NYT: NSA gave info on thousands to FBI

[deminks]

School teachers and Pizza Huts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy.html?ei=5088&en=f3247d208f184898&ex=1295154000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of foreign-related phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

In response to the F.B.I. complaints, the N.S.A. eventually began ranking its tips on a three-point scale, with 3 being the highest priority and 1 the lowest, the officials said. Some tips were considered so hot that they were carried by hand to top F.B.I. officials. But in bureau field offices, the N.S.A. material continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more "calls to Pizza Hut," one official, who supervised field agents, said.

[bluestateguy]

1. This is how it works

A terrorist calls up to order a pizza (they have to eat too), then the pizza place is bugged, the manager and employees of the pizza place are then bugged, as are all the people who do business with the pizza place. Next thing you know the NSACIAFBI has billions of pieces of data, on almost all innocent people, and the truly bad guys slip through the cracks.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. case closed -- but their names will forever be in a database

and perhaps slipped onto the no fly list?

Once in this endless database -- how does one clear their name?

I just don't trust this bunch of crooks, liars and SOBs.

[f-bush]

3. Welcome to the fourth reich!

As I've said before, we're on that slippery slope. It's critical that the nation wakes up and starts fighting this.