NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying-By Jason Leopold

NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 05 January 2006

The National Security Agency, the top-secret spy shop that has been secretly eavesdropping on Americans under a plan authorized by President Bush four years ago, destroyed the names of thousands of Americans and US companies it collected on its own volition following 9/11, because the agency feared it would be taken to task by lawmakers for conducting unlawful surveillance on United States citizens without authorization from a court, according to a little known report published in October 2001 and intelligence officials familiar with the NSA's operations.

NSA lawyers advised the agency to immediately destroy the names of thousands of American citizens and businesses it collected shortly after 9/11 in its quest to target terrorists in this country. NSA lawyers told the agency that the surveillance was illegal and that it could not share the data it collected with the CIA or other intelligence agencies.

The lawyers said the surveillance could result in numerous lawsuits from people identified in the surveillance reports, two former US officials told the Houston Chronicle in an October 27, 2001, report, and was illegal despite any terrorist threat that existed in the days following 9/11.

By law, the NSA cannot spy on a US citizen, an immigrant lawfully admitted to this country for permanent residence, or a US corporation. But, with the permission of a special court, it can target foreigners inside the United States, including diplomats.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010506I.shtml

:cry:

with the White House?

pass it around, please

No, they don't look guilty at all! :sarcasm:

It is absolute nonsense and anyone with a Whit of sense should be able to see thought it.

We do not know one single thing that goes on inside the NSA. We do not know how they spy, who they spy on, when they spy, what information it is they collect.

To now say that we know what they did with that information is ludicrous.

Back to the comics folks .....

Just read James Bamford's Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets. They use a 'vacuum cleaner' approach and just suck up every bit of information available, electronically E-Lint, and signals Sig-Int, and overheard or stolen, Hum-Int.

They then are supposed to weed out (with key-words etc.) the useless info, but, as seen with ChoicePoint and other database providers, the intel agencies sometimes get it wrong. Just in today's posts you see an author (Bush's Brain) and a 4 yr. old from Houston being put on the No Fly List. I'd love to hear the rationales on these but you can see that the 'weeding' process doesn't take chances. Much to the delight of the Daily Show when they get ahold of this.

This appears to be Bush's strategery on fighting the war on terror. Look incompetent and ineffective in order to lull the real terrorists into action...then we can pounce !

Wouldn't it have been common sense to just get the warrants, even 3 days late ? Who in Bush's Dept. of Justification is approving this stuff I ask ? No matter, they'll still be there until we rid ourselves of them come 2008 anyway.

Enjoy the next few years, unless the R's have an epiphany and realize that impeachment is a GOOD thing when it's about more than fellatio in the office !

freepers must be going nuts.

All Hail the Mighty Clenis, the part of our party that keeps the Party of Personal Responsibility from ever having to take any responsibility.

Some people say...There are those who think...Unnamed sources...

Um, isn't there some "investigation" going on right now (a year later) over people leaking NSA info? Wonder who had the big brass ones to leak this info, right in the middle of a leak investigation? And that it helps point a finger away from the ShrubCo (mis)Administration illegal acts is strictly a coincidence!

Anyone want to buy a bridge?

Let's see,...uh,...obstruction, conspiracy, RICO, I'm pretty sure destruction of federal docs to cover-up criminal activity is a stand-alone crime,....

This shit has gotten so damned ridiculous and out of control, I have to LMAO!!! :rofl: