Peter King: Current NSA surveillance programs might have prevented 9/11
Hotair ^
| 06/20/2013
| Ed Morrissey
Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:16:10 AM by SeekAndFind
At the very least, Rep. Peter King tells CNN’s Jake Tapper, it would
have added to the “mosaic” that could have exposed the threat before the
9/11 attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. But was the mosaic
missing too many holes because the NSA didn’t trawl telecom metadata, or
because of the barriers between law enforcement and intelligence
communities? (via The Corner)
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
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Reiterating an opinion expressed during his questioning of General
Keith Alexander, the Long Island Republican told CNN’s Jake Tapper that
the programs “would’ve added an extra piece of the mosaic.” He also
disputed Senator Rand Paul’s claim that pre-9/11 intelligence and
policework failures had nothing to do with telephone surveillance: “If
we are looking in hindsight, I’d say it’s much more likely we would have
found something if the FISA authorization had been there.”
I’ve read the 9/11 Commission reportrepeatedly
(although not recently), and I’m unclear on what Rand Paul meant by
“warrants,” too. However, Paul’s overall point was that the failure
wasn’t so much a lack of intelligence on the threat developing in the
two years prior to the attacks, but the obstacles present at the time in
the US in sharing the data in order to connect dots. Under the rules at
the time — remember “the wall”? — even if the NSA had found some
pattern in the metadata, they might not have been able to share much of
that with the FBI, at least not its law-enforcement functions, thanks to
exaggerated limitations on communication based on the law-enforcement
approach to terrorism before 9/11. The US government was more concerned
about making a case in civil court than attacking terrorism head-on.
For a reminder of this problem, one need only read pages 78-9 of the 9/11 Commission report from Chapter 3. Here’s an excerpt:
In July 1995, Attorney General Reno issued formal procedures aimed
at managing information sharing between Justice Department prosecutors
and the FBI. They were developed in a working group led by the Justice
Department’s Executive Office of National Security, overseen by Deputy
Attorney General Jamie Gorelick.33 These procedures-while
requiring the sharing of intelligence information with
prosecutors-regulated the manner in which such information could be
shared from the intelligence side of the house to the criminal side.
These
procedures were almost immediately misunderstood and misapplied. As a
result, there was far less information sharing and coordination between
the FBI and the Criminal Division in practice than was allowed under the
department’s procedures. Over time the procedures came to be referred
to as “the wall.” The term “the wall” is misleading, however, because
several factors led to a series of barriers to information sharing that
developed.34
The Office of Intelligence Policy and
Review became the sole gatekeeper for passing information to the
Criminal Division. Though Attorney General Reno’s procedures did not
include such a provision, the Office assumed the role anyway, arguing
that its position reflected the concerns of Judge Royce Lamberth, then
chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Office
threatened that if it could not regulate the flow of information to
criminal prosecutors, it would no longer present the FBI’s warrant
requests to the FISA Court. The information flow withered.35
The
1995 procedures dealt only with sharing between agents and criminal
prosecutors, not between two kinds of FBI agents, those working on
intelligence matters and those working on criminal matters. But pressure
from the Office of Intelligence Policy Review, FBI leadership, and the
FISA Court built barriers between agents-even agents serving on the same
squads. FBI Deputy Director Bryant reinforced the Office’s caution by
informing agents that too much information sharing could be a career
stopper. Agents in the field began to believe-incorrectly-that no FISA
information could be shared with agents working on criminal
investigations.36
This perception evolved into the
still more exaggerated belief that the FBI could not share any
intelligence information with criminal investigators, even if no FISA
procedures had been used. Thus, relevant information from the National
Security Agency and the CIA often failed to make its way to criminal
investigators. Separate reviews in 1999, 2000, and 2001 concluded
independently that information sharing was not occurring, and that the
intent of the 1995 procedures was ignored routinely.37 We will describe some of the unfortunate consequences of these accumulated institutional beliefs and practices in chapter 8.
There
were other legal limitations. Both prosecutors and FBI agents argued
that they were barred by court rules from sharing grand jury
information, even though the prohibition applied only to that small
fraction that had been presented to a grand jury, and even that
prohibition had exceptions. But as interpreted by FBI field offices,
this prohibition could conceivably apply to much of the information
unearthed in an investigation. There were also restrictions, arising
from executive order, on the commingling of domestic information with
foreign intelligence. Finally the NSA began putting caveats on its Bin
Ladin-related reports that required prior approval before sharing their
contents with criminal investigators and prosecutors. These developments
further blocked the arteries of information sharing.38
It’s certainly possible that the NSA program today operates within
the law, does not violate the rights of Americans, and prevents more
9/11-type attacks on the US. That case would be more salable if Congress
had demonstrated any robust oversight over the programs prior to their
exposure, but the disarray and misinformation coming from Capitol Hill
over the last couple of weeks demonstrate pretty clearly that there
hasn’t been much management of the NSA’s activities. However, King’s
case that the NSA could have connected dots by metadata analysis prior
to 9/11 neglects the established reality of the mismanaged
counterterrorism efforts of that period, where the dots that did
exist were left unconnected. If King wants to justify this program,
he’d be better off making the case that Congress is keeping an eagle eye
on its operation, and that it works within the law and doesn’t spy on
Americans.
To: SeekAndFind
I believe the NSA in 1999 through the ECHELON program intercepted
chatter between al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi but the bureaucracy was too
bloated to do anything about the threat (And the individuals despite
their success at getting their visa applications approved).
Guess what King and the rest of the Statist worshipers, the
bureaucracy is just as tangled and bloated before. A large bureaucracy
by default is inefficient, especially when accountability is hidden and
nonexistent.
Instead of spying on citizens, target those with business,
amusement, and student visas. Clean out the State Department and change
the rules where incompetence will get whole sections fired on the spot
and benefits forfeited.
28
posted on Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:59:46 AM
by
rollo tomasi
(Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians.)
See you good people next week.
And Kibitzer – coffee break’s over.
Back on your head.
After reading your posts for quite some time and without having to go read their site, I’m wondering if they actually support anyone, other than Palin.
That’s what I wonder, ice. Is the only non-RINO Palin, or possibly Steve King? I think in their heart of hearts they would just put Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh in the white house.