Thought Theater

NSA: Phone Records & Security Clearances (Update) genre: Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

UPDATE:

Senator Arlen Specter indicates he wants the telephone company executives named by USA Today to testify regarding their participation in the NSA surveillance program. Specter is known for blustering on the front end of issues...we will see if he follows through with his tough talk. The full Bloomberg article can be found here.

From Bloomberg:

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded that executives from AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. testify before Congress about a report that the telephone companies gave the U.S. government phone records of millions of Americans.

``I am determined to get to the bottom of this,'' said Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, who added that he would subpoena the companies if they decline to appear before the committee voluntarily.

The new information will likely make the pending confirmation hearings for General Hayden, President Bush's appointment to head the CIA, more contentious. The administration has been spinning the hearings as an opportunity to score points with the public as they believe the NSA surveillance program bolsters the perception that Republicans are tough on terror. The news that the domestic portion of the surveillance program is much broader may not work to the administrations benefit.

The new revelations could make it more difficult for General Michael Hayden, the former NSA chief, to win Senate confirmation to head the Central Intelligence Agency, some lawmakers said. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who had spoken positively about Hayden, said the revelations will ``be an impediment for the confirmation.''

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ORIGINAL POSTING:

The secret domestic spying program being conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) seems to have been larger and more widespread than previously reported. USA Today reports that three large phone service providers have been cooperating with the organization by granting access to tens of millions of domestic phone records. At the same time, the Justice Department's ethics office has closed an investigation into the activities of the NSA following the denial of security clearances to those involved. You can find the full USA Today article here and the article on the closing of the ethics investigation here.

The new information is particularly troubling. Not only is the program much larger than had been revealed, efforts to review the program have been repeatedly thwarted. The program was designed outside the supervision of the FISA court and the surveillance activity is being conducted without warrants. Many have argued the FISA rules are flexible enough that there is no reason to circumvent the process. Even those who have expressed support for expanded intelligence efforts have suggested that the FISA rules could be altered, if necessary, to bring the new program under the review of the court. Without oversight, there is concern that those executing the program could abuse the information being obtained or exceed any reasonable level of domestic surveillance. See prior postings here and here.

From USA Today:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

This information conflicts with the previous explanations of the program. In prior statements, the President and his administration had indicated the program only looked at phone calls that included an overseas contact. Clearly, the program is much broader and includes calls that are strictly domestic in nature.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."

As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: "I wouldn't rule it out." His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.

The New York Times also reported that the Justice Department has closed its ethics investigation after they could not obtain the necessary security clearances.

From the New York Times:

The head of the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, H. Marshall Jarrett, wrote in the letter to Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, Democrat of New York, that "we have been unable to make meaningful progress in our investigation because O.P.R. has been denied security clearances for access to information about the N.S.A. program."

Mr. Hinchey said the denial of clearances was "hard to believe" and compounded what he called a violation of the law by the program itself, which eavesdrops without court warrants on people in the United States suspected of ties to Al Qaeda.

Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said that the N.S.A. program was "highly classified and exceptionally sensitive" and that "only those involved in national security with a specific need to know are provided details about this classified program." He said the legality of the eavesdropping program had been reviewed by other Justice Department offices and by the N.S.A. inspector general.