NSA to turn over non-spy tech to private industry
6.7.00   Vernon Loeb Wash.Post pA29

NSA's "plan to hand over the bulk of its information technology support systems to industry may face hurdles on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have shown reluctance to approve large-scale outsourcing contracts that take away thousands of government jobs … 'Project Groundbreaker,' officially announced 6.7.00, help agency become more efficient by tapping into the private sector technology expertise."

Super-secret NSA transitioning to commercial services model
10.21.99   Diane Frank Fed. Computer Week

Mike Jacobs, NSA deputy director of information systems, told the National Information Systems Security Conference on 20 October 1999 that the agency "is breaking away from its traditional role of building 'black boxes' for encrypting highly classified information" in favor of offering "security assessment, testing, red teams and diagnostics services to other Defense and civilian agencies." According to 10.22.99 Defense Information & Electronics Report, "NSA To Spend More On R&D To Protect Future Networks," Jacobs also told the conference that NSA "has significantly increased its spending on research and development projects aimed at protecting the nation's critical information infrastructures."

Finding the Secret To Downsizing?
NSA moves workers to private sector
9.29.98   Vernon Loeb Wash.Post pA15

NSA playing IT catch-up
12.6.99   Fed. Computer Week p1
B.Brewin D.Verton & Wm Matthews

House panel ties NSA funds to agency changes
report urges strategic business planning
5.7.98   Walter Pincus Wash.Post pA21

"The House intelligence committee threatened yesterday to withhold funds from the $4 billion NSA unless the worldwide eavesdropping organization makes 'very large changes'in its 'culture and methods of operation' … also called on CIA Director to take a more active role in managing the overall intelligence community budget of about $27 billion."

Congress Pushes Intelligence Reform
5.10.00   Dan Verton Fed. Computer Week

"NSA System Inoperative for 4 Days"
1.30.00 & Walter Pincus WashPost pA2

natsec hubris
NSA blackout reveals downside of secrecy
3.13.00   David IgnatiusL.A.Times
Where We Can't Snoop
4.17.00   Bob Drogin WashPost pA21

The Intelligence Gap
How the Digital Age Left Our Spies Out in the Cold 12.6.99   Seymour Hersh The New Yorker p58

Biggest U.S. spy agency choking on too much information
11.25.99   David Ensor CNN

Information Age Poses New Challenges to Intelligence
10.98   Robt K. Ackerman Signal p23-25

S.L.E.E.P.   Diane Alden
Spies, lies, ECHELON, economics & people

An aggressive surveillance operation against key U.N. Security Council delegates as part of the Bush administration's campaign to win approval for its planned invasion of Iraq per 1.31.03 NSA memo leaked to the British newspaper The Observer
It orders staff to intercept phone calls & e-mail messages from Security Council delegates who have not yet indicated their position on the Iraq situation. The spy agency, according to the report, is "mounting a surge" designed not only to provide information on how countries such as Mexico, Guinea, Chile, and Angola intend to vote on a second Iraq resolution, but also to reveal "policies," "negotiating positions," "alliances" and "dependencies", the "whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises."

The memorandum was circulated by NSA Regional Targets section chief of staff Frank Koza, which monitors countries of strategic importance to U.S. Koza suggests that both office & home phones of U.N. delegates be bugged and orders staff to also "pay attention to existing non-U.N. Security Council Member U.N.-related and domestic comms [office & home telephones] for anything useful related to Security Council deliberations."
The surveillance operation, requested by Bush's National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, comes at a time when the administration is fiercely lobbying Security Council members to support its invasion plans.

Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members
3.2.03   M.Bright, E.Vulliamy, P.Beaumont The Observer

… The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN NY HQ, so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia.
The memo is directed at senior NSA officials and advises them that the agency is 'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies', the 'whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'.

Dated 1.31.03, the memo was circulated 4 days after the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441. … Koza specifies that the information will be used for the US's 'QRC', Quick Response Capability, 'against' the key delegations.
… Koza also addresses himself to the foreign agency, saying: 'We'd appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar more indirect access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines [ie, intelligence sources].' Koza makes clear it is an informal request at this juncture, but adds: 'I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels.'

