Lawsuits filed over domestic spying program

[Bartholomew Roberts]

With all due respect, Bart, I think you misstate this. A more reasonable interpretation would be that there are as many as 500 on the list total "at any given time" period. Not as in any given moment of the day.

It could certainly be read that way; but I am skeptical that the list is that small. If it were that limited, you wouldn't need NSA at all. The NSAs forte is sifting through lots of information - analyzing whole chunks of the electromagnetic spectrum for signals and things of that nature.

Take a look at this recent Boston Globe article. It describes the surveillance as:

Bush authorized the NSA's human analysts to look at the international messages of up to 500 Americans at a time, with a changing list of targets.

Hayden, now the deputy director of national intelligence, told reporters this week that under Bush's order, a ''shift supervisor" instead of a judge signs off on deciding whether or not to search for an American's messages.

The general conceded that without the burden of obtaining warrants, the NSA has used ''a quicker trigger" and ''a subtly softer trigger" when deciding to track someone.

Bamford said that Hayden's ''subtly softer trigger" probably means that the NSA is monitoring a wider circle of contacts around suspects than what a judge would approve.

After all the Bush administration is asking for upwards of 1,700 FISA warrants a year and have received all but four of them. If they only needed to monitor a list of 500 people, then what would be the problem in getting the warrant and avoiding the whole issue? I'll bet you money they can't get the warrant because at the beginning of the day they don't know exactly who they'll be listening to or how many people it will be.

 

[Henry Bowman]

I'll bet you money they can't get the warrant because at the beginning of the day they don't know exactly who they'll be listening to or how many people it will be.

True, especially if they are monitoring the inbound calls from a suspected terrorist outside the USA.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

True, especially if they are monitoring the inbound calls from a suspected terrorist outside the USA.

According to this declassified 1993 document named United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, the NSA already had the authority to monitor:

"A person who, for or on behalf of a foreign power is engaged in clandestine intelligence activities (including covert activities intended to effect the political or governmental process), sabotage or INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST activities or activities in preparation for INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST activities, or who conspires with, or knowingly aids and assists a person engaing in such activities."

NSA had this authority in 1993 without needing a FISA warrant. So what did the Bush Administration authorize in 2002? Take a look at some of the giant language loopholes we are looking at here... how big a truck can you drive through the 1993 language? Now stop and think... whatever size of truck that is, it wasn't big enough for whatever Bush need to do in 2002 so a new authorization had to be made.