The Wiretapping Scam

The Wiretapping Scam
By Saul Landau
Progreso Weekly

01-07 June 2006 Issue

Karl Rove or his White House troglodytes shape discussion around themes that distract the public from the issues and place the incompetent and corrupt Bush Administration in a patriotic light. The current subterfuge deals with the Administration's "security need" to monitor telephone calls - vital intelligence. "If Al-Qaeda phones the U.S., we want to know about it," said Bush, defending the constitutionally dubious and very massive eavesdropping program.

In fact, little "vital intelligence" derives from phone monitoring. Nor do eavesdropping agencies seem to care about getting good intelligence. On September 10, 2001, for example, NSA experts encountered a seemingly juicy Arabic phone call. But they didn't translate the message, "tomorrow is zero hour," until September 12.

"Real intelligence," Special Agent of the FBI Robert Scherrer told me in 1980, "comes from framing the right question and finding the person with the right answer; not the paid informant who tells you what he thinks you want to hear so he can keep getting paid."

In 2002-2003, the "intelligence community" ignored such wisdom. Instead, CIA Case Officers posed loaded questions to dubious Iraqi exiles with hidden agendas. Schemers posed as "hot sources," like the infamous Curveball, a low-level and larcenous clerk in an Iraqi chemical factory who defected to Germany. Curveball assured eager-to-hear-it Bush officials that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons. German intelligence said his information "lacked credibility," but Bush used his "information" in public speeches.

Faced with this kind of spurious "human intelligence," some "intelligence pros" retreated into the data of signal intercepts. Ironically, as the high tech NSA super sleuths searched for mathematical formulas to track terrorists' phone calls, they failed to detect terrorists who "had set up shop literally under [NSA's] nose."

The hijackers of American 77 plotted from Laurel, Maryland, NSA's neighbor. NSA employees and terrorists "exercised in some of the same health clubs and shopped in the same grocery stores." After the hijackers left their Motel to go to Dulles Airport to capture American 77, "they crossed paths with many of the electronic spies who were turning into Fort Meade, home of the NSA, to begin another day hunting for terrorists." (James Bamford, Washington Post, June 2, 2002)

During the period just before 9/11, NSA workers might as well have gone on vacation, like the President who wasn't there. Absent before and immediately after the 9/11 attacks and on vacation when Hurricane Katrina struck, Bush still excels at distracting the public - with dramatic photo ops.

His staff reached new depths when they set false contexts for discussing "leaks of intelligence" to obscure the fact that the government was illegally wiretapping citizens - instead of collecting meaningful intelligence.

Indeed, General Michael Hayden, the NSA chief, did not convince Bush to postpone his pre 9/11 vacation. Subsequently, however, he advised W to approve a constitutionally questionable wiretapping plan. Technological fixation along with classifying millions of documents seems to absorb those charged with discovering threats.

Rather than infiltrating hostile groups with declared intentions to attack, the $40 billion a year "intelligence community" eavesdropped on millions of civilians who had no violent intentions.

Phone intercepts masquerading as "vital raw intelligence," became a political ruse. Congress now debates whether "war on terrorism" justifies warrant-less intercepts, which presumes that eavesdropping will provide terrorism "experts" with material to protect the nation. As if!

No Member of Congress has asked: "Why doesn't the intelligence community [a term that debases both words] use its intelligence and ask people who know something?"

Billions of dollars get spent on spy satellite photography and signal intercepts, but little effort goes into sharing with decision makers the views of scholars who actually know about Muslim terrorists. Instead of reading insightful articles and books on the subject, NSA and CIA mavens rely on technology and biased sources to pierce the nether world of terrorism.

Weeks before the mid January 1979 fall of the Iranian Shah, Fred Halliday published a paper After the Shah, (Institute for Policy Studies) and a book (Iran: Dictatorship and Development Penguin 1979). He predicted the demise of the U.S.-backed Monarchy, and its replacement by a repressive theocracy.