Disclosure of the US operation comes in the week that Blix will make what many expect to be his final report to the Security Council. It also comes amid increasingly threatening noises from the US towards undecided countries on the Security Council who have been warned of the unpleasant economic consequences of standing up to the US.
Sources in Washington familiar with the operation said last week that there had been a division among Bush admin officials over whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign with some warning of the serious consequences of discovery.

Language & content of the memo were judged to be authentic by 3 former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer. We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets section of the organisation.
The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the UN, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous extension, and hung up.

While many diplomats at the UN assume they are being bugged, the memo reveals for the first time scope & scale of US communications intercepts targeted against NY based missions. Disclosure comes at a time when diplomats from the countries have been complaining about the outright 'hostility' of US tactics in recent days to persuade then to fall in line, incl threats to economic & aid packages.
The operation appears to have been spotted by rival organisations in Europe. 'The Americans are being very purposeful about this,' said a source at a European intelligence agency when asked about the US surveillance efforts.

Intl Treaty on Cybercrime sounds like great idea until you read the fine print
3.21.01   Mike Godwin Cryptome

Echelon Panel Calls It a Day
6.21.01 Steve Kettmann Wired News ¹

"It's very common with this kind of committee for the chairman to go and ask for another year, and a third year, and so on and so on," he said this week. "We will fulfill our mandate. A lot of people said we were not going to deal with this seriously, that we would be trying too hard to avoid disputes between member states. A lot of people said we wouldn't approve anything." Based on media accounts, Coelho has a point. An article last July in the German online publication Telepolis quoted outraged Green Party members calling the committee a "toothless talking shop." But Ilka Schroeder, a German Green Party member of the Echelon committee, says there can be no doubt about the overall value of the committee, which made headlines with testimony from a number of high-profile witnesses. She expects the committee's report -- which will be sent to the U.S. once it is finalized -- to be influential. "I think it's very good that the report states clearly that Echelon exists, so the work we've done is not in vain," she said. "There were parts of the media that said this Echelon doesn't exist at all. So we are making a political point here.
"What we got from the committee's work is that the proper monitoring of secret services is just not possible, because by definition it is secret, and it covers its tracks." The 113-page report drafted by Rapporteur Gerhard Schmid may lumber along at times, but there is a scope and scale and seriousness to the effort that can help anyone bone up on the subject. Although bootlegged copies have been obtained by various media outlets, the actual document has been right there on the Internet for weeks now (PDF file). The resolution, among other things, calls on the UN secretary general to push for Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to be updated so that it "guarantees the protection of privacy, into line with technical innovations."

It also calls on the U.S. to sign this "Additional Protocol," so that individuals can submit complaints to the Human Rights Committee "set up under the Covenant." It also calls on the American Civil Liberties Union and other NGOs to "exert pressure on the U.S. administration to that end." The committee sometimes refers to the system known as Echelon because that may or may not still be the name used by the govts who operate it. They include the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Author James Bamford explains in Body of Secrets that the National Security Agency created software in the 1970s to sort through the voluminous information coming in from listening posts around the world, and dubbed the software Echelon. Coelho, a smiling, modest fellow who seems to take pride in keeping a low profile, made clear this week where he stands on the question of purported U.S. industrial espionage. His meaning was unmistakable, even if he kept his language somewhat vague. "If you have a tool, and you can gain an advantage from using that tool, and no one is going to control your use of this tool, are you going to use it?
"It's a matter of morality. But sometimes at the international level, morality is not the consideration." Talking in his Brussels office, he pauses to let the words register. But when asked to get more specific, he switches back to politico speak, just as easily as he slips into his native Portuguese when he takes a phone call. "I have to accept that there is a risk of using these networks for bad purposes." But Coehlo is not shy about expressing an opinion when aroused. He remains shocked the U.S. would snub a visiting delegation to Washington, the way many felt it did last month when previously arranged meetings with officials of several different U.S. agencies were canceled at the last minute.

