Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 16, 2008
Pg. 38
The nation still doesn’t know the full extent of President Bush’s obsession with eavesdropping on citizens, but here’s a cheesy new aspect: Phone calls home from American soldiers, aid workers and journalists in Iraq were reported to have been tapped and stored by military agents supposedly searching for terrorist intelligence leads.
Two of the listeners told ABC News that the illicit snooping degenerated into a form of amusement, with analysts swapping transcriptions of pillow talk, phone sex and other intrusive details from the lives of “hundreds of ordinary Americans.”
Because the law forbids eavesdroppers from listening to and retaining the conversations of Americans abroad without a demonstrable intelligence purpose, senators on the intelligence and judiciary committees have rightly called for investigations. The sooner the better, with public hearings to follow, if the electronic prying proves as extensive as the monitors reported.
The operative question is why some war-weary soldiers’ private exchanges with kith and kin should be the focus of eavesdroppers on the hunt for terrorists. The National Security Agency, which runs a giant listening post near Augusta, Ga., insists it tightly follows the law and that when monitors come upon innocent communications, they stop listening and make no record.
David Faulk, a former military intelligence officer, told ABC News that his “orders were to transcribe everything.” Adrienne Kinne, another former intelligence officer, said there were times when the needle-in-the-haystack approach turned up promising information. But she said eavesdropping on Americans talking to Americans was “making the haystack bigger” and the needle harder to find.
It’s not known whether the Iraq monitoring was formally part of the binge of warrantless surveillance that President Bush ordered after 9/11. Mr. Bush and his aides insisted those intercepts were limited to people believed to have links to Al Qaeda. That was always dubious. But it is even more absurd and offensive if many of the people being listened to were American soldiers fighting on the frontlines in Iraq.
October 16, 2008
Pg. 38
The nation still doesn’t know the full extent of President Bush’s obsession with eavesdropping on citizens, but here’s a cheesy new aspect: Phone calls home from American soldiers, aid workers and journalists in Iraq were reported to have been tapped and stored by military agents supposedly searching for terrorist intelligence leads.
Two of the listeners told ABC News that the illicit snooping degenerated into a form of amusement, with analysts swapping transcriptions of pillow talk, phone sex and other intrusive details from the lives of “hundreds of ordinary Americans.”
Because the law forbids eavesdroppers from listening to and retaining the conversations of Americans abroad without a demonstrable intelligence purpose, senators on the intelligence and judiciary committees have rightly called for investigations. The sooner the better, with public hearings to follow, if the electronic prying proves as extensive as the monitors reported.
The operative question is why some war-weary soldiers’ private exchanges with kith and kin should be the focus of eavesdroppers on the hunt for terrorists. The National Security Agency, which runs a giant listening post near Augusta, Ga., insists it tightly follows the law and that when monitors come upon innocent communications, they stop listening and make no record.
David Faulk, a former military intelligence officer, told ABC News that his “orders were to transcribe everything.” Adrienne Kinne, another former intelligence officer, said there were times when the needle-in-the-haystack approach turned up promising information. But she said eavesdropping on Americans talking to Americans was “making the haystack bigger” and the needle harder to find.
It’s not known whether the Iraq monitoring was formally part of the binge of warrantless surveillance that President Bush ordered after 9/11. Mr. Bush and his aides insisted those intercepts were limited to people believed to have links to Al Qaeda. That was always dubious. But it is even more absurd and offensive if many of the people being listened to were American soldiers fighting on the frontlines in Iraq.