Peace Researcher 33 – November 2006
The US National Security Agency (NSA) is the
world’s biggest Intelligence agency, much bigger than the better known Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). It is the Big Daddy of all the Big Brothers. Its
role is signals intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic intelligence (ELINT). It
is the spider at the centre of the web that is the super-secret UKUSA
Agreement, by which it and the junior agencies in the
NSA’s
Domestic Spying Had Gone On For Years
Unlike the CIA, which specialises in human
intelligence (HUMINT) the NSA likes to stay in the shadows. But, in December
2005, it found itself thrust into the spotlight by the revelation that, since
2002, it had been clandestinely and illegally spying on Americans in the
The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) created the secret, 11 member FISA court whose job it is to hear NSA
requests for warrants. It is basically a rubber stamp for the spies. “According
to the Justice Department, from 1979 to 2004 the court approved 18,724 wiretaps
and denied only three, all in 2003” (Time,
ibid). And, in cases which the NSA deems urgent, it is allowed to spy without a
warrant as long as it applies for one within 72 hours (these warrants are only
needed for spying on Americans; none are required for spying on foreigners).
FBI domestic phone tapping is expedited under the PATRIOT Act, allowing the
Bureau to issue National Security Letters to secure customer information from
banks and phone, Internet and credit card companies. In 2005, 9,254 such
Letters were issued, seeking information on 3,501 people.
But Bush and the NSA decided that even the
figleaf of the totally compliant FISA court is an unnecessary hindrance to the
smooth functioning of the police State. It is, of course, all part of the same
post-September 11 pattern that has seen “enemy combatants” held indefinitely
and incommunicado, without legal redress, at the US military base at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba; the systematic use of torture there and in US prisons in Iraq;
kidnapping of alleged “terrorists” (many of whom turn out to be innocent) and
their “rendition” by the CIA to third party countries for torture or even
murder, quite often in a newly created network of secret CIA prisons in
countries ranging from Afghanistan to Eastern Europe (the latter having gone
from Soviet puppets in the old Cold War days to American arselickers in the
Brave New World of One Superpower). And it is part of the pattern that is
glorified in US propaganda such as Fox TV’s series “24” (screened on primetime
on TV3) which glorifies US secret agents who use any methods, routinely
including torture, to save the US from demonic, foreign terrorists.
Phonetapping To Create The
World’s Biggest Database
The
revelation that the NSA was spying on Americans was taken to a whole other
plane in May 2006, when it was revealed that the Agency was quietly compiling the
world’s largest database by securing the phone records of the 200 million
Americans who are customers of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, which combined
carry roughly 80% of the nation’s landline calls and half of the wireless ones.
Qwest, a Colorado-based company with about 14 million customers, refused to
turn over its records to the Government because there was no court order
requiring it to do so. It resisted heavy pressure from the NSA, including the
threat that Qwest might not get future classified work with the Government.
Commentators
described this as an attempt “to create a database of every call ever made”
within the nation’s borders (USA Today,
Bush himself
was unrepentant, merely declaring that: “’We’re not mining or trolling through
the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused
on links to al Qaeda terrorists and its affiliates. The intelligence activities
I authorised were lawful’, without specifying which laws in particular had
authorised them” (Time,
Not only
was Bush defiant about this vast spying programme directed against his own
people, the Government actively obstructed official investigations into it
(shades of President Nixon and the 1970s’ Watergate scandal which brought about
his downfall). In May, the Justice Department’s Ethics Office was forced to end
its investigation into the conduct of its own lawyers who gave legal advice on
the previously disclosed NSA domestic spying programme (officially titled the
Terrorist Surveillance Program), because the investigating lawyers were denied
the necessary security clearances to look into the matter.