"They slammed the door in our faces," he said this week. "I hope in our recommendations we say something about how in this age of globalization, you realize the need to regulate world markets at the international level, for example, through the World Trade Organization. "You have rules to oblige countries to compete in a legitimate and fair way. Something is missing in the international framework to protect against industrial espionage."

Development of surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information
1.14.98   STOA Study EUParliament

U.S. Eyes Europe's Echelon Probe
7.6.00   Steve Kettmann Wired

Coelho was at pains to assure Americans that the committee's expected year-long investigation springs from a groundswell of public concern in Europe. Since Campbell delivered his report on Echelon to the European Parliament last fall, he said, the topic of alleged U.S. spying on European businesses has been thrashed around in public at length. "There was huge debate in European Union countries," he said. "Everybody is very worried this system can work without being under the law, without being under judicial mandates, and it can be a kind of attack on privacy. They are worried that there are European enterprises in the situation of having unfair chances because of this system. For us, America is a friend. We know how important U.S. is for security. If you want the ideological point of view, we are not communists. We want the market economy and the free society like the Americans want. This is not a fight about that. What we have on our hands is a problem about how far can the systems of interception of telecommunications go."
German webzine Telepolis reported Dutch minister of Justice Benk Korthals recently said even without definitive proof of spying, steps should be taken against it. He added that Germany & France "are not innocent little children either," a suggestion many interpreted as an indirect accusation that those countries also use tech listening devices to intercept the communications of other countries' citizens. Telepolis reported in March that former CIA Dir. James Woolsey confirmed at least some of European concerns were valid and U.S. does intercept communications in Europe to keep abreast of potential economic bribery. "We have spied on that in the past," Woolsey said. "I hope ... U.S. govt continues to spy on bribery." … "I don't believe for a moment the Parliament will do anything more than cloak this," said NY privacy activist John Young who operates an online database that has publicized the Echelon system. "Watch for hearings that don't go anywhere, just like the hearings in U.S. earlier this year. It's interesting that the U.S. still won't own up, except Woolsey or someone like that," Young said. "So far as I know, no official of the U.S. govt has admitted this damn thing exists. That's interesting to me. It doesn't seem to be grabbing Americans very much, which I guess makes sense since they think it doesn't apply to them. But the sleeper issue is what other forms of Echelon are there for surveying Americans." …

Wash. D.C.   2 prominent European Parliament officials are canceling the rest of their trip to Washington, D.C., and returning to Europe after the State & Commerce Depts, as well as the CIA & NSA, rebuffed their efforts to learn more about the Echelon spy system. U.S. input will be lacking, therefore, in an upcoming report the EU Parliament intends to release later this month regarding Echelon. The controversial intelligence network is capable of intercepting telephone & e-mail traffic across the world. "We are very disappointed by the last-minute reluctance of CIA & NSA to meet our delegation in spite of the advance preparations that had been made," said Carlos Coelho, EU Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System chair. "As a result, we are cutting short our visit to Washington and returning to Europe immediately."

Coelho said that the officials received a warmer welcome in Congress, where they met with House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., & Ranking Democrat Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The delegation also met with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) & the Electronic Privacy Information Ctr to discuss Echelon, global surveillance system supposedly run by the NSA in tandem with UK, Canada, Australia & New Zealand. Coelho said the committee was designed to gather information on "a number of allegations about existence & impact of Echelon on EU citizens" …

Coelho in testimony before the Intelligence Committee said " … political implications must be drawn from the cancellation of so many important meetings at the last minute." … that surveillance systems can be important defenses against terrorism & other criminal action, but "growing number of allegations suggest Echelon is not only used for legitimate purposes. … told by industries & private companies spied upon through satellite interception & other means, that industrial strategies have been deciphered … markets lost as result of economic espionage," he said. "At the same time, after several months work, I must say that we have no hard evidence to support such claims at this stage."
[ No corpse, no crime. ]

