Internet wiretapping mixes “protected” and targeted messages,
Info Age requires rethinking 4th Amendment limits and policies,
National Security Agency told Bush administration
“Transition 2001” report released through FOIA,
Highlights collection of declassified NSA documents
Posted on Web by National Security Archive, GWU
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 24
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson
Washington, D.C., March 11, 2005 – The largest U.S. spy agency warned the incoming Bush administration in its “Transition 2001” report that the Information Age required rethinking the policies and authorities that kept the National Security Agency in compliance with the Constitution’s 4th Amendment prohibition on “unreasonable searches and seizures” without warrant and “probable cause,” according to an updated briefing book of declassified NSA documents posted today on the World Wide Web.
Wiretapping the Internet inevitably picks up mail and messages by Americans that would be “protected” under legal interpretations of the NSA’s mandate in effect since the 1970s, according to the documents that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Dr. Jeffrey Richelson, senior fellow of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The NSA told the Bush transition team that the “analog world of point-to-point communications carried along discrete, dedicated voice channels” is being replaced by communications that are “mostly digital, carry billions of bits of data, and contain voice, data and multimedia,” and therefore, “senior leadership must understand that today’s and tomorrow’s mission will demand a powerful, permanent presence on a global telecommunications network that will host the ‘protected’ communications of Americans as well as targeted communications of adversaries.”
The documents posted today also include a striking contrast between the largely intact 1998 NSA organizational chart for the Directorate of Operations and the heavily redacted 2001 chart for the Signals Intelligence Directorate (as the operations directorate was renamed), which contains no information beyond the name of its director. “The 2001 organization charts are more informative for what they reveal about the change in NSA’s classification policy than for what they reveal about the actual structure of NSA’s two key directorates,” commented Dr. Richelson. The operations directorate organization chart was provided within three weeks of its being requested in late 1998. In contrast, the request for the Signals Intelligence Directorate organization chart was made on April 21, 2001, and NSA did not provide its substantive response until April 21, 2004 – three years instead of three weeks.
Introduction
The National Security Agency (NSA) is one of the most secret (and secretive) members of the U.S. intelligence community. The predecessor of NSA, the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), was established within the Department of Defense, under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on May 20, 1949. In theory, the AFSA was to direct the communications intelligence and electronic intelligence activities of the military service signals intelligence units (at the time consisting of the Army Security Agency, Naval Security Group, and Air Force Security Service). In practice, the AFSA had little power, its functions being defined in terms of activities not performed by the service units. (Note 1)
The creation of NSA resulted from a December 10, 1951, memo sent by Walter Bedell Smith to James B. Lay, Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. The memo observed that “control over, and coordination of, the collection and processing of Communications Intelligence had proved ineffective” and recommended a survey of communications intelligence activities. The proposal was approved on December 13, 1951, and the study authorized on December 28, 1951. The report was completed by June 13, 1952. Generally known as the “Brownell Committee Report,” after committee chairman Herbert Brownell, it surveyed the history of U.S. communications intelligence activities and suggested the need for a much greater degree of coordination and direction at the national level. As the change in the security agency’s name indicated, the role of the NSA was to extend beyond the armed forces. (Note 2)
In the last several decades some of the secrecy surrounding NSA has been stripped away by Congressional hearings and investigative research. In the late 1990s NSA had been the subject of criticism for failing to adjust to the post-Cold War technological environment as well as for operating a “global surveillance network” alleged to intrude on the privacy of individuals across the world. The following documents provide insight into the creation, evolution, management and operations of NSA, including the controversial ECHELON program. Also included are newly released documents (11a – 11g) that focus on the restrictions NSA places on reporting the identities of U.S. persons – including former president Jimmy Carter and first lady Hillary Clinton, and NSA Director Michael Hayden’s unusual public statement (Document 24) before the House Intelligence Committee.
Some of the documents that appear for the first time in this update shed additional light on the history of NSA. They concern the NSA’s participation in the space reconnaissance program (Document 3), NSA’s success in deciphering Soviet communications in the 1960s (Document 4), the efficacy of NSA activities in the late mid-to-late 1960s (Document 5), and Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war (Document 10). Others provide new insight on NSA’s assessment of key issues in the new century (Document 21, Document 23), on NSA’s attempts to adapt to the changing world and communications environment, (Document 22), on the agency’s regression to old policies with regard to organizational secrecy (Document 26a, Document 26b), and on NSA activities before and after the events of 9/11 (Document 25).
Several of these documents also appear in either of two National Security Archive collections on U.S. intelligence. The U.S. Intelligence Community: Organization, Operations and Management: 1947-1989 (1990) and U.S. Espionage and Intelligence: Organization, Operations, and Management, 1947-1996 (1997) publish together for the first time recently declassified documents pertaining to the organizational structure, operations and management of the U.S. Intelligence Community over the last fifty years, cross-indexed for maximum accessibility. Together, these two sets reproduce on microfiche over 2,000 organizational histories, memoranda, manuals, regulations, directives, reports, and studies, totalling more than 50,000 pages of documents from the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, military service intelligence organizations, National Security Council, and other official government agencies and organizations.
Bernd Pulch 