In-fighting as usual ruins a good, legal phone surveillance

program. Of course the fact that it was developed during the Clinton Administration could have played its part in the mix.

Published May 18 in the Baltimore Sun, available without login at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0518-07.htm

"Four intelligence officials knowledgeable about the program agreed to discuss it with The Sun only if granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

"The program the NSA rejected, called ThinThread, was developed to handle greater volumes of information, partly in expectation of threats surrounding the millennium celebrations. Sources say it bundled together four cutting-edge surveillance tools. ThinThread would have:

"* Used more sophisticated methods of sorting through massive phone and e-mail data to identify suspect communications.

"* Identified U.S. phone numbers and other communications data and encrypted them to ensure caller privacy.

"* Employed an automated auditing system to monitor how analysts handled the information, in order to prevent misuse and improve efficiency.

"* Analyzed the data to identify relationships between callers and chronicle their contacts. Only when evidence of a potential threat had been developed would analysts be able to request decryption of the records.

"An agency spokesman declined to discuss NSA operations.

" "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to discuss actual or alleged operational issues as it would give those wishing to do harm to the U.S. insight and potentially place Americans in danger," said NSA spokesman Don Weber in a statement to The Sun

" "However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities very seriously and operates within the law."

"In what intelligence experts describe as rigorous testing of ThinThread in 1998, the project succeeded at each task with high marks. For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy."

Rob

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Buried deep in the article

by Evie May 18, 2006 8:56PM PDT

Officials say that after the successful tests of ThinThread in 1998, Taylor argued that the NSA should implement the full program. He later told the 9/11 Commission that ThinThread could have identified the hijackers had it been in place before the attacks, according to an intelligence expert close to the commission.

But at the time, NSA lawyers viewed the program as too aggressive. At that point, the NSA's authority was limited strictly to overseas communications, with the FBI responsible for analyzing domestic calls. The lawyers feared that expanding NSA data collection to include communications in the United States could violate civil liberties, even with the encryption function.

Sounds like it was nixed in 1998 or thereabouts. There's no indication, even in your article, that the current implementation of parts of that program are illegal.

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(NT) (NT) so, "domestic spying" isn't a GW creation??

by duckman May 18, 2006 9:35PM PDT

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Now the GW didn't start it

by JP Bill May 18, 2006 11:16PM PDT

There is such a thing as "domestic spying"?

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In case you missed it...

by EdH May 19, 2006 12:03AM PDT

1.) Is there something illegal in any of this?

2.) Is it any of your business?

3.) It's all speculation. Even if it's all true, SO WHAT?

4.) What about that hanging tree? You didn't comment on that.

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(NT) (NT) #2...Yes

by JP Bill May 19, 2006 12:11AM PDT

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How so?

by EdH May 19, 2006 12:19AM PDT

Why do you or anyone need to know the details of a SECRET National Security program? Don't you think the US has a right to have SECRET programs?

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Don't you think the US has a right to have SECRET programs?

by JP Bill May 19, 2006 12:40AM PDT

Yes.

As long as the program doesn't involve ''knowing' when a relative phones me, how long we talk, and perhaps what we say.

They can have secret programs and I can make ''secret'' phone calls.

If they want to know what ''I'' specifically do, go to a judge get a warrant.

Since it's a secret program, you don't know what they are retrieving.

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No, but...

by EdH May 19, 2006 12:54AM PDT

all indications are that they are NOT listening in on your phone calls or even tabulating who calls whom. The sheer number of calls kind of obviates against the possibility that they are eavesdropping on individual private citizens who have nothing to hide.

If the program is secret we have to trust them to a certain extent. That's why mmebers of Congress are briefed. What alternative is there?

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Re: What alternative is there?

by JP Bill May 19, 2006 1:01AM PDT

Intercept calls from ''overseas'' from known or suspected terrorists.

Get a warrant for the domestic phone numbers that were contacted by "known or suspected" terrorists

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Lots of holes in that net...

by EdH May 19, 2006 1:05AM PDT

it assumes you already know who the bad guys are. You might not know until too late.

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#4 What about that hanging tree?

by JP Bill May 19, 2006 12:22AM PDT

The branch on the hanging tree, that the person is going to hang from should be the height of the person being hanged plus enough distance to have sufficient ''drop'' to ensure a quick and efficient death, from the ground.

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I'm sure Mt. Ascutney...

by EdH May 19, 2006 12:56AM PDT

has plenty of trees that fit the bill.

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Funny how its devolved from

by EdH May 18, 2006 10:43PM PDT

the very CONCEPT being evil and Unconstitutional (when implemented by the evil Bush Administration, ALLEGEDLY) to "they're mucking up the details -tsk tsk- of a fine program" (Originated by the exemplary Clinton Administration).

And of course it's all speculation that the program is in use at all.

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Talk about a leap of faith, or blind guess work.

by Ziks511 May 19, 2006 9:07AM PDT

And you criticize my logic. I read the whole article before posting it. Where is there any clear indication of a date for the NSA decision not to deploy? And that said, why not deploy the whole system in 2001 which is after all the point of the whole article rather than the currently flawed system which is actually under discussion in this article. You have managed to move the discussion from a failed, incomplete, unconstitutional implementation of part of the original idea, to a criticism of why the whole thing wasn't deployed under Clinton when conditions were substantially different. There was insufficient threat evidence available to deploy in 1998 and when worries about purely peacetime initiation were paramount. After 2001 there was every reason to move to ThinThread in its entirety, but of course Bush could never be seen deploying something that Clinton had anything to do with. That's part of the Republican ethic never let yourself be seen adopting an opposition strategy no matter how well it may work.

When in doubt, shift your ground and talk about something else. Nice work.

Rob

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I guess you didn't read this part:

by Evie May 19, 2006 10:40AM PDT

By 1999, as some NSA officials grew increasingly concerned about millennium-related security, ThinThread seemed in position to become an important tool with which the NSA could prevent terrorist attacks. But it was never launched.

I missed that the first time I read it too, leaving me only to surmise that the infighting and controversy was circa 1998. It was essentially canned in '99. We're talking Clinton tenure here, and years where SUPPOSEDLY Clinton was very concerned about Osama bin Laden and international terrorism.

Apparently, Bush didn't put the whole program into effect: Neither was it put into effect after the attacks in 2001. Despite its success in tests, ThinThread's information-sorting system was viewed by some in the agency as a competitor to Trailblazer, a $1.2 billion program that was being developed with similar goals. The NSA was committed to Trailblazer, which later ran into trouble and has been essentially abandoned.

We're talking shortly into the current President's tenure here -- bureaucracies tend to come around far more slowly.

The rest appears to be an attack piece on Hayden. Surprise, surprise ... essentially criticizing him for not implementing a program they claim is illegal now that it has been implemented.

If ThinThread was abandoned, how was it simultaneously implemented? The article is very murky on this point.

You will note, that the current implementation doesn't use a limiting cumbersome component. IOW, the part is "sleeker" and probably more efficient than the whole. It IS wartime.

You have no basis for your Bush bash about him never being able to deploy something that Clinton had anything to do with. Care to serve up another one of your plates of trash like your gossip? Got someone on the inside now?? Get a grip.

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(NT) (NT) I knew this clinton's fault

by WOODS-HICK May 18, 2006 11:11PM PDT

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