Russ Wants To Testify
NSA whistleblower asks to testify
A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA.
“I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency,” Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters.
The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government.
Of course this guy, who was “let go last year” is only going to testify under the protection of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act – - that way it is legal for him to disclose highly classified info without getting in trouble. If people really believe things like this have happened only under GW’s watch – - they are greatly mistaken.
January 5, 2006 - 07:14 PM on January 5th, 2006
If this guy blew the whistle first (before he was let go) he might have at least an assumption of credibility (initially).
But another loser with an axe to grind? Another Richard Clarke?
He should be put in prison if he discloses anything that compromises national security.
January 8, 2006 - 03:28 AM on January 8th, 2006
Wanna hear a good reason on why this is a load of organic fertilizer? Isn’t NSA under DoD? The same thing with the DIA. Seeing as they are NOT under DOJ, it’s a pretty good argument that they aren’t even covered under the 4th amendment seeing as they are not pursuing information for a criminal indictment but rather intelligence to conduct a war. The only mention of the military in the bill of rights is that the US government will not forcibly billet soldiers in private homes. Want to make a LOT of Democrats and civil libertarians apoplectic? Agree with them that the intelligence gathered isn’t allowable in a criminal trial, therefore any suspected terrorists captured due to intelligence collected by the NSA has to be immediately turned over to the military and face a military tribunal followed by imprisonment in Leavenworth or execution for being an ununiformed combatant. That is exactly what is proscribed by both US and international law to be done with saboteurs and spies. The truck driver planning on blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge is a Saboteur and is therefore subject to execution after a military tribunal. The Islamofascists who cased those buildings on Wall Street for a terror attack are spies and the normal punishment for being a spy is execution. Now if these morons have attorneys that want to fight their convictions on the grounds of inadmissable evidence, not a problem. The proper US DOJ response is to agree that the intel didn’t belong in a criminal court, it was better suited to military tribunal wherein classified information could be discussed freely and the judges would be experts in the field not a layman from the street. The defendent would be also subject to execution or life imprisonment. We’d only have to legally execute one or two until the objections to the intell being submitted as evidence will stop.