Euros Continue Echelon Probe
4.24.01   Declan McCullagh Wired

Last June, European parliament created temporary committee to investigate how extensive Echelon system, operated by U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand, was, and whether it had been used to spy upon & give American firms an advantage in intl business decisions. In November 2000, Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System organized meetings to learn extent of Echelon's capabilities. Report scheduled to be finished by this June or July. Dietl said that, during most of the hearings, spies and other intelligence analysts presented an uncritical view of Echelon, and it was only in the "last few weeks" that critics were given an opportunity to testify. "I think we can be quite happy with what we found out," Dietl said. "At one point it looked like we would find nothing at all. We were disappointed with the special statute, which gives the members almost no power."

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Wash.DC "It's a very important step," said Rotenberg, who has a meeting scheduled with committee members. "It's a proactive effort by govt officials to address problem of intl surveillance." European Parliament mandate that created committee to consider whether Europeans' privacy rights are being violated, and "whether European industry is put at risk by the global interception of communications." NSA general counsel Robert Deitz said in 1999 that: "I wish to make clear that the agency does not violate the Constitution or the laws of the U.S. NSA operates under the eyes of Congress, the executive branch and the judiciary, and an extensive oversight system regulates & limits its activities."

NSA, however, refused to provide certain documents to the House Intelligence Committee, resulting in an unusual public tiff. Chairman Porter J. Goss R-FL wrote in a committee report that NSA's rationale for withholding the legal memoranda was "recently, and perhaps for the first time in the committee's history, an Intelligence Community element of the U.S. Govt asserted a claim of attorney-client privilege as a basis for withholding documents from the committee's review. Similarly, various agencies within the Intelligence Community have asserted, with disturbing frequency, a 'deliberative process' or 'pre-decisional' argument as a basis for attempting to keep requested documents from the committee's scrutiny. These claims are unpersuasive &dubious. … NSA General Counsel's claim of a 'govt attorney-client privilege.' The claim was made on behalf of the Director of the NSA, and the NSA, corporately. Shortly thereafter, the committee was again advised by a NSA representative, at a budget hearing concerning the NSA's fiscal year 2000 budget request, that the agency was working on the document request, but that some documents would not be made available because of the operation of the attorney-client privilege."

"During addtl conversations with NSA General Counsel's Office employees, the Committee reminded the NSA lawyers of the agency's statutory obligations under section 502 of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended. That statute provides, in pertinent part, that the heads of all Intelligence Community elements are obligated to furnish 'any information or material concerning intelligence activities … which is requested by either of the intelligence committees in order to carry out its authorization responsibilities.' 50 USC Sec. 413a(2). These admonitions to the NSA about its responsibilities under the law were met by the argument that 'common law privileges,' i.e., the attorney-client privilege, survive even mandatory and unambiguous statutory language in the absence of express language to the contrary. NSA General Counsel's Office contended, therefore, that its legal opinions, decisional memoranda, and policy guidance, all of which govern operations & mechanisms of that federal agency, are free from scrutiny by Congress. This would result in the envelopment of the executive in a cloak of secrecy that would insulate the executive branch from effective oversight.

"John Tritak, director of the administration's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, said that the Fidnet plan has not been approved by President Clinton and is still undergoing legal review by the Justice Dept and White House's chief counselor for privacy, Peter Swire." Reuters

Plan not yet released to the public but leaked on-line by Wayne Madsen of the Intelligence Newsletter, and subsequently covered by NY Times, Wired, and other news outlets, calls for one software system to watch activity on non-military government networks and a separate system to track the banking, telecommunications and transportation industries. A host of new monitoring agencies with a whole new can of alphabet soup names and acronyms is also called for.

