NSA To Deny Bugging Diana's Phone

The National Security Agency is working on a statement that will deny eavesdropping on Princess Diana, a U.S. intelligence official tells CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

An official British report into the crash that killed Princess Diana concluded that a U.S. intelligence agency was bugging Diana's phone without the approval of its British counterpart on the night of her death, according to British newspaper reports.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was filed with the NSA in 1998, asking for any files the agency had on her, the official tells Martin. The response acknowledged that the NSA had files on her. However, the NSA will say it had files on her not because she was being monitored, but because her name was mentioned by other people in conversations that were being monitored.

British newspaper reports say 39 classified transcripts held by an unspecified U.S. agency contain no new information about how the princess died.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar says it's long been rumored that Princess Diana's work as an anti-land mine campaigner brought her to the attention of the CIA, and it's been widely reported that British authorities were monitoring her closely.

Crispin Black, a former U.K. government intelligence analyst, told CBS News there are two possible motives for the U.S. government to have interest in monitoring Diana.

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Photos: Remembering Diana
Why Would The U.S. Bug A Princess?

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The first is a simple request from the British government to keep tabs on a former member of the royal family who was stripped of her official security detail, but who they still felt obligated to keep safe.

"Most likely we asked the Americans, 'Look, while she is traveling in America or while she is traveling in parts of the world where our electronic reach doesn't get to, could you keep an eye on her?' And if that is the case, that's interesting but not sinister," Black said.

On the other hand, he pointed out that the contacts in the world of international arms dealing, which Diana may have made in her campaign against land mines, or her research into a formerly legal weapon used by the Pentagon, could have been impetus for surveillance by U.S. agencies — with or without British consent.

Black said if the United States was, in fact, monitoring Diana's conversations without consent from a sister agency in Britain, it "will cause a bit of a spat, not a huge one, but perhaps discussions behind closed doors in Washington."

He added that the British government's response will be a bit more dramatic if it's discovered the U.S. was spying on Diana on U.K. soil.

It isn't know which U.S. agency carried out the alleged phone tapping in France, but Black said that across the American intelligence apparatus, "more than 1,000 pages" are held on the late princess.

But now, the reports of monitoring may become a diplomatic embarrassment, MacVicar reports. With both the British and the French likely to ask what the U.S. was doing and why, for conspiracists, it's given them one more reason to believe that Diana's death was not an accident.

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[Jasonian18]

yes but freedom of speech brings about spammers and idiots like sanity 5 who is clearly insane.

[litestick]

The driver of the white audi was found at the end of a deserted country lane burned to a chrisp inside his car. Doesn't anyone find that odd?

[tiddsanbeer]

WOW!!! READ THE "SAME STORY", ON FOXNEWS.COM. Obvious left slant here. Whenever you see an AP story preceeded by CBS (AP/CBS), rest assured the story gets a left spin 90 percent of the time, that, my friends, IS a fact.

The blueballed posters continue to amaze me with their ignorance and one-sided thinking. For the love of god, can't you people think for yourself?? All the facts aren't even in yet... but Bush gets the blame. SOS, SOS .....

[alphaa10-2009]

janem4 said, "'It appears clinton got the necessary FISA warrants" APPEARS! I just love how the benefit of every doubt is afforded clinton..."
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Clinton either obtained warrants, or he did not-- if this is a matter of evidence, what is your basis for doubt? Yet you completely ignore the statements of your fearless leader, who by comparison is the GOP elephant in the room, concerning his freely-admitted, wholesale defiance of the rule of law in the NSA warrantless spying scandal.

-------------------

"As for the healthy economy, I don't know about you and your family but the economy was going into the tanker at a very fast rate when he left...
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Again, the rewriting of history seems to be your specialty. You do not deny the Clinton record, nor his budget surplus leaving office, so you are hard-pressed to conjure doom as Bush entered office. You are left to hand Clinton the detriment of your intuitive doubts, but that is not the same as evidence. Neither you nor Wall Street analysts can pin what happened under Bush entirely on the Dot-Com implosion, just as Bush cannot be given credit for the housing bubble (which recently burst).

