Dig Deeper
A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.
The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.
The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.
The NYTimes reports the latest in Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over U.S. Spying, noting that members of Congress:
[C]onsidered the eavesdropping and data mining so closely tied that they were part of a single program. Both activities, which ordinarily require warrants, were started without court approval as the Bush administration intensified counterterrorism efforts soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. A half-dozen officials and former officials interviewed for this article would speak only on the condition of anonymity, in part because unauthorized disclosures about the classified program are already the subject of a criminal investigation. Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used.
Nor would they explain what modifications to the surveillance program President Bush authorized to head off the threatened resignations by Justice Department officials.
See also, the Washington Post's piece, Data Mining Figured In Dispute Over NSA. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo follows up on this in his post, Data Mining:
I don't doubt that this is true as far as it goes. But this must only scratch the surface because, frankly, at least as presented, this just doesn't account for the depth of the controversy or the fact that so many law-and-order DOJ types were willing to resign over what was happening. Something's missing.
Of course, 'data mining' can mean virtually anything. What kind of data and whose you're looking at makes all the difference in the world. Suggestively, the Times article includes this cryptic passage: 'Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used.'
To put this into perspective, remember that the White House has been willing to go to the public and make a positive argument for certain surveillance procedures (notably evasion of the FISA Court strictures) which appear to be illegal on their face. This must be much more serious and apparently something all but the most ravenous Bush authoritarians would never accept. It is supposedly no longer even happening and hasn't been for a few years. So disclosing it could not jeopardize a program. The only reason that suggests itself is that the political and legal consequences of disclosure are too grave to allow.
Via Suburban Guerrilla, who also notes that the issue has been "rolling around my head for days now, because clearly there’s a larger coverup at work with Gonzales’ testimony. But what’s the big picture?," is this Daily Kos post, Echoes of Watergate, 2001-2007, which provides a likely timeline of the surveillance program and states:
The Bush Administration (Including Gonzales) has refused to answer questions about other (controversial) aspects of the NSA warrantless wiretap program as it existed in March 2004 under the grounds of mission-critical secrecy. The secrecy however is almost certainly to cover-up the controversial portion of the program that existed prior to Comey’s issues with it.
Mueller did not use the TSP terminology because he knows the "TSP" did not exist in 2004- it was a made up term to dissemble the December 2005 leak. Mueller was being honest and refusing to become entangled in the administration ambiguation, knowing full well that "TSP" is an artificial construct in which the administration has invested heavily, but which is not the full truth. He knows the extent of the NSA-surveillance programs and why they were controversial, and is not getting dragged into the cover-up.* * * *
In retrospect, it is easy to see why Alberto Gonzales was the ONLY candidate the Bush administration would ever consider for replacing John Ashcroft. He is at the heart of the cover-up and is now in control of the usual reins of Justice. It is also why Bush is committed to defending him and keeping him as Attorney General. I suspect they will go down together. A Special Prosecutor is the ONLY way to resolve this crisis.
It is tragically ironic that another Republican Administration will become embroiled, and probably destroyed, by illegal "wiretapping" and the idiotic cover-up that they elected to undertake. Many in the Bush Administration were involved in the Nixon administration, and it is obvious they learned nothing.
Nothing. The more things change, the more they stay the same. . .
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