FISA Court & OIPR
martial law USA PATRIOT Act Military Commissions Act Nixon origin Rense

Public Law #105-272 signed into law by President Clinton. One of the few protesting was Georgia Rep. Bob Barr. The new law makes it possible for the FBI to have basically unrestricted wiretapping ability. At one time each wiretap had to be approved by a court order; no more. The new wiretap laws allow the government carte blanche under some perceived emergency" as determined by the Attorney General without a court order. This has effectively shifted the power from the judiciary to the executive branch thus profoundly damaging what used to be called the "separation of powers."
"Roving wiretaps are a major expansion of current government surveillance power," said Ctr for Democracy & Technology staff counsel Alan Davidson in Wash.DC. "To take a controversial provision that affects the fundamental constitutional liberties of the people and pass it behind closed doors shows a shocking disregard for our democratic process." Yet the Congress has oversight of these alphabet agencies, but continues to hand out blank checks whenever anyone screams "national security."
1995 establishment of another secret court by Congress and the Clinton administration, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Just like it's brother court the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, it is based on statist political philosophy which creates the climate for secret courts, illegal surveillance, and prosecution flying in the face of the 4th Amendment. Part of the Bill of Rights, which guarantees that citizens will not be subject to government abuse even in the name of a cause deemed worthy by said government.

S.L.E.E.P. Spies, Lies, Echelon, Economics, & People Diane Alden

U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) which restricts govt surveillance related to terrorist investigations, was massaged considerably during the Millennium rollover to enable quick and dirtywiretaps of US residents who would otherwise have been beyond the FBI's authority, National Commission on Terrorism chair Paul Bremer revealed during testimony before Senate Intelligence Committee. Bremmer would like the slack FISA standards in use during the Millennium period, during which every manner of terrorist attack had been envisaged, to become permanent. Commission's written report, "Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism", states "during period leading up to the Millennium, the FISA application process was streamlined. Without lowering the FISA standards, applications were submitted to the FISA Court by DoJ promptly and with enough information to establish probable cause.", a lot of official, soft-pedal rubbish. Commission member Juliette Kayyem replied to Bremmer that it would be "a terrible mistake to permit the FBI to wiretap any American who was at one time, no matter how long ago, a member of an organisation that we now have deemed to be 'terrorist.'

7.11.00   Thomas Greene The Register

… Throughout most the 20th century, U.S. presidents unilaterally authorized warrantless national security wiretaps and even physical searches; neither the courts nor Congress played any significant role. In 1978 in response to abuses by Exec. Branch and new interpretations by Judicial branch, Congress passed and President Carter signed FISA, Public Law 95-511, 50 U.S.C. §1801 et seq. … 3 criteria …

• application requested by auth. govt officer and contains all necessary certifications.
• probable cause to believe target of the electronic surveillance is working for a foreign power and that the places to be "surveilled" are being used by the foreign power.
• proposed order complies with FISA's requirements for minimizing acquisition, retention, dissemination, and disclosure of information.

In the Los Alamos investigation, the FBI tried to get a FISA order for surveillance or a physical search of scientist Wen-Ho Lee, but the Justice Dept refused to go to a FISC judge because the Dept did not believe that the FBI's evidence was sufficient to meet FISA's statutory requirements for "U.S. persons". … wrangling between the FBI and OIPR … allegations FBI submitted to OIPR to show that there was, indeed, "probable cause" to apply for an order. … FBI Dir. Louis Freeh believed there was probable cause. The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) said "the Justice Dept may be applying the FISA in a manner that is too restrictive, particularly given evolution of very sophisticated counterintelligence threat and ongoing revolution in information systems." PFIAB chair, former Sen. Warren Rudman, called DoJ's reading of FISA "one of the most baffling" parts of the Chinese espionage story. Energy Sec. Bill Richardson seems to agree with these conclusions.
… In judging "probable cause" with respect to "U.S. persons", essential to remember that the greatest threats to U.S. secrets come from those very same "U.S. persons" who have access to top secret information. FISA must be interpreted within the context of this hard fact. From 1966 through April 1998, U.S. charged 98 persons with espionage, 80 of whom were U. S. citizens, and at least 4 of whom were permanent resident aliens. These 84 persons are "U.S. persons" under FISA. Non-resident aliens, even those from hostile countries, are not the primary problem in espionage and counter-intelligence. Indeed, it may be rare for America's top secrets ever to be lost to espionage through the lone acts of an alien. In the 98 espionage cases from the past 3 decades, whenever an alien was arrested for espionage in the U.S., the alien was only a courier, a handler, or some other intermediary between the American traitor and his foreign master. U.S. citizens accounted for 82% of all arrests for espionage (80 of 98), but they probably accounted for 100% of all secrets stolen. And, of course, the most valuable & deadly secrets all were sold by U.S. citizens.

