From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Sat Jun 05 1999 - 23:39:02 MDT
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 Rep. 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."
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
Web:
http://www.nanoindustries.com
E-mail:
nanogirl@halcyon.com
Alternate E-mail
echoz@hotmail.com
"Nanotechnology: solutions for the future."
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