Forwarded From: Putrefied Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi>
Originally From: 7Pillars Partners <partners@sirius.infonex.com>
Congress, NSA butt heads over Echelon
BY DANIEL VERTON (dan_verton@fcw.com)
Congress has squared off with the National Security Agency over a
top-secret U.S. global electronic surveillance program, requesting top
intelligence officials to report on the legal standards used to prevent
privacy abuses against U.S. citizens.
According to an amendment to the fiscal 2000 Intelligence Authorization
Act proposed last month by Sen. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), the director of Central
Intelligence, the director of NSA and the attorney general must submit a
report within 60 days of the bill becoming law that outlines the legal
standards being employed to safeguard the privacy of American citizens
against Project Echelon.
Echelon is NSA's Cold War-vintage global spying system, which consists of
a worldwide network of clandestine listening posts capable of intercepting
electronic communications such as e-mail, telephone conversations, faxes,
satellite transmissions, microwave links and fiber-optic communications
traffic. However, the European Union last year raised concerns that the
system may be regularly violating the privacy of law-abiding citizens
[FCW, Nov. 17, 1998].
However, NSA, the supersecret spy agency known best for its worldwide
eavesdropping capabilities, for the first time in the history of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence refused to hand over documents
on the Echelon program, claiming attorney/client privilege.
Congress is "concerned about the privacy rights of American citizens and
whether or not there are constitutional safeguards being circumvented by
the manner in which the intelligence agencies are intercepting and/or
receiving international communications...from foreign nations that would
otherwise be prohibited by...the limitations on the collection of domestic
intelligence," Barr said. "This very straightforward amendment...will help
guarantee the privacy rights of American citizens [and] will protect the
oversight responsibilities of the Congress which are now under assault" by
the intelligence community.
Calling NSA's argument of attorney/client privilege "unpersuasive and
dubious," committee chairman Rep. Peter J. Goss (R-Fla.) said the ability
of the intelligence community to deny access to documents on intelligence
programs could "seriously hobble the legislative oversight process"
provided for by the Constitution and would "result in the envelopment of
the executive branch in a cloak of secrecy."
-o-
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Received on Mon Jun 7 09:55:28 1999