Planned INS student probes blocked ¹
Universities lobbied fiercely against in-depth checks
3.16.02   James V. Grimaldi Wash.Post

INS officials say the delayed letters to the Florida flight school illustrate problem already being fixed. They say an improved computer tracking system for foreign students will allow agency to clear up embarrassing backlog of visas & other foreign student records. But INS critics say that misses the point: They say that Atta & Al-Shehhi would never have made it into the U.S. if the INS had more thoroughly checked their finances & overseas residences. "They aren't doing anything to expand the level of sophistication," said a current INS official familiar with the student visa program. "They aren't collecting more information. They aren't making it proactive." The student visa system has been considered inefficient & inaccurate for more than 15 years. In 1994, a year after the first WTC bombing, then-FBI Dir. Louis J. Freeh warned of need to subject foreign students to "thorough & continuous scrutiny." Upgraded student visa program launched in 1995 after an INS memo outlined vulnerabilities posed by would-be terrorists entering the country as students.

In 1996, Congress ordered INS to set up Internet-based pilot system to be implemented nationwide in 2003, and a test project was begun with 21 schools & colleges in the South. Colleges are usually the first point of contact for foreign students seeking permission to enter U.S. Task force representing INS, FBI, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency was put together; it recommended information on student's I-20 visa application be shared among federal agencies. Some students, the task force said, should be referred for deeper investigation. For example, an applicant who came from a country known to sponsor terrorists, or has traveled to such a country, might be referred for further scrutiny.
[ Atta & others easily circumvented this element of immigration records by claiming they lost passports which allowed new ID to be issued expunged of visas from suspect nations. ]

Program recommended by task force would have instantly transmitted student bank account numbers to Financial Center of Treasury Dept, which can screen for laundered funds or financial institutions that might have links to known terrorist accounts. The task force also recommended that a student visa applicant be fingerprinted and issued a tamperproof identification card. The recommendations stirred strong protests from colleges & universities. As many as 2 dozen higher-education groups & large universities drafted harshly worded letters to Congress, the White House and the INS protesting various parts of the program as "unreliable," "ill-conceived," "a looming disaster" and "an obvious and inevitable train wreck." They secured meetings with INS officials to lobby for change. They circulated letters of protest in Congress and got both liberal & conservative members to sign. The groups also ran full-page ads in Capitol Hill newspapers. By 9.11.01, they had found support in Congress for a repeal of the entire student tracking program.

What survived after the terrorist attacks was a scaled-back program, far less aggressive than the task force had wanted. The INS was required by law to collect information on students' addresses, visa status and any academic disciplinary actions taken against them, but it stopped short of implementing proposals to share and coordinate the information. "It is so disheartening," said former INS Atlanta district dir. Tom Fischer whose region participated in the 21-school trial. "It is nothing but cosmetic, smoke & mirrors. It is a database you can get off the phone book. There is no substance to the current program. There is no interface with the major domestic and international agencies." To target questionable people trying to enter U.S., INS continues to rely on the often-hurried checks done at U.S. consulates & ports of entry. In some cases, INS reviews applications from foreign nationals in the U.S. when they apply to change business or tourist visas to "student" status.

INS officials confirmed the expanded program was scaled back but said that the system still exceeds the requirements of 1996 law requiring better student tracking. The officials said decisions about how to manage the program were made well before 9.11.01 and have not been revisited. House Judiciary Committee investigation last fall determined that the tracking program was scaled back partly because of pressure from major U.S. colleges & universities on both Congress & White House. The schools argued that an aggressive student visa program would put at risk the $12 billion collected each year in tuition from foreign students. In its report, the committee said that Clinton administration appointees at the INS "pursued a strategy of very gradual deployment of a 'dumbed down' version" of the program recommended by the interagency task force. Though several top officials have left INS, other key Clinton administration appointees involved in the decision remain in high-level INS positions, congressional and federal officials said.

