NSA whistle-blower threatens to reveal all...Washington Times

[Sancho]

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com
NSA whistleblower asks to testify

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 5, 2006
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A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA.
"I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times.
The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government.
President Bush said Sunday that the NSA spying is "a necessary program" aimed at finding international terrorists by tracking phone numbers linked to al Qaeda.
Mr. Bush said during a visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio that al Qaeda is "making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why."
Critics of the eavesdropping program, which gathered and sifted through large amounts of telephone and e-mail to search for clues to terrorists' communications, say the activities might have been illegal because they were carried out without obtaining a FISA court order.
The Justice Department has said the program is legal under presidential powers authorized by Congress in 2001.
Mr. Tice said yesterday that he was not part of the intercept program.
In his Dec. 16 letter, Mr. Tice wrote that his testimony would be given under the provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it legal for intelligence officials to disclose wrongdoing without being punished.
The activities involved the NSA director, the NSA deputies chief of staff for air and space operations and the secretary of defense, he stated.
"These ... acts were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs," Mr. Tice said.
The letters were sent to Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican. Mr. Roberts is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Mr. Hoekstra is chairman of the House counterpart.
Spokesmen for the NSA and the Senate intelligence committee declined to comment. Spokesmen for the House intelligence committee and the DIA said they were aware of Mr. Tice's letters, but had not seen formal copies of them.


Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright The Washington Times

[SpiralHawk]

1. Messages to the NeoCon Repbulicans: Stop spying on American citizens

We don't need no stinking Big Brother spying on us.

[zbdent]

2. Moonie must feel that there's some Clinton "job" that the whistle-blower

will finger, or else he wouldn't approve of running the story . . .

[OKNancy]

3. Good Morning Sancho

One of our rules on DU is that we only post a maximum of four paragraphs, and never the whole article. This rule is for copyright reasons.

Please edit your post down by about half. You will find the edit button on the lower right of your original post.

Thank You
OK Nancy
LBN Moderator

[Sancho]

5. Cool....4 paragraphs...sorry

Edit time was expired...

[Lerkfish]

4. ya know, since congress will do nothing, I wonder why we cant just have

whistleblowers tell their stories directly to the american people? I know, gag orders and all that, but is the president himself honoring any laws on the books?

[Delphinus]

17. I know, Lerkfish.

They should bypass Congress, who won't listen to them anyway and, even if they do won't take any action, and come straight to the American people. Let us take the actions necessary.

[JNelson6563]

6. Wow! The Moonie Times wrote this?

What next? Faux News?? Where's a Freeper to turn?

[JPZenger]

7. Molly Ivins' Great Column

Molly Ivins new column on the scandal is great:

About "... once again getting it wrong: "I can say that if somebody from al-Qaida's calling you, we'd like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program ... I repeat, limited. And it's limited to calls from outside the United States, to calls within the United States."

So then the White House had to go back and explain that, well, no, actually, the National Security Agency's domestic spying program is not limited to calls from outside the United States, or to calls from people known or even suspected of being with al-Qaida. Turns out thousands of Americans and resident foreigners have been or are being monitored and recorded by the NSA. It's more like information-mining, which is what, you may recall, the administration said it would not do. But now Bush has to investigate The New York Times because Bush has been breaking the law, you see?

...The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is not a hindrance to tracking down al-Qaida -- every objection to its requirements is easily refuted. So Bush breaks a law he didn't remotely need to and then denounces anyone who discusses this as helping the enemy. Come on. It's so stupid. The choice is not between a police state and another al-Qaida attack. (Speaking of disingenuous, if you wanted to make this country safer from terrorist attack, you'd do a lot better to trade in the NSA spy program for some sensible precautions at chemical plants, or making the Department of Homeland Security into something resembling an effective agency.)

...Bolton ... called on the NSA 10 times to identify sources he wanted the names of, presumably in connection with NSA's shamelessly undercover spying on the United Nations just before the Iraq War started."

[oasis]

8. Bolton should be called to testify before Arlen Spector's committee. (eom)

[druidity33]

9. link please?

would love to read the whole thing...

[msmcghee]

12. Link please . . .

This column is not at Molly's usual place.

[Stevepol]

13. Here's a link for Ivins' article:

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2006/1290

[Roland99]

10. "Gertzie, you're doing a heckuva job" (albeit two weeks late)

This is old news, eh?

I remember reading about Tice not long after the NSA spying story broke. Good to see ol' Gertz is Johnny-on-the-spot!

[merwin]

11. I think the NYT sat on the info for a year because they didn't want

another Rather incident that would ruin the credibility of the newspaper. Looks like they waited for other confirmation before running the story.

[wordpix]

14. more popcorn, this movie will last all year at least

[ddeclue]

16. Sounds like a Grisham novel...

[texpatriot2004]

15. Thank you Mr. Tice for speaking truth to corrupt power. nm

[The_Casual_Observer]

18. How long before it is reported that Tice believes in UFOs?

And is implicated in an underage sex scandal?

