WASHINGTON, Aug. 23, 2007
Spy Chief Shares Surveillance Secrets
National Intelligence Director Reveals Previously Classified Details About Foreign Surveillance
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National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told the El Paso Times that the debate about whether to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will cost American lives because of all the information it revealed to terrorists. (APTN)
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Interactive Domestic Surveillance The debate over the Bush administration's controversial wiretapping program.
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Interactive 21st Century Spying The biggest overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community in half a century.
McConnell's comments — made in an interview with the El Paso Times last week and posted as a transcript on the newspaper's Web site Wednesday — raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Among the disclosures:
McConnell's comments were a dramatic departure from the government's normally tight-lipped approach to disclosing any information about how it spies on electronic communications — some of its most sensitive and costly work. The FISA court's activities are particularly protected.
Even as he shed new light on the classified operations, McConnell asserted that the current debate in the U.S. Congress about whether to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will cost American lives because of all the information it revealed to terrorists.
"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.
McConnell was in El Paso, Texas, last week for a conference on border security hosted by House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat. The spy chief joined Reyes for an interview with his local paper.
At the end of the interview, McConnell cautioned reporter Chris Roberts that he should consider whether enemies of the U.S. could gain from the information he just shared in the interview, Roberts said. McConnell left it to the paper to decide what to publish.
McConnell appeared days after the U.S. Congress passed a temporary law to expand the government's ability to monitor suspects in national security investigations without first seeking court approval in certain cases. The highly contentious measure expires in six months.
After Sept. 11, Mr. Bush authorized the terrorist surveillance program to monitor conversations between people in the United States and others overseas when terrorism is suspected. Until January, no warrants were required. But as the Democratic Congress took over, the Bush administration decided to bring the program under the oversight of the FISA court.
McConnell said the court initially ruled that the program was appropriate and legitimate. But when the ruling had to be renewed in the spring, another judge saw the operations differently. This judge, who McConnell did not identify, decided that the government needed a warrant to monitor a conversation between foreigners when the signal traveled on a wire in the U.S. communications network.
McConnell said the government got a temporary stay on the ruling, but it expired at the end of May.
At the same time, the intelligence community was wrapping up years of work on a National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the homeland — an analysis that is considered its most comprehensive judgment. It found the threat was increasing, McConnell noted.
Because he sees FISA as a major tool to keep terrorists out of the country, McConnell said he pressed Congress to change the law.
McConnell's interview raised concerns at the Justice Department, where senior officials questioned whether the intelligence chief had overstepped in discussing the secret FISA court.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse referred questions to McConnell's office, where his spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
More From War On Terror
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 102 CommentsThanks to idiot liberals! They would rather see our service men and women killed and have us lose the war, than admit we are doing the right thing and lose another election.
Good job undermining us, liberals. Thanks to you the terrorists will be in a town near you.
Go ahead idiot, tell us again how you are trying to make this lame connection between the President and nazis, because Hitler used a mock terrorist raid to justify WWII.
Are we all to believe the government staged the twin towers?
Oh, and tell us how many Senators are in Congress. I love this one. J-whitman said we have 110 Senators folks. Yup, this is the left all right.
Want to know why I don ''t debate the ''facts'' with you? You: lie, distort the truth, would say anything to make the President look bad. Now WHY would I want to give you a platform to do that?
When I point these things out - your response is, "liberals are being silenced by the Republicans". Then you spread more lies.
Stay tuned folks, and see what I mean.
USA''s PLEDGE 2 THE WORLD GIVEN BY JFK!!
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961
One ought never to turn one''s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Winston Churchill
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein
Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.
non muslims of the world unite... fight against the tyranny of the fascist nazi terrorslam imperialist empire of the darkside...
I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist
By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair''s bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.
More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570&in_page_id=1770
Bless the Beasts and Children
Fascist nazi terrorslam kills every man woman and child in the village again%u2026 typical mo for terrorslam%u2026
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm
Our Prophet commanded us to fight the kaafirs when we are able and to attack them in their homelands and to give them three choices before we enter their lands: either they become Muslim and be like us, sharing our rights and duties; or they pay the jizyah (poll tax) and feel themselves subdued; or they fight, in which case their wealth, women, children and homes become permissible as booty for the Muslims.
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=13759&ln=eng&txt=before%20islam%20arabia%20pagan
The time has come to end the fascist reign of Bush and his henchmen.
I will see you on September 15 in Washington D.C. at the mass impeachment/anti-war march. If you haven''t made your plans to be there yet please go to sep15.org and impeachbush.org for details on the American peoples first chance to speak and be heard in seven years.
As I have said many times before, the Constitution fails to defend itself, enduring only in the brave hearts of those who would uphold it.
And it needs every brave and loyal American in Washington D.C. on September 15th to uphold, defend, and restore it.
ST
"When everything is secret, everything is legal."
SearingTruth
"We need not debate the existence of our three branches of government, only the punishment for those who would destroy them."
SearingTruth
"The Republican Party is the first political party in American history that proudly and boldly attempted to abolish the Constitution of the United States of America.
And they succeeded.
Under their heinous reign American freedom died, without a whimper.
It is time to reclaim it.
With a roar."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com
FASCIST NAZI TERRORISLAM / PERFECT EXAMPLE OF FASCISM!!!
Fascist nazi terrorislam is intent on killing or enslaving all non muslims......
name one muslim country that grants equal rights to its non muslim citizens...
The most notable characteristic of a fascist country is the separation and persecution or denial of equality to a specific segment of the population based upon superficial qualities or belief systems.
Simply stated, a fascist government always has one class of citizens that is considered superior (good) to another (bad) based upon race, creed or origin. It is possible to be both a republic and a fascist state. The preferred class lives in a republic while the oppressed class lives in a fascist state.
http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/Structure3.htm
it''s austrALia
not austria
that''s what dimwit lars is trying to tell you...in his own a$$inine way.
"If ye love safety greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams
%u201CIt was, as one of his colleagues confirmed, almost a happy day for him when famous buildings were destroyed, because at such time he put into his speeches that ecstatic hatred which aroused the fanaticism...%u201D George Bush after 9/11 (oops, I mean - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister)
http://immigration.museum.vic.
gov.au/origins/history.aspx?id=3
Posted by j-whitman at 03:29 PM : Aug 23, 2007
show me melborne or Melbourne austria on any map...
show me Adelaide austria on any map...
http://immigration.museum.vic.gov.au/origins/history.aspx?id=3
Posted by j-whitman
Yooooooohooooooooo, Whitty the Dumb. Did you know the program existed before the Times leaked it?
Posted by j-whitman at 03:14 PM : Aug 23, 2007
FOX News was founded in Adelaide, Austria, 1979, became incorporated in New York in 1995 under Murdoch..... Adolf Hitler was Austrian
Posted by j-whitman at 03:11 PM : Aug 23, 2007
hahahahahaha
Australian-born American-Australian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
hahahahaha
since when is there an Melborne or an Adelaide in austria
hahahahahaha
---- Bush promoted the political shrub to Director of the CIA
Whitty we all know you are a muslim sympathizer. Trying to prove Fox news and Bush and every ring winger is a Fascist or Hitler is just more Ahmadinejad propoganda. I think you should join the Quds Force and fight for your country. Really Whitty, it''s where you belong. Go with Allah.
Posted by nyckate
But the New York Times can leak them. Sorry, too late.
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