College administrators defend their lobbying efforts. "You're talking about the way things were being viewed in 1997 or 1998, before 9.11.01," said Univ. of Iowa's international students dir. Gary Althen and past president of NAFSA Association of Intl Educators. "At the time, it was reported that one of the people involved in the earlier [WTC] bombing had at one time in his past been here in student status. That was the example, the one example, that came up over and over." While the INS is backing off investigating foreign student applications, other parts of Justice Dept are taking a more aggressive approach. A new Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force wants to require a thorough review of all foreign flight students seeking to learn to fly planes weighing more than 12,500 pounds. The proposed rule would also require student pilots to be fingerprinted.

Secret searches
10.16.01   Morning Edition NPR

7 member FISA court operates in utmost secrecy with individual judges hearing applications in a windowless bug-proof room in the Justice Dept. The judges serve fixed terms and are appointed by Chief Justice Wm Reinquist. The current chief judge of the court, Reinquist poker buddy Royce Lambreth, is known as acute, ferocious trial judge.

As he said in speech a few years ago, "The Chief Justice did not put me on this court to be a rubber stamp for whatever the Executive Branch wants to do. I ask questions; I get into the nitty gritty. I know exactly what's going to be done & why and my questions are answered in every case before I approve an application."
Sources say Lambreth is so sceptical that earlier this year he suggested an FBI agent appearing before him had played fast & loose with the facts. According to knowledgable sources, Lambreth sent the warrant application back for further examination with some acid comments. That incident, however, was not listed as a rejection, and, according to sources, it is fairly common for FISA judges to send requests back for revision or more information. Lambreth said, "If we wanted to play games with the numbers, we could call some of those requests for revisions denials." He notes some applications have been withdrawn. The implication of these remarks is that the govt road to warrant approvals has not been as smooth as numbers suggest.

The gatekeeper for the court is the Justice Dept Office of Intelligence Policy Review. Anytime the FBI, CIA or NSA wants a tap or search, they have to go to OIPR. In Intelligence agencies, some complain OIPR is too cautious. Former NSA general counsel Stuart (sic) Baker, "Generally, OIPR's view was 'We want to see more'. They were proud of the fact that the court had never rejected any of their requests and wanted to preserve that record." Carter admin OIPR head Ken Bass, "That is the dept's job", noting FISA court proceedings are like no other. There is no adversary process. The target has obviously not been informed and has no chance to object. When Congress made the Justice Dept the gatekeeper, it intended the Dept to be both sceptical and independent in evaluations. K.Bass, "You are a surrogate for the concept of the law, as vague as that might be, but you are also a surrogate for the target of the surveillance to some extent." That approach has sometimes cost the country dearly, says S. Baker. "One of the things that happens, however, is that every time controversy arises about whether a FISA application should have been granted or not, there is second guessing about how tough OIPR has been. OIPR does its own soul searching and gets a little more open to trying something more aggressive."

legislative developments in immigration law
6.25.99   Advocacy update AILA

Terror bill shuts door on death row appeals
June 1996   Paul DeRienzo The Shadow

… Anti-Terrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act signed into law by Pres.Clinton 4.24.96, date chosen to mark first anniversary of Oklahoma bombing. Actual bombing date was 4.19.95; Clinton had to postpone signing to attend anti-terrorism conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he met with MidEast leaders to plan response to growing popular unrest in the region.
Act will allow use of secret evidence in deportation hearings; non-citizens accused of terrorism won't be allowed to face accusers. Judges allowed to make decisions based on evidence person facing deportation not be able to see except in summary. The Act also sets up special "Alien Terrorist Removal Courts" run by 5 federal judges hand- picked by Chief Justice of Supreme Court.

