Today, the Inspectors General of the Departments of Defense and Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director National Intelligence released an unclassified report mandated by Congress on President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. The New York Times reports:
The warrantless surveillance program approved by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks received too little legal review at its inception and its ultimate effectiveness was unclear, according to an in-depth review released Friday by the inspectors general of five federal agencies.
The Bush administration had defended the wiretapping program, one of the government’s most highly classified operations to have been disclosed in recent years, as a vital intelligence-gathering tool that gave intelligence officials the ability to respond more quickly to possible terrorist threats.
But the independent auditors, reviewing the program at the request of Congress, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing threats provided more timely information and that the value of the program was unclear.
The report said that while the program obtained information that “had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.’s overall counterterrorism efforts.”
In addition, most intelligence officials interviewed as part of the review group “had difficulty citing specific instances” in which the wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists.
Read the full report>>
Speaker Pelosi:
The Inspectors General FISA report brings to light the disturbing facts and circumstances surrounding President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. Particularly disturbing was the observation of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey that the legal analysis under which the program operated for years ‘entailed ignoring an act of Congress, and doing so without full congressional notification.’ No President should be able to operate outside the law.
The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees will closely examine the findings and recommendations of the classified and unclassified reports, and will conduct appropriate oversight of electronic surveillance activities.
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers:
This report, mandated by Congress last year, documents what many of us in Congress concluded long ago: President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program was illegal from the beginning, and of questionable value. It clearly violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which regulates domestic surveillance for intelligence purposes, and was based on legal analysis that was ‘factually flawed. President Bush personally approved of this program which may have been impeachable conduct.
All the recommendations of the report should be promptly followed, and we in Congress will continue to carefully review today’s surveillance activities to determine if further changes to FISA are appropriate. The refusal of key Bush administration officials such as David Addington and John Yoo to cooperate with the IGs’ review underscores the need for an independent commission with subpoena power to further review these issues, as I have called for.
As new controversies about the prior administration’s secret intelligence activities and the accuracy and completeness of intelligence briefings to Congress arise, this report offers a stark warning of the risks of executive branch overreach and the power of the executive to shield its activities from scrutiny. At the same time, this report reminds us of the many heroes of the past administration who questioned these and other secret programs and stood up for the rule of law.
On page 23, the report states that the Speaker, along with several other Congressional leaders, disagreed publicly with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ testimony in July 2007 that the “consensus” of Congressional leaders was that the program should continue. Pelosi, Senator Jay Rockefeller, and former Senator Tom Daschle issued statements saying that they told then-Vice President Dick Cheney in a March 2004 meeting that there was no consensus among Congressional leaders that the program should continue.
In addition, Speaker Pelosi wrote the following letter in October 2001, when she was the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. The letter to Lieutenant General Michael Hayden, then National Security Agency (NSA) Director, expressed concerns about NSA electronic surveillance activities and the authority for those activities. The letter was declassified in January 2006 at her request and she also released the response letter from Hayden. Both letters were redacted when they were declassified:
October 11, 2001
Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, USAF
Director
National Security Agency
Fort George G. Mead, Maryland 20755
Washington, D.C. 20340-1001
Dear General Hayden:
During your appearance before the committee on October 1, you indicated that you had been operating since the September 11 attacks with an expansive view of your authorities with respect to the conduct of electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related statutes, orders, regulations, and guidelines. You seemed to be inviting expressions of concern from us, if there were any, and, after the briefing was over and I had a chance to reflect on what you said, I instructed staff to get more information on this matter for me. For several reasons, including what I consider to be an overly broad interpretation of President Bush’s directive of October 5 on sharing with Congress “classified or sensitive law enforcement information” it has not been possible to get answers to my questions.
Without those answers, the concerns I have about what you said on the 1st can not be resolved, and I wanted to bring them to your attention directly. You indicated that you were treating as a matter of first impression, [redacted ] being of foreign intelligence interest. As a result, you were forwarding the intercepts, and any information [redacted ] without first receiving a request for that identifying information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Although I may be persuaded by the strength of your analysis [redacted ] I believe you have a much more difficult case to make [redacted ] Therefore, I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting. Until I understand better the legal analysis regarding the sufficiency of the authority which underlies your decision on the appropriate way to proceed on this matter, I will continue to be concerned.
Sincerely,
NANCY PELOSI
Ranking Democrat
18 October 2001
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Ranking Member, House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence
H-405, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative Pelosi:
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify any ambiguity that may have arisen as a result of my briefing on October 1 to members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
In my briefing, I was attempting to emphasize that I used my authorities to adjust NSA’s collection and reporting.
[redacted] ] Again, thank you for allowing me to clarify this matter.
MICHAEL V. HAYDEN
Lieutenant General, USAF
Director, NSA