U.S. confirms telecoms' role in eavesdroppin
U.S. confirms telecoms' role in eavesdropping
By Eric Lichtblau
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: August 23, 2007
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a key role in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for nearly two years that any role played by the companies was a "state secret."
The acknowledgment came in an interview that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, conducted with The El Paso Times last week in which he discussed a number of sensitive issues that the administration has long insisted were classified and has refused to discuss publicly.
He made the remarks in an apparent effort to explain the broadened wiretapping authority that the administration gained from Congress earlier this month in legislation that Democrats are already threatening to revise.
McConnell's office refused to say whether the topics he disclosed, including the role of the telecommunication companies and the number of Americans intercepted through court-approved warrants, had been declassified prior to the interview.
McConnell asserted in the interview, a transcript of which the newspaper released Wednesday, that the public debate surrounding the congressional legislation this month will harm national security by giving terrorists information they can use against the United States.
"Part of this is a classified world. The fact that we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die," he said in the Aug. 14 interview.
In acknowledging the role of the telecommunications companies in the program, McConnell said that "under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner."
AT&T and several major carriers are now being sued over their alleged role, and McConnell said those lawsuits were a driving force in the administration's efforts to include immunity for telecommunication partners in this month's wiretapping legislation.
"Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private-sector entities," he said.
The measure that Congress passed did not include the immunity protection that the administration had sought.
But McConnell's discussion of the issue is sure to figure in the case now on appeal in a U.S. federal court in San Francisco. In a hearing last week, the appellate judges looked skeptically at the administration's claims that the lawsuits should be thrown out because of a "state secrets" privilege. Lawyers for the government have refused to confirm whether the companies were involved in the surveillance program.
McConnell also sought to rebut claims that the legislation approved by Congress amounted to, in his words, "massive data-mining." The security agency's interception of communications, he said, is "surgical," and he said the number of court warrants approved for interceptions involving people inside the United States totaled "100 or less."
A special court approves more than 2,000 surveillance warrants a year, but officials have never been willing to spell out how many involved Americans.
By Eric Lichtblau
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: August 23, 2007
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a key role in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for nearly two years that any role played by the companies was a "state secret."
The acknowledgment came in an interview that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, conducted with The El Paso Times last week in which he discussed a number of sensitive issues that the administration has long insisted were classified and has refused to discuss publicly.
He made the remarks in an apparent effort to explain the broadened wiretapping authority that the administration gained from Congress earlier this month in legislation that Democrats are already threatening to revise.
McConnell's office refused to say whether the topics he disclosed, including the role of the telecommunication companies and the number of Americans intercepted through court-approved warrants, had been declassified prior to the interview.
McConnell asserted in the interview, a transcript of which the newspaper released Wednesday, that the public debate surrounding the congressional legislation this month will harm national security by giving terrorists information they can use against the United States.
"Part of this is a classified world. The fact that we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die," he said in the Aug. 14 interview.
In acknowledging the role of the telecommunications companies in the program, McConnell said that "under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner."
AT&T and several major carriers are now being sued over their alleged role, and McConnell said those lawsuits were a driving force in the administration's efforts to include immunity for telecommunication partners in this month's wiretapping legislation.
"Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private-sector entities," he said.
The measure that Congress passed did not include the immunity protection that the administration had sought.
But McConnell's discussion of the issue is sure to figure in the case now on appeal in a U.S. federal court in San Francisco. In a hearing last week, the appellate judges looked skeptically at the administration's claims that the lawsuits should be thrown out because of a "state secrets" privilege. Lawyers for the government have refused to confirm whether the companies were involved in the surveillance program.
McConnell also sought to rebut claims that the legislation approved by Congress amounted to, in his words, "massive data-mining." The security agency's interception of communications, he said, is "surgical," and he said the number of court warrants approved for interceptions involving people inside the United States totaled "100 or less."
A special court approves more than 2,000 surveillance warrants a year, but officials have never been willing to spell out how many involved Americans.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 3:16 AM
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