Although Clinton introduced first draft of the Act with intent of focusing on supporters of liberation movements fighting govts friendly to U.S., the Act soon outgrew those boundaries to take on a slew of issues with no tie at all to terrorism. History of the Act is tortured & full of political intrigue and the final results reflect both unity of purpose among blocs in Congress normally at odds as well as some fault lines among ruling groups in U.S. Whatever the Act's history, effects already felt in dozens of cases from requests for political asylum to appeals by death-row prisoners fighting to prove their innocence.
Past American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee president Abdeen ZJabara, clients incl blind Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman convicted in NY Fed. Court of supporting terrorism, the Act is "politically motivated and will be selectively enforced," against whatever political movement the Executive Branch decides is the enemy at any time. …

FISA search warrants
9.10.02   Larry Abramson NPR

Congress said, OK let's lower the wall, not eliminate it. Lone senator to vote against the bill Sen. Russell Feingold WI said today his worst fears are being realized. "This abuse, in my view, of the language of the bill by the Justice Dept is the reason why I could not vote for the USA PATRIOT Act."
The USA PATRIOT Act said the intelligence gathering must be an important reason for authorizing a so-called FISA wiretap, but doesn't have to be the only reason. Intelligence agencies can pass some information over the FISA wall.

But at a Senate judiciary committee hearing, chair Patrick Leahy said it was clear the administration was ignoring the safeguards and pursuing wholesale demolition. "We sought to amend FISA to make it a better foreign intelligence tool. But it is NOT the intent of these amendments to fundamentally change FISA into a criminal law enforcement tool."
Earlier this year, a special FISA court not only rebuked administration attempts to loosen wiretap guidelines, but, in one of the few disclosures of the court's normally secret opinions. The justices said the Justice Dept has been abusing the law for years, well before the USA PATRIOT Act. The decision was so damning, some Cong. members were surprised the Justice Dept was daring to appeal.

Assoc. deputy atty general David Kris (sic) said there's a reason to go to the mat over this issue. "What is at stake here is the govt ability to effectively protect the nation against foreign terrorists & espionage threats." Cong. members had been screaming at the FBI & the CIA for not sharing information that could have prevented the highjackings. Ranking member Orrin Hatch said the PATRIOT Act may need some tweaking but investigators should not go back to pre-9.11.01 thinking. "We all expected the courts to review this matter, but we cannot deny Congress specifically such enhanced information sharing to take place".

Justice Dept's Kris said this is not the time to tie law enforcement's hand. He told lawmakers investigators should not have to rule out criminal prosecution of terrorists just because information was gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
"In some cases the best way to neutralize or deal with the threat is a criminal prosecution or some other law enforcement approach. The recent prosecution of Robt. Hansen for espionage is a good example of that."

  [ U.S. democracy is designed & intended to maximize liberty, not efficiency. ]
"In other cases, law enforcement is not the best way to deal with the threat. Some other approach, such as recruitment or a double agent is called for."
  [ Ergo sum, the solution to our traitors is to foster traitors elsewhere: standard NatSec paranoid neurosis. ]
Many in both parties are concerned they created a monster when they passed the PATRIOT Act just weeks after 9.11.01 attack. Some said they will need to rewrite the law if the surveillance courts side with the administration. That may be heard to learn since the courts decisions are usually kept secret.

Secret U.S. court OKs electronic spying 11.18.02   Declan McCullagh CNET

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Ashcroft applauded the ruling, characterizing it as a "victory for liberty, safety and the security of the American people." Ashcroft said the ruling marks a new era of collaboration between police and intelligence agencies such as the CIA & NSA.

reading

War in the Information Age New Challenges for U.S. Security Policy Robert L., Jr Pfaltzgraff (ed.), Richard H. Shultz (ed.) hdbk Aug.97 Brasseys Inc ISBN1574881183

new books on Intelligence reform. V. Loeb Wash. Post 12.13.99 on-line column discuss 4 new books by:

The Professional Paranoid: How To Fight Back When Investigated, Stalked, Harassed, or Targeted by Any Agency, Organization, or Individual
1999   H. Michael Sweeney Feral House 197p $13