FC: Dan Tsang on his successful suit against CIA for illegal spying

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Prevoius Politech message:

"The Echelonization of America: NSA to spy domestically?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04090.html

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Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 22:08:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dan Tsang <dtsang () lib uci edu>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
cc: politech () politechbot com
Subject: Re: FC: The Echelonization of America: NSA to spy domestically?
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20021021222645.02d76750 () mail well com>
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.4.44.0210262149310.6301-100000 () ra lib uci edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Declan, you can post this; it's the U.S. Privacy Act that is another
result of the reforms against domestic spying of the 60s. ACLU and the
Center for National Security Studies represented me in a lawsuit against
the CIA for violating a provision of the Privacy Act that bars the
collection or retention of First-Amendment related information on U.S.
citizens and permanent residents (I'm a U.S. citizen).  My lawyers were
shocked that the CIA was ignoring that law.  We finally settled our case
(Tsang v. CIA) out of court for $46,000 with the CIA promising to expunge
from its computers any records on me and to never spy on me again. It also
changed its CIA web-site to concede it does spy on Americans.

Post 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT Act, it is more than necesary to beef up the
Privacy Act.  Congress should hold hearings.

I wrote a longer piece in CovertAction Quarterly (issue no. 65 -- fall
1998: "The CIA vs. Daniel C. Tsang") but an earlier op ed, "A CIA Target
at Home in America" (in Los Angeles Times) is posted here:
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang/ciatarget.htm

My attorney Kate Martin's letter (to Washington Post about the case is
poted here: http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang/cnss.pdf

She talks about the case on KUCI's Subversity
show on how the CIA justified spying on Americans, claiming the National
Security Act allows them to do that despite the Privacy Act:
http://kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity/Sv980120.ram

GovExec.com ran a story here: "CIA Double Checks its FAQs"
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0198/010798b1.htm

dan

Daniel C. Tsang
Host, Subversity on KUCI (kuci.org/~dtsang)
subversity () kuci org
http://go.fast.to/ar




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