Judge Walker
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Ever since September 2004, when they were taken to court accused of terrorist links by the US government, the directors of Al-Haramain, a Saudi-based Islamic charity with offices in Oregon and Missouri, have suspected their telephones were tapped under the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Their suspicions were confirmed last July, when US government prosecutors mistakenly gave the charity’s legal team a classified document showing that the FBI had indeed tapped the group’s office phones. The group’s legal team used the classified document as a basis to sue the Bush Administration, claiming that warrantless wiretapping violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). On January 5, 2009, the presiding Judge, Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, ruled that Al-Haramain’s legal challenge of the legality of the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping scheme could indeed go ahead. Moreover, he asked the US government “to consider declassifying the secret evidence” relating to Al-Haramain’s prosecution. It has now emerged that the Bush Administration wrote to Judge Walker asking him to reverse his ruling. The communication (.pdf) was apparently dispatched to Judge Walker at 10:56 p.m. on Monday, January 19, 2009 –that is, 64 minutes prior to the end of the Administration’s last full day in power. In the filing, Judge Walker is pressed to reverse his January 5 decision and prevent the disclosure of the secret evidence he has requested the government to provide. The next hearing for the case has been scheduled for this coming Friday.
intelNews.org 
NSA whistleblower reveals routine spying on American media
January 23, 2009 1 Comment
Russell Tice
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Russell Tice, an analyst with the National Security Agency (NSA) until 2005, was among several inside sources who in 2005 helped The New York Times reveal NSA’s warrantless spying program. A few months earlier, Tice had been fired by the NSA after he started to investigate a suspicious communications-monitoring program he was involved in. The last time Mr. Tice spoke publicly about his experience at the NSA was in 2006. He then waited until the Bush Administration was out of the White House before he made any more revelations. Hours after Barack Obama’s inauguration, Tice surfaced again, this time giving an interview to MSNBC’s Keith Olberman. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bush Administration, data mining, domestic intelligence, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, government secrecy, intelligence oversight, News, NSA, operation STELLAR WIND, Russell Tice, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas M. Tamm, United States, US Department of Justice, warrantless communications interception, whistleblowing