NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong in letter to Obama

[LiberalArkie]

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-0

In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.

January 7, 2014

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Former NSA Senior Executives/Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Input for Your Decisions on NSA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Official Washington – from Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein to NSA Director Keith Alexander to former Vice President Dick Cheney to former FBI Director Robert Mueller – has been speaking from the same set of NSA talking points acquired recently via a Freedom of Information request. It is an artful list, much of it designed to mislead. Take this one, for example:

– NSA AND ITS PARTNERS MUST MAKE SURE WE CONNECT THE DOTS SO THAT THE NATION IS NEVER ATTACKED AGAIN LIKE IT WAS ON 9/11nationalsecurityagency

At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 2, Senator Feinstein showed her hand when she said: “I will do everything I can to prevent this [NSA’s bulk] program from being canceled.” Declaring that 9/11 “can never be allowed to happen in the United States of America again,” Feinstein claimed that intelligence officials did not have enough information to prevent the terrorist attacks.

Mr. President, we trust you are aware that the lack-of-enough-intelligence argument is dead wrong. Feinstein’s next dubious premise – that bulk collection is needed to prevent another 9/11 – is unproven and highly unlikely (not to mention its implications for the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment).

<snip>

ffectiveness and even more dubious constitutionality.

More recently, the “outside” insider reportedly leading your Review Group, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell, recited the mantra in a December 19 op-ed in the Washington Post. Morell claimed that “had the program been in place more than a decade ago, it would likely have prevented 9/11.”

Khalid al-Mihdhar

The poster boy for this PR ploy is Khalid al-Mihdhar one of the hijackers of AA-77, who had been communicating from San Diego with people in a known al-Qaeda terrorist safe house in Yemen. Al-Mihdhar had been on the radar of U.S. intelligence at least since 1999, when NSA picked up communications from a “terrorist facility” implicating him. In early 2000 he lived in San Diego, California, with fellow hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi.

NSA knew the telephone number of the safe house in Yemen at least by1996 and was, of course, keeping track of calls to it from the U.S. Would Mueller, Morell and Cheney have us believe NSA doesn’t know about caller ID? As William Binney has explained, automated systems take over when such calls are made and as long as you have one valid number you can obtain the other. Was it a case of gross ineptitude on NSA’s part; or was NSA deliberately withholding information linking al-Mihdhar to the known al-Qaeda base in Yemen?

Richard Clarke, who was White House counterterrorism czar from 1998 through 2001, has told ProPublica that NSA had both the ability and the legal authority to trace calls from Mihdhar to Yemen. Clarke is correct. The targeting had been done; the numbers were known. The necessary authorities already existed.

<snip>


Please read the entire memo to Obama. It is very well worth your time

[Baitball Blogger]

1. Very important read.

I hope the Christie news doesn't overshadow this.

[Savannahmann]

5. Sure it will be overshadowed

We have TPP fast track, Christie and the celebrations going on the boards where people are dancing on the grave a year before he's dead. Nothing else matters except stopping the Rethug who could defeat Hillary. NSA can spy all they want, nobody here cares, because now there are 900 new pages of documents that if we all rush out and read them we might find what the State Assembly, the Press, and all the other net gang have somehow missed.

Nobody cares my friend. Nobody cares.

[KoKo]

8. ...1

[KoKo]

11. It does seem that no one takes this seriously.

Suspect you are correct. We are now into 2016 Election Mode.

Kind of sad that...

[BelgianMadCow]

2. The heart of the (PR) matter: Terra! Terra!

How it's faked, how it's abused, how it's perpetuated - this touches it all.

[KoKo]

9. Sounds like this "might" have legs if they don't get their

right to have their input into PBO before he makes his Address to the Nation on January 17 on "Reforms to the NSA."

I feel if they don't listen to the VIP's ....then they will spill what they know and feel it's their right to do it because they have cover since the other revelations have come out so that they can now feel free to "speak their mind." And maybe Senator Grahm will come out with even MORE DETAILS..since he has been as "close as he could go" on Real News Network trying to support this "VIP" Group of Whistleblowers.

[BelgianMadCow]

10. Interesting take, KoKo

I hadn't considered these consequences.

You can put me in the "highly skeptical listeners" to PBO's forthcoming speech. I'll be looking at actions, and mainly by the EU parliament tbh.

[hootinholler]

3. Here's a kick

And then I can find this tonight.

Thanks for posting this!

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. kick...rec...

Terror terror terror has now become a large part of our economy....

[KoKo]

6. Recommend....It's worth the read.. Why hasn't this been posted before?

It seems to be shocking that they have tried to reach Obama and haven't managed to get a meeting with him..and so they put this out hoping to "clue him in" before his decision and speech about his NSA Recommendation on the Jan. 17th.

It's well written and I got the impression they have more details that they feel it urgent for Obama to know that aren't in the memo.

Some of this is what Senator Grahm has been trying to get out and he just recently gave an interview with the Real News Network...going into some details that this Memo to PBO covers.

Why this isn't getting more coverage is strange.

[KoKo]

7. They are now Free of their TOP SECRET stamps and ready to give more information..

(This is significant... Says after sending 28 Memos since 2013 they are now able to speak freely because so much new information has come out that they are FREED from their "Top Secret" Obligations not to reveal what they know. I hope POB gives them a hearing)

Mr. President, we have given up hope that your palace guard will let us in. Our chances of reaching you seem far better via this Memorandum, the 28th of its kind issued since early 2003, prepared at the behest of the Steering Group of our Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). If this gets past your in-box protectors, we encourage you to pay more heed to it than your predecessor did to VIPS’ warnings in the months before the attack on Iraq.

In one limited sense, we are better off than our colleagues 11 years ago. This time, mainstream media have been unable to ignore the documentary evidence of rank dishonesty on the part of senior NSA and other intelligence officials. This time the media has come to us, seeking our views. This time we can comment rather freely on matters that until now were hidden under TOP SECRET stamps.