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US Judge allows legal challenge of warrantless wiretapping

January 7, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Pete Seda, fmr head of Al-Haramain

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 had been 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). However, the presiding Judge, Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, ruled that the lawsuit rested on a classified document that Al-Haramain’s lawyers were not supposed to have access to in the first place. He therefore dismissed the case and ordered the Islamic charity’s legal team to return the document to the FBI. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Al-Haramain, communications interception, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, News, warrantless communications interception

Journalist talks about revealing NSA program whistleblower

December 18, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek investigative correspondent who authored the recent article about Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower of NSA’s domestic spying program, has given an interview to Democracy Now. Isikoff, who wrote the article with Tamm’s consent, states in the interview that “Tamm’s lawyers have been told that US Department of Justice officials [are going to leave] the decision on whether to prosecute [Tamm] to the Obama Justice Department”. 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, Eric Lichtblau, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, James Risen, News, NSA, OIPR, operation STELLAR WIND, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas M. Tamm, United States, US Department of Justice, warrantless communications interception, whistleblowing

Whistleblower who disclosed NSA domestic spying program comes forth

December 15, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Exactly three years ago, New York Times journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed NSA’s domestic warrantless spying program, which was secretly authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. Nearly a dozen undisclosed insiders helped the two journalists unravel the NSA scheme. But the initial tip came from what Lichtblau describes in his book, Bush’s Law, as a “walk-in” source with intimate knowledge of the US intelligence community’s practices. That “walk-in” source has now come forth. His name is Thomas M. Tamm, a former US Justice Department official who held a Sensitive Compartmented Security clearance (“a level above Top Secret”) issued by the US government. Read more of this post

Analysis: Obama urged to get to bottom of NSA warrantless wiretap scheme

December 15, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Patrick Keefe, Century Foundation fellow and author of Chatter: Uncovering the Echelon Surveillance Network and the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, has published an editorial in The New York Times urging US Congress and President-Elect Barack Obama to engage in a “thorough course correction on domestic surveillance”. Keefe describes the post-9/11 enhancement of the domestic wiretapping powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) as a direct violation of “one of the signature prohibitions of the post-Watergate era”, which allowed the US government to turn “its formidable eavesdropping apparatus on its own citizens”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, Barack Obama, domestic intelligence, Jack Goldsmith, John Ashcroft, NSA, Patrick Keefe, United States, warrantless communications interception

Rift between CIA and Obama transition team continues

December 10, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

During the past several weeks we have been reporting that US President-Elect Barack Obama’s plans for the CIA have “created anxiety in the ranks of the agency’s clandestine service”, as the The New York Times put it. The Agency has effectively warned Obama a that he “may have difficulty finding a candidate who can be embraced by both veteran officials at the agency and the left flank of the Democratic Party”. It is believed that Obama is trying to alleviate the agency’s “anxiety” by proposing to retain the CIA’s current leadership. On Tuesday the Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Rees of Texas, was enlisted by the CIA to pressure Obama to “keep the country’s current national intelligence director and CIA chief in place for some time to ensure continuity in US intelligence programs”. Read more of this post