying continuously to obtain warrants by

the

FISA court in May, Ascroft and his pals seek other ways of spying. They

decide to use the highly secretive N.S.A. (an agency meant to spy

abroad, not at home). After getting authorization from the President,

they go forward with their plan. (source: NYT)

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?oref=login

 

Unwilling or uncaring for congressional approval of his new tactic,

Ascroft told Bush that what they were doing had been already approved

right after 9/11, in a Presidential Authorization passed by congress.

But that congressional approval wasn't an approval at all. The bill

wasn't introduced with this in mind, but it was the only weak

rationalization they could find. It didn't matter, the only important

thing was that it was vague enough to " justify " it. NYT:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20legal.html?pagewanted=print

 

President Bush cited the resolution, the Authorization for the Use of

Military Force, on Monday at his news conference. So did Attorney

General Alberto R. Gonzales, who in a session with reporters said the

Congressional measure, in addition to the president's inherent power as

commander in chief, gave the government the power " to engage in this

kind of signals intelligence. "

 

[…]

It provides the president with sweeping but vaguely defined authority

" to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations,

organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed,

or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. "

 

The resolution makes no mention of surveillance activity.

 

[…]

 

" Nobody, nobody thought when we passed a resolution to invade

Afghanistan and to fight the war on terror - including myself who voted

for it - that this was an authorization to allow a wiretapping against

the law of the United States, " Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of

Wisconsin, said in an interview on the " Today " show Monday.

 

4. But Ascroft hadn't given up on the FBI just yet. You see, shortly

after 9/11, he had made a commitment to spy on Americans using the FBI,

and had increased their powers to do so. Ascroft wasn't about to let

all

that perfectly good loosening of restrictions on FBI power go to waste.

Nope, he went ahead with the spying- only without wiretaps. NYT:

 

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to

conduct surveillance as part of a " Vegan Community Project. " Another

document talks of the Catholic Workers group's " semi-communistic

ideology. " A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the

location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals.

[…]

" It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency,

from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on

Americans, " said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

 

" You look at these documents, " Ms. Beeson said, " and you think, wow, we

have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in

F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic

Workers league as having a communist ideology. "

[…]

" It's shocking and it's outrageous, " Mr. Kerr said. " And to me, it's an

abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and PETA are

basically being punished for their social activism. "

 

5. NYT gets wind of N.S.A. story in 2004. They phone over to White

House

(henceforth WH) for a confirmation or on-the-record statement about the

N.S.A. spy scoop. WH agrees to talk, but won't confirm or deny at

first.

WH first asks NYT reporters Risen and Lichblau to kill the story. They

refuse. WH then says okay- cut out the juciest parts of your story then

(as they supposedly endanger National Security). Risen and Lichblau

agree. For unknown reasons, they hold off on publishing the story until

late 2005. NYT claims they were conducting additional reporting during

this time to back up the story.

 

WaPo speculates on the reason for the delay:

 

The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed

in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that

the information is included in a forthcoming book, " State of War: The

Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, " written by

James

Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday's story. The book will be

published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

 

My own guess is that NYT ran the story when they did because they might

have wanted to break it, before Risen's book came out, which

undoubtedly

has further details. Or, Risen could have kept the story in bed, until

the perfect time to publish it came- as close to his book's publication

as possible, in order to maximize press coverage. Either way, the

story's publication so close to his book publication date is likely no

accident.

 

6. When they're finally ready to run the story, Rizen and Lichblau call

WH up again, to ask for comment. Again, WH does not deny the story, but

no official comment is given. WH goes above the reporters' heads this

time, desperately calling in senior NYT Editor and Publisher Sulzberger

and Keller.

 

December 6, Sulzberger and Keller refuse to kill the story, after a

last

minute plea from the President himself. (source: Newsweek).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10536559/site/newsweek/

 

More than a week goes by without publication of the story. We can guess

that during this week and a half, Rove was hard at work, straining to

think of any possible talking points for Bush. On the 16, the story

goes

to print, and explodes everywhere.

 

7. Bush confirms the story, and the only talking point Rove seems to

have come up with two talking points. A, that running the story was

horrible, and that it compromised National Security, and B, that

congress supposedly approved the N.S.A. spying " dozens of times. "

 

Since we've all heard the first talking point- and even though it

sounds

like B.S.- it's impossible to destroy (somebody prove me wrong), let's

take a moment to look at the second talking point. In an Wiretap

Scandal

Roundup I wrote recently, I noted the following:

 

Firstly (possibly the most important development), it just came out

that

Bush et al lied at press conferences where they've consistently said

(the now familiar talking point) that Congress supposedly approved the

illegal NSA program which included spying on Americans without getting

warrants from a judge. More on that here. Hopefully this aspect of the

story will get more play.

 

-Also on the congress aspect, C & L points to this: " The former Senate

Majority and Minority leader, Tom Daschle, says tonight in a statement

that the White House " omitted key details " from him related to the NSA

interception program "

 

If anyboy else knows of other examples of members of congress poking

holes in this story, I'd love for somebody to send a tip to my website,

as I may just flesh this aspect out into a full story.

 

Originally posted at The Daily Background.com

 

P.S.- Thanks to shock.

Also, thanks to Earl for a correction on a Bush quote.

 

UPDATE: Hollywood Liberal notes that apparently it wasn't just Ascroft

obsessed with all this spying. It seems as though John Bolton (now U.S.

representative to the United Nations) was heavily involved as well:

 

" During the Bolton hearings, however, it emerged that when he was at

the

State Department, Bolton on several occasions received summaries of

intercepts between foreigners and " U.S. persons " and requested that the

spy agency tell him who those Americans were. The agency complied.

 

Following this revelation, Newsweek discovered that from January 2004

to

May 2005, the National Security Agency had supplied names of 10,000

American citizens in this informal fashion to policy makers,

intelligence services and law enforcement agencies.

 

Democrats took advantage of Bolton's transgression in the nomination

battle, playing up his reputation as a sharp-elbowed brute and implying

that he might have used the intercepts to intimidate Washington

adversaries. Bolton, for his part, told Congress that he asked the spy

agency for the names in order " to better understand " summaries of

intercepted conversations: " It's important to find out who is saying

what to whom.

 

UPDATE 2:

on point 2- shock just pointed this out (my wording):

 

It appears that there were problems with the FBI investigators lying to

FISA before bush took office. in 2000, when these problems were

uncovered, and the FISA court suggested to congress that they change

the

laws so that this type of lying wouldn't occur or would be more

difficult- Ascroft heavily opposed this. Ascroft went the exact other

direction- and wanted to reform FISA so that it would be easier to get

warrants and approval; not harder. Although he the court ruled against

him, the decision was overturned upon appeal in November, filed by

Ascroft.

 

UPDATE 3: Here's item 9.:

 

9. But this wasn't all. Ever heard of " CIFA " ? Neither had I. It turns

out, it's yet another agency which possibly is being used to spy on

people inside the United States. Since it's a bit of a mouthful to

condense, I'll leave the explanation up to Magorn.

 

Not Again! New DOD Spy agency quietly given incredible powers

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/20/154028/03

 

Update #456463: I'd like to draw attention to this article by AP:

" Democrats Say They Didn't Back Wiretapping "

 

 

 

 

 

--

" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government

talking

about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing

has

changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,

we're

talking about getting a court order before we do so "

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004