Spy Chief Reveals Classified Details
By KATHERINE SHRADER 08.22.07, 4:04 PM ET
WASHINGTON -
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back
on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a
secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush
administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.
During an interview with the El Paso Times last week, McConnell made
comments that raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of
previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.
A transcript was posted online on Wednesday:
_ McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector
assisted with President Bush's warrantless surveillance program.
AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued
for their cooperation. "Now if you play out the suits at the value
they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," McConnell said,
arguing that they deserve immunity for their help.
_ He provided new details on court rulings handed down by the
11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves
classified eavesdropping operations and whose proceedings are almost
always entirely secret. McConnell said a ruling that went into effect
May 31 required the government to get court warrants to monitor
communications between two foreigners if the conversation travels on
a wire in the U.S. network. Millions of calls each day do, because of
the robust nature of the U.S. systems.
_ McConnell said it takes 200 hours to assemble a FISA warrant on a
single telephone number. "We're going backwards," he said. "We
couldn't keep up."
_ Offering never-disclosed figures, McConnell also revealed that
fewer than 100 people inside the United States are monitored under
FISA warrants. However, he said, thousands of people overseas are monitored.
Even as he shed new light on the classified operations, McConnell
asserted that the current debate in Congress about whether to update
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will cost American lives
because of all the information it revealed to terrorists.
"Part of this is a classified world. The fact that we're doing it
this way means that some Americans are going to die," he said.
McConnell was in El Paso, Texas, last week for a conference on border
security hosted by House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes,
D-Texas. The spy chief joined Reyes for an interview at his local paper.
McConnell appeared days after Congress passed a temporary law to
expand the government's ability to monitor suspects in national
security investigations - terrorists, spies and others - without
first seeking court approval in certain cases. The highly contentious
measure expires in six months.
After Sept. 11, Bush authorized the terrorist surveillance program to
monitor conversations between people in the United States and others
overseas when terrorism is suspected. Until January, no warrants were
required. But as the Democratic Congress took over, the Bush
administration decided to bring the program under the oversight of
the FISA court.
McConnell said the court initially ruled that the program was
appropriate and legitimate. But when the ruling had to be renewed in
the spring, another judge saw the operations differently. This judge,
who McConnell did not identify, decided that the government needed a
warrant to monitor a conversation between foreigners when the signal
traveled on a wire in the U.S. communications network.
McConnell said the government got a temporary stay on the ruling, but
it expired at the end of May. "After the 31st of May, we were in
extremis because now we have significantly less capability," he said.
At the same time, the intelligence community was wrapping up years of
work on a National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the homeland -
an analysis that is considered its most comprehensive judgment. It
found the threat was increasing, McConnell noted.
Because he sees FISA as a major tool to keep terrorists out of the
country, McConnell said he pressed Congress to change the law.
McConnell's interview raised concerns at the Justice Department,
where senior officials questioned whether the intelligence chief had
overstepped in discussing the secret FISA court.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse referred questions to
McConnell's office, where his spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment.
In a phone interview, Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra said he never felt
at liberty to discuss some of the information that McConnell did,
including the FISA court rulings, but the executive branch gets to
decide what is classified. "What I think it tells you is how
important they believe it is to get this FISA thing done right," said
Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
He said McConnell is hurt by the personal attacks on him during the
FISA recent debate. Among them, Democrats have alleged that he
negotiated in bad faith and was too beholden to the White House.
In addition, Hoekstra said he thinks McConnell wanted to push back on
accusations that the legislation gave the attorney general
unprecedented new powers. "I think they felt they had to become more
public," he said.
Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this report.
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