[alphaa10-2009]

Sanity5-- 2
And how apt the election crime of 2000 heralded the worst political criminal ever in American history. Stories about Bush corruption and incompetence started to come out as early as 2001, but reached floodtide by 2006. Of course, all this excites Bush boosters, who insist it simply cannot be true, and that all accusations should be bulldozed into the past. How convenient-- which is also called a state of denial.

Bush continues his reprobate character to this day. Bush freely admits wrongdoing with NSA warrantless spying, prohibited by law, explaining the AUMF gave him dictatorial powers proscribing Constitutional protections and balance of power. As The Decider, Bush dispenses with judicial review altogether. Bush violated the FISA law not a few times, but repeatedly over his years in office, and defied the courts or congress to do anything about his contempt for the rule of law.

Even had Clinton violated FISA with Diana, which is not proven, it bears no comparison to this scofflaw named Bush, the wannabe-president who pushes "democracy" and "freedom" everywhere but at home, and delivers neither

[alphaa10-2009]

sanity5 said, "OMG! IDIOT!!!! To This crazy and all the rest. GET A LIFE! The 2000 election is long gone! And by the way 1996 comes before 2000..."
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Judging by your agitated shouting, you need a grip, and a life, too. Not to mention a dose of history. Because those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

To deny an entire nation its choice for president is nothing short of a crime by any definition under law. Had all the votes in Florida 2000 been counted-- and thousands were lost/omitted in heavily Democratic precincts in an election prematurely declared over (Bush "ahead" by 537 votes!?) by GOP Secretary of State Harris-- Bush would never have blighted this nation with his incompetence and criminal behavior.
.

[sanity5]

OMG! IDIOT!!!! To This crazy and all the rest. GET A LIFE! The 2000 election is long gone! And by the way 1996 comes before 2000.

SEE BELOW THE IDIOT'S COMMENTS....

"If the NSA acted so quickly to deny spying on Di, you know someone was standing on a bare nerve. Having to admit that your government is upside down isn't what you'd call being proud of your government. It's our fault for electing this bunch into power, or did we? Hanging chad, dimpled chad, invented chad, electoral college? Room for thought, reason for doubt? Your call. It is time we changed politicians like good people change underwear, daily, or like others, when it stinks. Give second thought to Ross Perot's accusation that our secret agencies threatened him and his family. Did you say no, before you said maybe/yes? Stay the course.
Posted by bobgraham4 at 02:02 AM : Dec 12, 2006"

[sanity5]

OMG! IDIOT!!!! To This crazy and all the rest. GET A LIFE! The 2000 election is long gone! And by the way 1996 comes before 2000.

SEE BELOW THE IDIOT'S COMMENTS....

"If the NSA acted so quickly to deny spying on Di, you know someone was standing on a bare nerve. Having to admit that your government is upside down isn't what you'd call being proud of your government. It's our fault for electing this bunch into power, or did we? Hanging chad, dimpled chad, invented chad, electoral college? Room for thought, reason for doubt? Your call. It is time we changed politicians like good people change underwear, daily, or like others, when it stinks. Give second thought to Ross Perot's accusation that our secret agencies threatened him and his family. Did you say no, before you said maybe/yes? Stay the course.
Posted by bobgraham4 at 02:02 AM : Dec 12, 2006"

[sanity5]

OMG! IDIOT!!!! To This crazy and all the rest. GET A LIFE! The 2000 election is long gone! And by the way 1996 comes before 2000.

SEE BELOW THE IDIOT'S COMMENTS....

"If the NSA acted so quickly to deny spying on Di, you know someone was standing on a bare nerve. Having to admit that your government is upside down isn't what you'd call being proud of your government. It's our fault for electing this bunch into power, or did we? Hanging chad, dimpled chad, invented chad, electoral college? Room for thought, reason for doubt? Your call. It is time we changed politicians like good people change underwear, daily, or like others, when it stinks. Give second thought to Ross Perot's accusation that our secret agencies threatened him and his family. Did you say no, before you said maybe/yes? Stay the course.
Posted by bobgraham4 at 02:02 AM : Dec 12, 2006"

[jcsats]

The last time I looked this was still America, Land of the Free, which means free speech.If you have a problem with that well then I guess you have a problem because that part of the constitution hasn't been changede yet, thank God!!!