Summarized -- Warrantless NSA program involved massive data collection (NYT)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and  
analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications  
flowing into and out of the United States as part of the  
eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept.  
11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity,  
according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and  
voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than  
the White House has acknowledged, the officials said.

...One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance  
Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing  
out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has  
legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to  
pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to  
officials familiar with the matter.

...Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic  
surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have  
stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without  
warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e- 
mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.

...The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush  
administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most  
notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system,  
developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the  
Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline  
passengers.

...But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.'s ability to trace  
and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission  
to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials  
familiar with the program say.

...A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company  
said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the  
industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving  
it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.

"All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and  
shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active  
involvement in that area," said the former manager, a  
telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his  
former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.

...The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and  
some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with  
the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years,  
many international-to-international calls are also routed through  
such American switches.

...Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on  
American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded  
eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades- 
old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance  
Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance.

...But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications  
switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations  
represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational  
capability, according to current and former government officials.




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