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U.S. intelligence chief reveals
details of spying program
Xinhua
Thursday Aug 23, 2007
U.S. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell
has revealed some details of a secret domestic eavesdropping program
which sparked an uproar on Capitol Hill after it was disclosed
in late 2005.
In an interview last week with El Paso Times, a Texas-based
newspaper, McConnel disclosed that the program was monitoring
communications of less than 100 people inside the United States
and eavesdropping thousands of foreign calls connected via equipment
on U.S. soil.
Transcripts of the interview were posted on the newspaper's
Website on Wednesday.
"On the U.S. persons side it's 100 or less. And then the
foreign side, it's in the thousands," he said.
McConnel said that warrants should not be needed for intelligence
agencies to monitor foreign-to-foreign calls transmitted through
the United States, but a warrant must be required for surveillance
against calls with one party inside the United States.
(Article continues below)
He said that it would need 200 hours for the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, which approves requests to eavesdrop calls
inside the country, to assemble a warrant on a single telephone
number.
U.S. President George W. Bush authorized a domestic eavesdropping
program shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks that allows
the National Security Agency to monitor, without court warrants,
international telephone calls and e-mails of people inside the
United States with suspected ties to al Qaida.
The program, first revealed in December 2005, has been criticized
by Democrats and some Republicans who believe that Bush may have
overstepped his constitutional authority and violated a 1978 law.
Early this month, Congress passed a bill to expand temporarily
the government's powers in eavesdropping communications of foreign
terror suspects without court warrants.
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