Abuses Under FISA Regulations Revealed

The New York Times reports that wiretaps performed by the Bush administration exceeded what was allowed under the law:

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional…

While the N.S.A.’s operations in recent months have come under examination, new details are also emerging about earlier domestic-surveillance activities, including the agency’s attempt to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip, current and former intelligence officials said.

After a contentious three-year debate that was set off by the disclosure in 2005 of the program of wiretapping without warrants that President George W. Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress gave the N.S.A. broad new authority to collect, without court-approved warrants, vast streams of international phone and e-mail traffic as it passed through American telecommunications gateways. The targets of the eavesdropping had to be “reasonably believed” to be outside the United States. Under the new legislation, however, the N.S.A. still needed court approval to monitor the purely domestic communications of Americans who came under suspicion.

In recent weeks, the eavesdropping agency notified members of the Congressional intelligence committees that it had encountered operational and legal problems in complying with the new wiretapping law, Congressional officials said.

Officials would not discuss details of the overcollection problem because it involves classified intelligence-gathering techniques. But the issue appears focused in part on technical problems in the N.S.A.’s ability at times to distinguish between communications inside the United States and those overseas as it uses its access to American telecommunications companies’ fiber-optic lines and its own spy satellites to intercept millions of calls and e-mail messages.

One official said that led the agency to inadvertently “target” groups of Americans and collect their domestic communications without proper court authority. Officials are still trying to determine how many violations may have occurred.

Glenn Greenwald further discusses these revelations. Andrew Sullivan notes the hypocrisy of many right wing bloggers. While they ignore real civil liberties violations under Bush, they have been distorting a report on right wing extremism (discussed here and here) to raise bogus civil liberties concerns regarding the Obama administration. It is also notable that nobody made a fuss over a Department of Homeland Security report on left wing extremism which was declassified in January (pdf of report here). Both the reports on left wing and right wing extremism were prepared by a Bush appointee.

3 Comments

  1. 1
    Eclectic Radical says:

    I suppose it isn’t the done thing right now, but during bulk of the Bush Administration I seem to remember Andrew Sullivan pontificating in favor of the Iraq War, Patriot Act, and FISA on Bill Maher’s show and in print.

    Is he experiencing a reverse-Linda Chavez/Mona Charen and transmuting from conservative to liberal all across the board now?

    I wouldn’t complain, I am just extremely curious.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Sullivan started out supporting the war but he realized what was wrong quite a while ago and was criticizing Bush for a large part of his years in office.

  3. 3
    Eclectic Radical says:

    I remember the criticism of Bush as time went on, particularly Bush’s blatant pandering to the religious right on social issues and the denial of the problems with the economy prior to the credit collapse. I hadn’t seen the turn-around on some of the other issues and I find them extremely interesting. I do remember when Sullivan made it clear he was supporting then-Senator Obama and not John McCain. I just remember a discussion about moderates becoming more conservative in conservative company and find myself wondering if Sullivan isn’t becoming more liberal in liberal company.

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