Letters to the Editor
Corey Morris
Published Letters: 29
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Additional information on the "other intelligence programs".
[Read the article: What were the pre-2005 "other intelligence activities"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have included some additional interesting detail on the "other intelligence programs" in the timeline listed below.
In 2002, Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the NSA monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
On March 10, 2004. Documents indicate that eight congressional leaders in the White House Situation Room were briefed about the pending expiration of the "unidentified intelligence programs" and Justice Department objections to renewing it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program's legality.
Some of the people that attended the meeting included:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. All three disputed Gonzales' testimony. Rockefeller called it "untruthful," and Pelosi disagreed that the [other intelligence programs] should be continued without Justice Department or FISA court oversight.
Also at the meeting were, former GOP House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss. Goss said that he "does not recall anyone saying the project must be ended,' Bill Frist also attended the meeting. Frist stated "I recall being briefed with the others about the program and it was stated that Gonzales would visit with Ashcroft in the hospital and that our meeting was part of the administration's responsibility to discuss with the leadership of Congress,'
Later that evening then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card went to John Ashcrofts hospital room for the now infamous confrontation over approval of the "other intelligence programs".
On November 9, 2004, Ashcroft announced his resignation from his post as Attorney General, which took effect on February 3, 2005 with the Senate confirmation of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next Attorney General. He of course was replace by Gonzalez. the guy that pushed Ashcroft to reapprove the "other intelligence programs". (I dont think there is much doubt that Gonzales reapproved the "other intelligence programs" after taking office)
On December 16, 2005, The New York Times printed a story asserting that following 9/11, "President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States".
In the story the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Media reports on January 10, 2006, indicated Russell D. Tice was a source of the Times leak, which revealed that, under the direction of the White House and without requisite court orders, the NSA has been intercepting international communications to and from points within the US.
But while Tice was a source for the Times story, he was not himself part of the classified NSA program; instead, he took part in space systems communications, non-communications signals (such as radar emissions), electronic warfare, satellite control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems.
In a letter dated December 18, 2005, to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Tice said he was prepared to testify about the certain SAP programs, under the provisions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. It is not known, however, what the testimony would specifically involve.
It has been assumed that the SAP programs concerned the electronic surveillance of Americans, but in an interview published on January 13, 2006 on the reasononline web site, Tice said "there's no way the programs I want to talk to Congress about should be public ever, unless maybe in 200 years they want to declassify them. You should never learn about it; no one at the Times should ever learn about these things. But that same mechanism that allows you to have a program like this at an extremely high, sensitive classification level could also be used to mask illegality, like spying on Americans."
Tice stated that the activities involved the Director of the NSA, the Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs (SAP), more commonly referred to as 'black world' programs, or 'black ops'. Tice was a technical intelligence specialist dealing with SAP programs and operations at both NSA and DIA.
Other information related to Russell Tice:
On December 23, 2005, the Austin American-Statesman, reported Tice's allegations that spying on Americans may involve a massive computer system known as ECHELON, which is able to search and filter hundreds of thousands of phone calls and e-mails in a matter of seconds.
On January 3, 2006, Tice appeared on the national radio/TV show Democracy Now and said he wants to testify before Congress. Tice said "I'm involved with some certain aspects of the intelligence community, which are very closely held, and I believe I have seen some things that are illegal."
In a letter dated January 10, 2006, Renee Seymour, Director of the NSA Special Access Programs Central Office, warned Tice that members of neither the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, nor of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had clearance to receive the classified information about the SAP's that Tice was prepared to provide. An article by Chris Strohm in Government Executive says that some Congressional staffers believe that Tice "comes with baggage".
On February 14, 2006, UPI reports Tice testified to the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations that the Special Access Program might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights, but that neither the committee members nor the NSA inspector general had clearance to review the program.
On May 12, 2006, thinkprogress.org reported a story by CongressDaily in which Tice was said to be planning an appearance the next week before the Senate Armed Service Committee, when further revelations would be made on "a different angle" of the NSA's surveillance program. Ultimately this did not occur and is still unclear as to why.