Waihopai
Makes New
And this is not something from which New
Zealanders can remain aloof, shrugging our shoulders and saying “only in
"Many details of these messages
are then forwarded to the NSA, after they have been filtered for key words
and sender and recipient details. The NSA then, clearly, links them to its
domestic surveillance data banks. … the White House authorised the NSA to
eavesdrop without warrants on international calls and e-mail traffic of US
citizens. Now, we find that the NSA collects and maintains these huge data
banks of domestic phone calls, e-mails and faxes.
"The information that we forward from
Waihopai turns all of us into accomplices in this programme of dubious
legality. Earlier this week, the US Department of Justice was forced to suspend
its investigation of the NSA domestic spy programme. All too often, critics of
White House policies get accused of being anti-American. But, as in this case,
we are really speaking out to defend the American people from the actions of
their own government" (press release,
Judge Rules NSA Domestic
Spying Illegal & Unconstitutional
Fortunately,
at least one branch of the
The Bush
Administration was not going to let inconvenient matters like courts and the
Constitution get in the way of its warrantless domestic spying programme. In
September, the House of Representatives passed a Bill providing Congressional
authorisation for such spying when the President deems it necessary. The Bill
would authorise the President to order surveillance for up to 90 days after a
“terrorist attack” – if there is a reasonable belief that the target is
communicating with a terrorist group. In the case of an “imminent threat of
attack” the President would also be permitted to authorise up to 90 days
warrantless electronic surveillance and could submit unlimited subsequent
certifications to Congressional Intelligence committees and a judge to extend
the surveillance. In short, this Bill authorises unlimited domestic spying
without need of a warrant. It was passed on party lines but Bush was unable to
achieve his goal of getting it through the Senate, and thus signed into law,
before Congress adjourned for the November 2006 midterm elections. Any such law
is also likely to be challenged in court.
The Coup Of The Geeks: NSA
Director Takes Over CIA
At the
same time the massive NSA phonetapping operation was exposed, in May 2006,
President Bush nominated Air Force General Michael Hayden to be the new
Director of the CIA. This was particularly provocative because Hayden was an
NSA veteran of 30 years experience and a previous Director of it. The first NSA
domestic spying operation to be exposed (in December 2005) was authorised by
him. This led to opposition from influential quarters to Hayden taking over the
CIA. For example, the Los Angeles Times
(quoted in the
“But the
most disturbing part of Hayden’s resume, and the one that disqualifies him for
the job, is his proud parenthood of the NSA’s eavesdropping programme. Under the
programme, the Agency listens in on conversations between US residents and
overseas parties without seeking a
warrant from secret courts set up for this purpose. Hayden has spoken in
defence of the programme’s constitutionality, and the White House thinks it has
the upper hand politically on this issue. In the name of fighting terror, most
Americans seem willing to allow Bush to chisel away at their privacy and the
Bill of Rights. Senators may find it hard to derail Hayden’s nomination. But
they should use his confirmation hearings to ascertain exactly what those NSA
eavesdroppers are up to”.
Be that
as it may, Hayden was duly confirmed as the latest CIA Director, thus
completing the primacy of ELINT/SIGINT over HUMINT, exactly parallel to what
happened in NZ’s spy world in 2006, when GCSB Director Warren Tucker became the
new Director-General of the Security Intelligence Service. The parallel goes
even further. Hayden is an Air Force General. The new GCSB Director is Air
Marshal Bruce Ferguson, former Chief of Defence Force. So, in both countries
(the biggest and smallest members of the UKUSA Agreement) the military and the
geeks are in the ascendancy over the classic spooks.
CIA Mired In Incompetence
& Sleaze
Bush put
Hayden in charge of the CIA to try to fix a spy agency that is deeply mired in
scandal and incompetence. Its failure to predict, let alone prevent, the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, and its role in the fiasco of
Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction (the quest for which
Bush used as his flimsy excuse to invade Iraq
in 2003) are only the latest chapters in a long and sorry history.
