Origons of NSA intercepts go back to Kennedy administration

The Strata-Sphere:

The Federal Government is a lumbering giant that is impossible to re-direct most of the time. War is one of the few instances where corrections can finally be imposed rapidly. The problem is the changes may spring back to their previous, inept conditions if there is not enough time to establish the new norm. We face that with the Patriot Act and the NSA program - liberals so obsessed with political power they are ready to put us all at risk again for short term gain.

In the NSA-FISA dust up I had wondered what was the big change Bush wrought post 9-11? It seemed inconceivable that the NSA was not monitoring our enemies and collecting communications with people in the US. But as I wrote in my recent round up the only thing that appeared to change was specific leads being passed to the FBI, who would check them out and then take the high priority leads to FISA for domestic surveillance. The only complaint by the left leaning FISA justuices was ‘tainting’ the FISA process. The complaint by the FBI was an avalanche of leads.

Now I think I see what the big change was. It seems minor in the ‘real world’, but in DC and within the imperial federal bureaucracy this change was momentous. I found it in the 1976 Senate Committee report I referenced earlier:

4. “Incidental” Intercepts of Americans’ Communications

Although NSA does not now target communications of American citizens, groups, or organizations for interception by placing their names on watch lists, other selection criteria are used which result in NSA’s reviewing many communications to, from, or about an American. The initial interception of a stream of communications is analogous to a vacuum cleaner: NSA picks up all communications carried over a specific link that it is monitoring. The combination of this technology and the use of words to select communications of interest results in NSA analysts reviewing the international messages of American citizens, groups, and organizations for foreign intelligence.

The interception and subsequent processing of communications are conducted in a manner that minimizes the number of unwanted messages. Only after an analyst determines that the content of a message meets a legitimate requirement will it be disseminated to the interested intelligence agencies. In practically all cases, the name of an American citizen, group, or organization is deleted by NSA before a message is disseminated.

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Emphasis mine. I think we finally have found the big change Bush ordered post 9-11. Now, when leads are detected overseas, the name or identity of the US based contact is passed along to the FBI. That explains the wave of leads on the FBI, the ‘tainting’ complaints by some FISA judges and the resistance by the establishment in general.

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Strata points out that the lists goes back to 1960. You should read the whole post.