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US warrantless wiretapping predates
9/11
By John Leyden
12/19/07 "The
Register" -- - Fresh evidence has emerged that the
US government's warrantless wiretapping program predates the
9/11 terrorist attacks.
Secret surveillance operations
that enabled the National Security Agency (NSA) to access
telecommunications traffic data have been in place since the
1990s,
according to the New York Times. In an attempt to
gain intelligence on narcotics traffickingThe NSA forged an
uneasy alliance with telcos to gather data on phone calls and
emails from the US to Latin America.
The alliance between the US
government and telcos to gather call records involving thousands
of US and foreign citizens was constrained by legal worries and
fears of public exposure. Even so, it took until 2004 for one
unnamed carrier to break ranks and refuse to provide customer
data, the paper reports.
Separately, US carrier Qwest
refused to provide NSA spooks with access to local
communications switches (a move that would have allowed
surveillance of domestic phone calls without a court order) in
early 2001 - before the devastating World Trade Center attacks
in September that year.
Negotiations between the NSA and
AT&T in February 2001 allegedly involved replicating a New
Jersey network centre to allow the US signals intelligence
"access to all the global phone and email traffic that ran
through it". The incident has become one aspect of a lawsuit
which also brings in allegations that Verizon set up a dedicated
fibre-optic line from New Jersey to a large military facility in
Quantico. Spooky.
An AT&T technician at the time
has provided evidence supporting the allegations. However, other
AT&T technicians are due to testify that the project was
confined to improving internal communications within the NSA.
News that the NSA eavesdropped
on the international communications of terrorism suspects making
calls from the US without warrants first emerged two years ago.
The latest revelations that this was a development of a much
longer running practice that also involved US domestic calls
come as the Bush administration is pushing Congress to pass
legislation indemnifying telecoms carriers from liability in
assisting law enforcement with warrantless eavesdropping
programs. Since 2005, the warrantless wiretapping program has
become the topic of 40 lawsuits. ®
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