December 21, 2005
While details of Bush's NSA Executive Order to conduct warrantless surveillance on suspected terrorist operatives remains classified, the "smoking gun" case of Presidential misconduct made by the New York Times is showing signs of falling completely apart under the weight of Constitutional law and similar national security precedents made by previous presidential administrations.
President Jimmy Carter's Executive Order 12139 approved electronic surveillance above and beyond FISA to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order as long as it was certified by the attorney general. This executive order issued by Carter has never been challenged, and seems to be very close to the content of Bush's current still classified order.
President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12949 expanded upon Carters provisions to include warrantless physical searches.
So what damning new information does the Times crusading book promoter James Risen and his faithful sidekick Eric Lichtblau bring us today?
The most evil of all horrors: the accidental surveillance of international cell phones and email addresses suspected to belong to terrorists once they've crossed into the United States:
A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."
Telecommunications experts say the issue points up troubling logistical questions about the program. At a time when communications networks are increasingly globalized, it is sometimes difficult even for the N.S.A. to determine whether someone is inside or outside the United States when making a cellphone call or sending an e-mail message. As a result, people that the security agency may think are outside the United States are actually on American soil.
Jump to:
But in at least one instance, someone using an international cellphone was thought to be outside the United States when in fact both people in the conversation were in the country. Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified, would not discuss the number of accidental intercepts, but the total is thought to represent a very small fraction of the total number of wiretaps that Mr. Bush has authorized without getting warrants.
Say a Canadian al Qaeda suspect checks his email on his laptop in a flat in Fort Erie, Canada. He takes a short bus ride across the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, New York, grabs a gingerbread latte at the Starbucks on Delaware and Kenmore, and he checks this same email account again. By monitoring this same email account accessed on the same computer, the NSA committed the kind of accidental illegal intercept that Risen and Lichtblau are complaining about.
I don't know about you, but I'm just livid with outrage... but not at the NSA, nor President Bush.
The Times has been reduced to complaining that a handful of suspected terrorists targeted for international surveillance got into the United States and were accidentally still monitored.
Ahem. I never suspected that NY Times reporters would ever be charged with being Administration cronies, but by advocating against the best interests of the United States over such trivial details, Risen and Lichtblau give us every reason to doubt their true motives and allegiances.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
12:54 AM
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