NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying By Jason Leopold

[papau]

John Bolton at Defense and folks at State asked the NSA to unmask the identities of the 500 Americans blacked out in the agency's raw reports, to better understand the context of the intelligence, but then used the information for personal reasons.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010506I.shtml


NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 05 January 2006

The National Security Agency, the top-secret spy shop that has been secretly eavesdropping on Americans under a plan authorized by President Bush four years ago, destroyed the names of thousands of Americans and US companies it collected on its own volition following 9/11, because the agency feared it would be taken to task by lawmakers for conducting unlawful surveillance on United States citizens without authorization from a court, according to a little known report published in October 2001 and intelligence officials familiar with the NSA's operations.

NSA lawyers advised the agency to immediately destroy the names of thousands of American citizens and businesses it collected shortly after 9/11 in its quest to target terrorists in this country. NSA lawyers told the agency that the surveillance was illegal and that it could not share the data it collected with the CIA or other intelligence agencies.

The lawyers said the surveillance could result in numerous lawsuits from people identified in the surveillance reports, two former US officials told the Houston Chronicle in an October 27, 2001, report, and was illegal despite any terrorist threat that existed in the days following 9/11.

By law, the NSA cannot spy on a US citizen, an immigrant lawfully admitted to this country for permanent residence, or a US corporation. But, with the permission of a special court, it can target foreigners inside the United States, including diplomats.<snip>

[merwin]

1. Uh, I don't think it's legal for them to do that, is it?

Of course, the initial spying was a crime, so it must be OK to further that crime by destroying evidence.

[Kagemusha]

4. It's not evidence until someone subpoenas it I guess.

And it's supposedly proper procedure to destroy ill gotten records so that they cannot be abused in the future for intel purposes. Or, when there is a privacy concern legislated into law. Example: The FBI destroying gun purchase records for a fixed period of time after the completion of the transaction (i.e. physical transfer of the legally registered weapon).

[merwin]

6. But if they're destroying it so nobody will find it because they know it

is a felony, then isn't it illegal?

I mean, I can see them destroying records of illegal gun purchases, or illegal drug purchases while gathering intel... but records of illegal spying on US citizens? That was done for the sole purpose of saving their own asses.

[thefool_wa]

25. Well at least.

That means that any potential evidence they gleaned in the process will be gone too (which means we have little to worry about as far as pursuit of any legal issues discovered as a result of the spying).

Of course I mean we in the most abstract sense, meaning anyone who thought that they might have something to loose as a result of the spying.

With the recent assertion in re Padilla that "since he was charged with a crime, 3 years of illegal detention is a moot point" I anticipate that there argument will be "well, we destroyed all the illegally obtained information, its a moot point"

bastards...

[ColonelTom]

32. Spoliation of evidence in anticipation of litigation

That's a no-no.

[Kagemusha]

2. The law said they had a 15 day grace period w/ declared war,

(sorry, too long for the subject line, this is a big caveat) so long as that war was declared against a nation. As I argued in my little essay last week 'A Nation Called Terror', Bush acts like the authorization for military force amounts to a declared war on Terror itself as it is a nation state. However politically accurate this may be, legally speaking, it is nothing of the sort. Such a fiction could never stand up in a proper US court of law. So, this domestic spying was technically illegal from the start.

[Ready4Change]

7. 15 day grace period might explain the timing.

If ordered by Bush immediately after 9/11, they would have had several weeks of work accomplished, and THEN discovered that Bush had no intention of seeking an "after the fact" warrant. (I don't know the proper term for that.)

At that point, NSA lawyers would be seeing a double whammy coming. Not only was the search illegal, no matter what, but even under the FALSE pretenses used, after not seeking the "after the fact" warrant within 15 days it STILL would have been illegal.

BTW, I'd been reading the grace period was 3 days, unaware that a (proper) state of war could extend that to 15. Thanks for the info.

[troubleinwinter]

8. "technically illegal" = illegal

Only congress can declare war. Congress did not declare war. "Authorization for military force" is not a congressional declaration of war.

[lyonn]

12. This declaration of war propaganda is the problem

With all this discussion of what the president can do while at war is another end around it seems. He mixes in the war issue as if it is a given and that it was declared. Some ex-official from bush's atty. general's ofc. made a statement today that as long as U.S. troops were fighting in a foreign country it would be considered a war. It appears the admin. has fooled the public again with his bs about how he can do anything he wants as long as we are at war. That should be the question, what is the definition of war - he lied us into attacking another soverign country and then declares we are at war!!

[Bravo411]

13. Further more ....

The authorization to use the military was in support of an U.N. action. Bush never waited for the U.N. to complete its investigation into WMD's. Instead he himself declared that Sadam was not cooperating and took action outside of the U.N.

Technically Congress was not authorizing him to just declare war as he saw fit, which is what he did and what they let him get away with. Not only is Bush responsible for this illegal war, but so is Congress for standing by and letting him do it.

[David Zephyr]

3. K&R

:kick:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. dumb question? What is K&R?

[converted_democrat]

17. Kick & Reccomend.....n/t

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. Duh, thanks. I was wracking my brain for a law firm !

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. K&R nt

[Wordie]

9. Wasn't there supposed to be a NYT story on NSA, anticipated yesterday?

I've searched the archives, but don't see any reference to it. Anyone know?

Recommended.

