Deletions In Army Manual Raise Wiretapping Concerns

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
January 14, 2007
By Eric Lichtblau and Mark Mazzetti
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — Deep into an updated Army manual, the deletion of 10 words has left some national security experts wondering whether government lawyers are again asserting the executive branch’s right to wiretap Americans without a court warrant.
The manual, described by the Army as a “major revision” to intelligence-gathering guidelines, addresses policies and procedures for wiretapping Americans, among other issues.
The original guidelines, from 1984, said the Army could seek to wiretap people inside the United States on an emergency basis by going to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, or by obtaining certification from the attorney general “issued under the authority of section 102(a) of the Act.”
That last phrase is missing from the latest manual, which says simply that the Army can seek emergency wiretapping authority pursuant to an order issued by the FISA court “or upon attorney general authorization.” It makes no mention of the attorney general doing so under FISA.
Bush administration officials said that the wording change was insignificant, adding that the Army would follow FISA requirements if it sought to wiretap an American.
But the manual’s language worries some national security experts. “The administration does not get to make up its own rules,” said Steven Aftergood, who runs a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.
The Army guidelines were finalized in November 2005, and Mr. Aftergood’s group recently obtained a copy under the Freedom of Information Act. He said he was struck by the omission, particularly because of the recent debate over the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program. President Bush has asserted that he can authorize eavesdropping without court warrants on the international communications of Americans suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda.
Like several other national security experts, Mr. Aftergood said the revised guidelines could suggest that Army lawyers had adopted the legal claim that the executive branch had authority outside the courts to conduct wiretaps.
But Thomas A. Gandy, a senior Army counterintelligence official who helped develop the guidelines, said the new wording did not suggest a policy change. The guidelines were intended to give Army intelligence personnel more explicit and, in some cases, more restrictive guidance than the 1984 regulations, partly to help them respond to new threats like computer hackers.
“This is all about doing right and following the rules and protecting the civil liberties of folks,” Mr. Gandy said. “It seeks to keep people out of trouble.”
 
Checking the United States Constitution on the matter.....

Article I
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.


Seems the area of concern for the United States Congress and not for the Pentagon, or the White House for that matter.
 
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