Chasing Schoolteachers
Apologists for President Bush's illegal domestic spying program like to fall back on the refrain, "If you're not guilty, what have you got to hide?" Besides sending the likes of Thomas Paine spinning in his grave, such an argument ignores the fact that broad nets tend to catch the wrong fish, and use up valuable resources in the process.
In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.
But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.
F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of foreign-related phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.
As the bureau was running down those leads, its director, Robert S. Mueller III, raised concerns about the legal rationale for the eavesdropping program, which did not seek court warrants, one government official said. Mr. Mueller asked senior administration officials about "whether the program had a proper legal foundation," but deferred to Justice Department legal opinions, the official said.
President Bush has characterized the eavesdropping program, which focused on the international communications of some Americans and others in the United States, as a "vital tool" against terrorism; Vice President Dick Cheney has said it has saved "thousands of lives."
But the results of the program look very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret eavesdropping program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.
"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."
Right, and then some...
I'ld bet my paycheck there is plenty good that comes out of this in the interest of protecting America from foreigners who would do us harm. If we don't need to know, we just don't hear about it. That's fine with me, I hired the president to support the pursuit of life, liberty and those who would threaten it. He's getting the job done, in first class style. No help from the media here, mostly run by the philosophy "we see 'em like we call 'em" and anything to please their liberal financial supporters. Unfortunately, to the extremes the media goes, they border on treason. And every time I see shots on the news of reporters snuggling up behind a terrorist aiming his RPG weapon at our military forces, I cringe. That reporter in my mind should have the ability to fire a weapon into the back of that terrorists' head. Anything less than that is aiding and abetting the enemy.
Johny, the antiliberal
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I Like how you completely omit this part of the same story.
"Some of the officials said the eavesdropping program might have helped uncover people with ties to Al Qaeda in Albany; Portland, Ore.; and Minneapolis. Some of the activities involved recruitment, training or fund-raising."
Well all be, something good came of the program. Of course, once again, it has been ignored by America's left wing. How typical.