5,645 secret surveillance applications in
2004
Reuters
Secret surveillance up since 9/11
December 27, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal applications for a special U.S. court to
authorize secret surveillance rose sharply after the September 11, 2001,
attacks, and the panel required changes to the requests at a even greater rate,
government documents show.
President George W. Bush acknowledged this month that he had secretly
ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international phone
conversations and e-mail of Americans suspected of links to terrorists without
approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The domestic-spying order has set off a furious debate over whether the war
on terrorism gives Bush a blank check when it comes to civil liberties and
whether the president, in fact, broke the law.
The Justice Department's reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance
court's activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications
for electronic surveillance and physical searches through 2004, the most recent
year for which figures are available. In the previous four years, the court
received a total of 3,436.
The 11-judge panel modified 179 of the Bush administration's requests. By
contrast, only one was modified in the preceding four years. The court has
reportedly handled almost 20,000 applications since it was set up, and has
rejected only a handful.
Reasons for the modifications were not stated and could range from minor
alterations to more substantive changes.
The highly classified court was set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) in the wake of Cold War spy fears and President Richard
Nixon's misuse of U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the anti-Vietnam war
movement and other political dissidents.
Bush has said FISA was intended for "long-term monitoring" and that after
September 11 the government needed to move "faster and quicker" to protect and
defend Americans.
Bush said he had reauthorized the domestic spying program more than 30 times
since the September 11 attacks and would continue to do so.
In Crawford, Texas, where Bush is spending the holidays, his spokesman Trent
Duffy defended what he called a "limited program."
"This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League
practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner," he told reporters. "These are
designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a
history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches."
After some of the FISA judges expressed concern about the legality of the
domestic spying program, the Bush administration agreed to provide them with a
classified briefing, probably early next month.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales earlier this month called FISA "a
very important tool." He said the administration would continue to go to the
court and obtain orders under the act, but sometimes eavesdroppers needed to
act faster.
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