Rather than consulting brilliant scholars like Halliday, however, top CIA spooks used paid informants and useless intercepts. So, instead of anticipating the Shah's demise, Washington felt shock when theocratic revolutionaries deposed their man in Teheran and took U.S. officials hostage.

By 1991, Bush I pronounced his "New World Order," an exercise in hubris. Numero uno doesn't have to talk to scholars like Halliday, who had also done significant research on the anti-regime religious Saudi zealots. So, the military erected bases in Saudi Arabia in order to conduct operations against Iraq and other "disobedient" Gulf nations - near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This act affronted Osama bin Laden and like-minded believers as did the bombings that killed thousands of Iraqis and destroyed that country's infrastructure. U.S. policy also continued to support Israeli repression of Palestinian rights.

By 1993, the data gatherers should have sounded an alarm. Kuwaiti-born Ramzi Yousef, one of the planners of the first World Trade Center bombing, mailed letters to New York newspapers before the attack. Yousef claimed he would attack the financial hub if the U.S. did not meet his demands: End U.S. aid and diplomatic relations with Israel; a U.S. promise to stop interfering in "the Middle East countries (sic) interior affairs." (Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001)

In August 1998, bombers hit U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In 2000, saboteurs hit the USS Cole in Persian Gulf waters. Didn't the "intelligence community" expect more violence? The FBI and CIA had also discovered that suspected violent agents had entered the United States and enrolled in jumbo jet flying school. These aspiring pilots, however, showed no interest in takeoffs and landings. On August 6, 2001, National Security Adviser Rice received a Presidential Daily Briefing citing FBI analysis indicating "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

For her negligence, Bush promoted Rice to Secretary of State. So, why shouldn't the ineffective Hayden become head of another federal agency? At his confirmation hearings, Senators didn't ask Hayden why NSA failed to act promptly on the September 10 "tomorrow is zero hour" intercept. Senators praised Hayden as they had the hapless George Tenet and the incompetent Porter Goss, who made the CIA into an intelligence joke. Tenet promised Bush that finding WMD in Iraq would be a "slam dunk." Goss' behavior led some of the most experienced analysts to resign.

Bush has set a pattern for mediocrity. Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security head, introduced M&M color-coding of crisis alerts. Another prime example was FEMA head during the Katrina Hurricane debacle Michael "You did a heck of a job Brownie" Brown.

On constitutional safeguards, Hayden seems to follow another Administration heavy. Elliot Abrams, Deputy National Security Adviser, wrote in his autobiography (Undue Process: A Story of How Political Differences are Turned into Crimes) that he taught his children that his lying to Congress was justified by a higher morality. Under Hayden, the NSA refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe its warrant-less eavesdropping program. Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility told Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) they were closing their inquiry because NSA had refused to give their lawyers the necessary clearances to investigate.

Bush had informed some members of Congress from both Parties that warrant-less phone intercepts would yield "vital intelligence." He referred to a post 9/11 Congressional resolution to fight Al-Qaeda that he claimed transcended the Fourth Amendment. Spying on citizens belonged to the President's inherent powers to fight wars that Congress did not declare. Constitutional law?

The Members did nothing after Bush informed them of his plan to violate the law. In fact, shrewd terrorists could switch cell phones daily, communicate by other means and constantly change locations. To find them, ask those who know. Don't eavesdrop on those who don't and justify it by appealing to "national security."

The wire tap ploy extended to ABC News, New York Times and Washington Post reporters. After all, since these journalists discovered the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland, they must have good sources. Look how Karl Rove framed the issue: tap phones of those who reported on kidnapping, illegal spying and torture to find the leakers, rather than discuss the illegal policies. As Rove faces indictment for his role in obstructing justice in leaking former covert CIA op Valerie Plame's name, his mastery of mis-framing issues continues to confound Congress - to Bush's advantage and the detriment of Democrats and Truth. Don't look for Hayden to offer intelligent counsel, like "change Middle East policy," as a route to diminishing the terrorist threat. But do expect him to build files on Americans as his ilk has done in the past.

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Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow.