Most Spying Targets No Longer Suspects Sources Say

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NSA Eavesdropping Scrutinizes Thousands of Americans, Later Cleared, in Hunt for Terrorists

By Barton Gellman, Dafna Linzer and Carol D. Leonnig
Sunday, February 5, 2006; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401373.html?nav=rss_technology

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Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use.

Bush has recently described the warrantless operation as "terrorist surveillance" and summed it up by declaring that "if you're talking to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why." But officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no.

The scale of warrantless surveillance, and the high proportion of bystanders swept in, sheds new light on Bush's circumvention of the courts. National security lawyers, in and out of government, said the washout rate raised fresh doubts about the program's lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment, because a search cannot be judged "reasonable" if it is based on evidence that experience shows to be unreliable. Other officials said the disclosures might shift the terms of public debate, altering perceptions about the balance between privacy lost and security gained.

Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the nation's second-ranking intelligence officer, acknowledged in a news briefing last month that eavesdroppers "have to go down some blind alleys to find the tips that pay off." Other officials, nearly all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to discuss the program, said the prevalence of false leads is especially pronounced when U.S. citizens or residents are surveilled. No intelligence agency, they said, believes that "terrorist . . . operatives inside our country," as Bush described the surveillance targets, number anywhere near the thousands who have been subject to eavesdropping.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401373_4.html?nav=rss_technology

[Trevelyan]

1. Perfect Photoshop - Shows Bush's Bizarro World - They BOTH should

be in prison for life for WAR CRIMES.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. Yes but how much black mail info did these sleaze bags get?

during all their spying -- and they are probably still spying on Americans.

It's sort of like being drug addicted -- once they get the power they will keep on snooping.

I wouldn't trust a democratic administration with this much power either. Until the power of the presidency is trimmed back to what the founding fathers had in mind when the Constitution was written any Prez will take advantage.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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3. trim it back

absolutely