[rodeodance]

10. but everything changed with 9/11

...... However, those guidelines changed after 9/11 also.

The NSA ended up giving its raw data to then Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton on at least 10 different occasions since 9/11. Bolton, nominated by Bush to be US ambassador to the United Nations, let slip during his confirmation hearings in April that he asked the NSA to unmask the identities of the Americans blacked out in the agency's raw reports, to better understand the context of the intelligence.

However, evidence suggests that Bolton used the information for personal reasons, in direct violation of rules governing the dissemination of classified intelligence. During one routine wiretap, the NSA obtained the name of a state department official whose name had been blacked out when the agency submitted its report to various federal agencies.

Bolton's chief of staff, Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA official, revealed during the confirmation hearings that Bolton had requested that the NSA unmask the unidentified official. Fleitz said that when Bolton found out his identity, he congratulated the official, and by doing so he had violated the NSA's rules by discussing classified information contained in the wiretap.

It turned out that Bolton was just one of many government officials who learned the identities of Americans caught in the NSA intercepts. The State Department has asked the NSA to unmask the identities of American citizens 500 times since May 2001.

[rodeodance]

11. Bush takes a second look at what was a blatant violation of the law.

.......But what seemed to be a blatant violation of the law shortly after 9/11 was beginning to get a second look a year later, when Bush first authorized the NSA to spy on Americans, and lawmakers suggested that domestic spying was all but guaranteed to avoid terrorist attacks.

Porter Goss, the former Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said as much in a wide ranging interview with the Miami Herald on June 11, 2002.

"The most critical question of all - how much spying on Americans do we want," said Goss, now the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "What this comes down to is domestic surveillance , and I don't know how you do that without spying on Americans. I can't emphasize enough that that's the hardest part."

[TaleWgnDg]

14. OMG, keep shredding, congress is on the phone . . . n/t

[goforit]

28. LOL!!!!.......The Enron philosophy keeps on ticking!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. I wonder if this revelation on Bolton is what Voinovitch was so

upset about? Enough to make a grown man cry....

[texpatriot2004]

18. I wonder? nm

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. thanks

[MGKrebs]

19. We're going to need a new club:

to go with the Grassy Knoll Society, the Tinfoilhatters, and the Reality Based Society.....

Proud member of the NSA TARGET LIST!!!

I hope I'm on the list,
I hope I'm on the list,
I hope I'm on the list.

[rd_kent]

21. Thats a crime in itself!!!

I think it would be classified as Obstuction of Justice? At any rate, to destroy evidence of a crime IS a crime.

[zann725]

22. They did't "destroy" all that info...please! Just put it some place "safe"

...like a bunker somewhere. Or "encrypted" it somehow. I can't believe they went to all that trouble of collecting all that "important" info , and then just trash it all for fear of being caught.

[MGKrebs]

24. " NSA: Amanpour...not targeted for surveillance"

Of course they can say that NOW.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/06/nsa.amanpour/index.html

[thefool_wa]

26. Next it will be

"What illegal spying, we didn't do any illegal spying."

Is confession on the record enough, or will they need evidence of it to impeach GW?

[politicaholic]

27. I read the article and I'm sort of wondering were his evidence is...

not to be a stickler, but that's kind of important to prove a point.

I mean, I don't doubt this, in fact this is more likely than not looking at all of the shredding that happens before/during/after every scandal since the invention of the shredder. I just think evidence would help if this thing ever hits a legal entity of any kind.

[HuffleClaw]

29. it doesn't suprise me one little bit that bolton is deeeeep into this

not one bit. he's just the sort of slime who would feel this sort of action perfectly ok. and he WAS bush's hand-picked slime to boot. and a recess appointment. i guess now we know why he didn't want people asking bolton questions.

[appleannie1]

30. Shades of Nixon

Makes one wonder what else is being shredded as we speak.

[Norquist Nemesis]

31. Things are starting to get really messy...Oct. 2001???

I have a hard time believing that the spying started Sept. 12, 2001 not to mention the fact that it doesn't say it stopped: they just shredded the evidence of it. As long as it takes for Government agencies to issue reports, this "surveillance" was happening well before September 11, 2001. It also means Cheney was lying with his recent 'if we had been able to...9/11 would not have happened' scare tactic.

[ColonelTom]

34. NSA wiretaps from 9/10/01 - "tomorrow is zero hour"

From a June 2002 CNN.com article:

Congressional and other sources said that in one communication intercepted by the NSA, a person said, "The match begins tomorrow." In another intercept that same day, a different person said, "Tomorrow is zero hour." In both instances, the two people who said those words were in Afghanistan, speaking to others in Saudi Arabia.

The problem has never been a lack of information - it's a lack of operational capacity to translate and analyze the information collected in a timely manner. More wiretaps won't help national security if we don't have sufficient translators and trained analysts to interpret what we collect. The political purge of career CIA personnel in the Porter Goss era has only worsened this problem.

Of course, you don't need translators if they're speaking English, as I'm sure the domestic left-wing groups being scrutinized by the Pentagon (and presumably the NSA) were.

[rocktivity]

33. Did they destroy Jason Leopold's evidence only, or everyone else's?

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[anotherdrew]

35. boy, going to that FISA court must just be the hardest damn thing to do...

what is the problem with these idiots? It's almost liek they don't even know HOW to do their jobs. Hmm....