Letter to Senate Intelligence Committee members
TOM MAERTENS
Michael Hayden is about to undergo confirmation hearings.
You are going to hear a lot of blather about how the country is safer and that the administration is "fiercely protecting" Americans' civil liberties.
You might even hear what a brilliant program General Hayden devised to monitor phone calls without a warrant "legally."
Richard Falkenrath, my former colleague at the NSC, asserted in a Washington Post article May 13 that the program instituted by General Hayden is successful, innovative and legal. Armtwisting and browbeating telecommunication companies to turn over records of phone calls to the NSA apparently qualify Hayden to lead the CIA.
Falkenrath uses a curious hypothetical example of how the system may have worked: Mohamed Atta is identified as one end of a daisy chain of phone calls to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, all of which are traced anonymously without violating any laws or the privacy of US citizens.
But the example Falkenrath uses presumes Atta has been identified a priori as a terrorist, the hard part of the daisy chain.
How would the NSA eavesdropping program have initially picked out Mohamed Atta as a terrorist in this example? By his phone calls? Then his phone calls were not anonymized as Falkenrath asserts.
The same techniques used to follow Mohamed Atta's calls could be used against any other citizen who aroused the government's curiosity. Besides, terrorists now use multiple disposable cell phones, the electronic equivalent of one-time pads, for which Hayden's program is useless.
Is Hayden's program legal? Then why did the government refuse to take the program to the FISA court as Qwest requested? Reportedly because of concerns that the court would find it illegal.
Successful? FBI agents have been quoted anonymously as saying the NSA program has wasted enormous amounts of time by sending them down blind alleys instead of pursuing hard leads. The only "success" the government points to from this program is the case of a "terrorist" who was allegedly planning to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch. This is worth the assault on our civil liberties?
From my long experience in Washington anyone who sends a Valentine like Falkenrath's is looking for a job.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has gotten both the CIA and the military, thru the CIFA program, back into domestic spying, and broadened the FBI's mandate to include National Security Letters for use in obtaining bank records, credit card information, library records and anything else they want, without the involvement of the courts.
As you would expect, the first thing some of the new supersleuths have done is spy on domestic protest groups, like vegans, Quakers, environmentalists and — probably — jounalists.
Hayden should be questioned carefully.
Michael Hayden is about to undergo confirmation hearings.
You are going to hear a lot of blather about how the country is safer and that the administration is "fiercely protecting" Americans' civil liberties.
You might even hear what a brilliant program General Hayden devised to monitor phone calls without a warrant "legally."
Richard Falkenrath, my former colleague at the NSC, asserted in a Washington Post article May 13 that the program instituted by General Hayden is successful, innovative and legal. Armtwisting and browbeating telecommunication companies to turn over records of phone calls to the NSA apparently qualify Hayden to lead the CIA.
Falkenrath uses a curious hypothetical example of how the system may have worked: Mohamed Atta is identified as one end of a daisy chain of phone calls to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, all of which are traced anonymously without violating any laws or the privacy of US citizens.
But the example Falkenrath uses presumes Atta has been identified a priori as a terrorist, the hard part of the daisy chain.
How would the NSA eavesdropping program have initially picked out Mohamed Atta as a terrorist in this example? By his phone calls? Then his phone calls were not anonymized as Falkenrath asserts.
The same techniques used to follow Mohamed Atta's calls could be used against any other citizen who aroused the government's curiosity. Besides, terrorists now use multiple disposable cell phones, the electronic equivalent of one-time pads, for which Hayden's program is useless.
Is Hayden's program legal? Then why did the government refuse to take the program to the FISA court as Qwest requested? Reportedly because of concerns that the court would find it illegal.
Successful? FBI agents have been quoted anonymously as saying the NSA program has wasted enormous amounts of time by sending them down blind alleys instead of pursuing hard leads. The only "success" the government points to from this program is the case of a "terrorist" who was allegedly planning to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch. This is worth the assault on our civil liberties?
From my long experience in Washington anyone who sends a Valentine like Falkenrath's is looking for a job.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has gotten both the CIA and the military, thru the CIFA program, back into domestic spying, and broadened the FBI's mandate to include National Security Letters for use in obtaining bank records, credit card information, library records and anything else they want, without the involvement of the courts.
As you would expect, the first thing some of the new supersleuths have done is spy on domestic protest groups, like vegans, Quakers, environmentalists and — probably — jounalists.
Hayden should be questioned carefully.
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1 Comments:
Yes, Hayden should be questioned closely. Every question should address the fact that Bush has no credibility and no confidence. The biggest strike against Hayden, IMHO, is who appointed him. But ex-Senator Bob Graham is backing him, and I cannot think of anything Graham has said in the last six years that I have disagreed with.
So, I guess, that's good enough for me.
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