U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Date: July 11, 2009 7:31:50 PM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report


U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
July 11, 2009

WASHINGTON - While the Bush administration had defended its program
of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a
new government review released Friday said the program's
effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.

The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the
inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other
intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by
terrorists provided more timely and detailed information.

Most intelligence officials interviewed "had difficulty citing
specific instances" when the National Security Agency's wiretapping
program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said.

While the program obtained information that "had value in some
counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role
in the F.B.I.'s overall counterterrorism efforts," the report
concluded. The Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence
branches also viewed the program, which allowed eavesdropping without
warrants on the international communications of Americans, as a
useful tool but could not link it directly to counterterrorism
successes, presumably arrests or thwarted plots.

The report also hinted at political pressure in preparing the
so-called threat assessments that helped form the legal basis for
continuing the classified program, whose disclosure in 2005 provoked
fierce debate about its legality. The initial authorization of the
wiretapping program came after a senior C.I.A. official took a threat
evaluation, prepared by analysts who knew nothing of the program, and
inserted a paragraph provided by a senior White House official that
spoke of the prospect of future attacks against the United States.

These threat assessments, which provided the justification for
President George W. Bush's reauthorization of the wiretapping program
every 45 days, became known among intelligence officials as the
"scary memos," the report said. Intelligence analysts involved in the
process eventually realized that "if a threat assessment identified a
threat against the United States," the wiretapping and related
surveillance programs were "likely to be renewed," the report added.

The report found that the secrecy surrounding the program may have
limited its effectiveness. At the C.I.A., it said, so few
working-level officers were allowed to know about the program that
the agency often did not make full use of the leads the wiretapping
generated, and intelligence leads that came from the wiretapping
operation were often "vague or without context," the report said.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/11nsa.html






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