[seemslikeadream]

19. "Tice was interviewed on Democracy Now. He confirms "police state.""

Here is Amy Goodman's interview with this NSA whistleblower, Russ Tice:


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/03/1435201

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006
National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a “Police State”


Former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice condemns reports that the Agency has been engaged in eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants. Tice has volunteered to testify before Congress about illegal black ops programs at the NSA. Tice said, “The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state."


We turn now to the growing controversy over President Bush’s decision to order the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens inside the country without the legally required court warrants. Bush’s decision was first revealed in the New York Times in mid-December. The Times published the expose after holding the story for more than a year under pressure from the White House. The paper reportedly first uncovered the illegal order prior to the 2004 election. When the editors at the Times decided last month to go ahead with the article, President Bush personally summoned the paper’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and executive editor, Bill Keller, to the Oval Office in an attempt to talk them out of running the story. Since the story broke, calls for Congressional hearings and the possible impeachment of the president have intensified. Conservative legal experts have even admitted Bush may have committed an impeachable offense by ordering the NSA to break the law.
On Sunday, the New York Times revealed there was dissent within the upper echelon of the Bush administration over the legality of the president’s order. According to the Times, Attorney General John Ashcroft's top deputy, James Comey, refused to sign on to the continuation of the secret program in 2004 amid concerns about its legality and oversight. At the time, Comey was serving in place of then Attorney General John Ashcroft while Ashcroft was hospitalized for a medical condition. Comey’s refusal prompted senior Presidential aides Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to visit Ashcroft in his hospital room to grant the approval. The Times reports Ashcroft expressed reluctance to sign on to the program. It is unclear if he eventually relented. Both Ashcroft and Comey’s concerns appear to have led to a temporary suspension of parts of the program for several months. But the administration has repeatedly defended its actions.

[stop the bleeding]

21. And I missed this from - Arrgghhhh! I love DNow - note to self please

get head out of sand.

Thanks for the update, I can't wait for more people to step forward.

[donkeyotay]

20. Is free speech and free thought a military threat now?

"The activities involved the NSA director, the NSA deputies chief of staff for air and space operations and the secretary of defense, he stated."

The sec. of defense is RRRumsfeld, of course.
The NSA director was Lt. Gen Michael V. Hayden
and the NSA deputies chief of staff for air and space operations is, (if I followed all the deputies correctly) Dennis H. Alvey:

Dennis H. Alvey, a member of the Senior Intelligence Executive Service, is executive director of the Air Intelligence Agency, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. In this position, he assists the commander in reviewing, evaluating and formulating policies, concepts and objectives governing the mission of the globally dispersed field operating agency. AIA's mission is to gain, exploit, defend and attack information to ensure superiority in the air, space and information domains. The agency's 16,000 people worldwide deliver flexible collection, tailored air and space intelligence, weapons monitoring and information warfare products and services.

http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/e-security/TIPC/sipac/sipac_exec.htm

I also came across a good fas link with lots of stuff about this "information warfare," that apparently includes waging war against American citizen's right to have incorrect thoughts.

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/wsii/037GZ005DOC.htm

[paulthompson]

24. thanks

for the links. :)

[NightOwwl]

22. I wish he would go straight to the media.

Give the info to every paper/news program in the country, I would hope that some of them would have the guts to publish the info.

Going to congress is admirable, but I'm afraid his testimony would never see the light of day.

[maryallen]

27. Tice has already got the FBI following him;

That's what he reported on Democracy Now last night.

[paulthompson]

23. ABC News picks the story up...

Here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1474571

It seems all they did was read the Washington Times!

I should mention that I posted all the information contained in both stories in the form of a press release from Sibel Edmonds' whistleblower group at DU a week ago. However, the DU moderators quickly locked the thread, saying it was not latest breaking news. If you want to know more about this, do a DU archive search of Russ Tice's name, because all these stories are are the media FIIIInally picking up on some information mentioned word for word in that very same press release.

[xxqqqzme]

25. and congress sits on its fat health

care, pension provided asses and will do NOTHING while the power possessed puppet gets away w/ whatever the hell he wants. Whatever these evil, petty dickless wonders can dream up and implement is just fine and dandy with congress.

[redqueen]

26. Think anybody's worried?

I mean we are assuming congress will act with integrity here.

We all saw that not happen pretty spectacularly with the 9/11 investigation.

I love the wording... "might have been illegal"... ugh.

[Amonester]

28. NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying

NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying
By BRIAN ROSS

~snip~

Jan 10, 2006 — Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.

For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.

Watch the full report on Nightline at 11:35 p.m. ET.

...

Tice Admits Being a New York Times Source
President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants.

But Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1491889



Edit: mixed up 2 pages (sorry)