Bartholomew Roberts said:
WHEN were they briefed? Were they briefed in 2004 when the administration knew the game was going to be exposed or were they briefed in ~2001 when the program was begun?
It is my understanding that House & Senate leadership (Rep & Dem) as well as the chairmen (Rep) & ranking members (Dem) of the Intel committees have been in the know from the get-go. In addition, GWB reviewed & re-authorized the operation every 45 days (compared to Clinton's every 180 days for similar operations). In 2004, the GWB admin spoke with the entire Intel committees to discuss the matter of changing FISA to make it amendable to the operation.
No one who knows
definitely what the NSA is doing is willing to talk in detail, but a likely scenario is as follows:
1. All phone numbers are being captured & sifted through, coming & leaving USA, against numbers suspected to be used by terrorists. (FWIW, US Gov't has never needed a warrant to get phone number information from the telcos, even in domestic to domestic calls, as that information is in the open. I don't agree with the practice, but that is my understanding. It isn't just the NSA that does this.)
2. When a match is made, the domestic number is noted for more scrutiny.
3. Then a sampling of the audio of those sifted numbers is later captured and sifted against word lists, algorythms, etc. to try to detect terroist communications.
4. If the automated system gets a hit, it is them shunted off to humans for more scrutiny.
A similar regimen would likely do similar analysis of email in & out of the USA.
It is a logical reduction of data that is in the realm of the do-able, given current tech. Similar such reductions occur in analysis every day in operations research outfits in industry & gov't.
It is not perfect and can be thwarted by use of encryption, steganography, etc. Luckily for us (until the operation was revealed), most of the bad guys get lazy. I suspect they have been given more motivation to maintain better communications security from now on. More's the pity.
I suspect several two reasons FISA was shunted aside by GWB & the NSA:
1. No president has acknowledged the authority of FISA/Congress to restrict the executive branch's Constitutional power to perform foreign surveillance or commo going into or out of the USA. Not Carter, Reagan, GHWB, Clinton, or GWB; since FISA. Not any president before FISA. The principle is that Congress can not take away power given to another branch by the US Constitution. For similar reasons, the War Powers Act has always been treated as a red-headed stepchild by the executive branch.
2. FISA is unworkable, given the automated nature of the analysis & collection. Those judges would be signing thousands of warrants at all hours to authorize audio sampling & automated analysis. I doubt that the 10-12 judges involved have enough time in the day to sign warrants to authorize every sampling.
3. House & Senate leadership (Dem & Rep) as well Intel committe leadership (Rep & Dem) never squawked when briefed.
Bartholomew Roberts said:
Well, if (per Washington Post) we have listened to 5,000 Americans and have only pursued 10 of those, then it would seem by definition that citizens have been spied upon without receiving calls from potential terrorists unless the administration simply felt that the other 4,990 people talking to potential terrorists weren't worth the effort.
Capturing the phone numbers for calls in & out of the USA does not require a warrant.
Does the phone number capture (but not capturing content) constitute spying? Does linking an American's phone number with a known bad guy's phone number give enough justification to cature & analyze some of the call's content? These are questions that must be answered & I am not yet sure. I do know that I am a bit uncomfortable, but I know that anything sent overseas is open to be listened in on by foreign gov'ts, anyway.
Of course, remember that phone numbers are analogous to email addresses and audio content of phone conversations is analogous to the email's body.
Lobotomy Boy said:
Those of you who support the administration's warrantless wiretaps, please reread the transcripts from Gonzales' appearance and engage in the following intellectual exercise:
Imagine this is the AG from a future Democratic administration, and the topic is the warrantless wiretapping of gun owners. Considering gun owners potential terrorists is not so far fetched, since more Americans die of gun violence each year than have ever been killed by terrorists, and if this precedent is allowed to stand, we will see the practice of warrantless wiretaps spread like cancer.
In this scenario, are you still willing to support a program of warrantless wiretapping?
An ugly scenario, but it does not fit the current situation. You are assuming domestic to domestic calls, whlie the NSA is doing its business on call that are entirely outside the USA or one end is entirely outside the USA.
I would work under the assumption that the FBI already knows which numbers/email addys we all use & who we call/email.