Believe it or not, Bush also apparently regards the CIA as a hotbed of “liberals”
(the worst of all possible things to be in the nightmare world that America has
become under Bush), because it has consistently not fallen into (goose)step
with Bush and Rumsfeld et al over the Iraq War and the “War On Terror”. As far
as Bush is concerned, you are either for him or against him and the CIA is not
sufficiently rahrah over the way the American Empire is functioning.
Bush
thought that he had “fixed” the CIA when he appointed the previous Director,
Porter Goss, a former CIA covert agent himself and more latterly a Republican Congressman.
But he was a disaster, lasting only 19 months in the job. His desire to clean
up the Agency and his obsession with finding “leakers” led to mass resignations
or redundancies of many experienced staff. What actually finished him off was a
good old fashioned corruption scandal. Kyle Foggo, the third ranked CIA
official (Goss had appointed him Executive Director when Goss took over in
2004), resigned in May 2006, amid the unprecedented occurrence of FBI agents
executing search warrants on his office at CIA headquarters at Langley,
Virginia. Foggo was accused of awarding a contract to an old mate who is a
defence contractor. In turn, the latter was put under investigation for
allegedly providing a disgraced former Republican Congressman (currently serving
eight years in prison for accepting bribes) with prostitutes, limousines and
free hotel suites. Goss himself was accused of attending one of the poker games
where Foggo and his defence contractor mate did business (Goss denied it). So,
Goss got the Presidential boot and none of his staff were sorry to see him go.
One former high ranking official was quoted as saying, after Goss’ resignation
was announced: ‘There’s more champagne being drunk today than on New Year’s
Eve” (
John Negroponte, Czar Of
The Invisible Empire
Between
his jobs of NSA Director and CIA Director, Hayden was the Deputy Director of
National Intelligence. The Director is John Negroponte, whose 2005 appointment
as
John
Negroponte is a veteran hitman (quite literally) for the
Negroponte presides over a vast Invisible Empire.
For half a century the annual Intelligence budget has been a closely guarded
secret, with the CIA having won a number of court cases to keep it thus. But,
in November 2005, Mary Margaret Graham, Deputy Director of National Intelligence
for Collection, casually revealed at a public Intelligence conference that the
annual Intelligence budget is $US44 billion. Steven Aftergood, Director of the
Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said:
“It is ironic. We sued the CIA four times for this kind of information and
lost. You can’t get it through legal channels” (
Negroponte and Hayden face a formidable
bureaucratic rival in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. During his term the
Pentagon has heavily muscled into the world of Intelligence. Rumsfeld has
encouraged the Defense Intelligence Agency to set up its own clandestine teams
and act independently of the CIA, whom he regards as too slow. “Many of the
secret activities are run by US Special Operations Command in
CIA
Now Secret Police Force: Kidnaps, Renditions, Secret Prisons & Torture
Conversely, while the military has been doing more
spying, the CIA has been transformed by the “War On Terror” prerogatives into a
military force in its own right (for example, see the Time cover story,
3/2/03, “The CIA’s Secret Army: “After playing it safe for so long, the CIA is
beefing up its own team of combatants and already deploying them in Iraq.
Inside the new world of American espionage”, Douglas Waller. This was written,
of course, before the
And it has led to any number of diplomatic
incidents, cockups and the kidnapping, imprisonment and torture of numerous
innocent people. To give just one example – in 2005 an Italian court issued
arrest warrants for 22 CIA operatives allegedly involved in the kidnapping,
several years earlier, of an Egyptian cleric and his “rendition” to Egypt where
he was imprisoned and tortured. “Milan prosecutors had no difficulty
identifying the officers from cellphone records and a trail of credit card
charges left at hotels and restaurants. ‘The spooks aren’t very spooky these
days’, says a
The “War On Terror” has seen the CIA get caught out
in all sorts of dubious practices. Bush’s closest ally in the Islamic world is
Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. In 2006, he deeply embarrassed the Bush
Administration by publishing his tell all memoir, “In The Line Of Fire”. In it
he revealed that the
And
The
After all that effort, overt and covert, is the
If Bush had stuck to “liberating”
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