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H06638

Headlines : Civil Liberties

Summary:

Some NSA officials considered the Bush-authorized spying program illegal and refused to participate, according to a former Bush administration official cited by the Times. “Before the 2004 election, the official said, some NSA personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president,” the Times reported.

*Also See: Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts:* The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

*Time-Delayed Journalism: The New York Times and the NSA’s Illegal Spying Operation:* It’s a long, sad decline from what Lowe wrote in 1851 to the disclosure by the New York Times on Friday that it sat for over a year on a story revealing that the Bush administration had sanctioned a program of secret, illegal spying on US citizens here in the Homeland, by the National Security Agency. And when it comes to zeal in protecting the Bill of Rights, between December 22, 1974 and December 16, 2005 it’s been a steady run down hill for the New York Times.

Karen Kwiatkowski: Violating the Constitution: Retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who spent two years at NSA headquartes, discusses the fact that President Bush signed an executive order that allegedly allowed the collection and operational intelligence use of international telephone or electronic mail conversations, even if one or more participants were Americans. She says many questions must be asked and answered, including the most important one: ‘‘Is it right?’‘

[Posted By ShiftShapers]

By Robert Parry
Republished from Consortium News

Bush secretly waived rules restricting electronic surveillance inside the United States, allowing spying on hundreds of Americans that normally would require a court warrant.

The New York Times has disclosed that George W. Bush secretly waived rules restricting electronic surveillance inside the United States, allowing spying on hundreds of Americans that normally would require a court warrant. But almost as stunning was the Times admission that it had held the story for a year.

Indeed, it appears the information about Bush’s secret spy order was leaked before Election 2004, but was kept from the American people because the Bush administration warned Times executives that the story’s publication might endanger national security.

In finally publishing the story on Dec. 16, more than 13 months after President Bush won a second term, the Times gave few details about specifically why it withheld the story in 2004 and then decided to print it now.

The article stated that “the White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting.”

In the final weeks before Election 2004, Bush administration officials might have been nervous, too, that the revelation that Bush had…

[end excerpt]

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Posted by ShiftShapers
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H06638

Spying & the Public's Right to Know

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