Post-9/11 avalanche of data led FBI to dead ends
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-01-18 11:08

Much of the domestic spying conducted by the National Security Agency after the September 11, 2001 attacks was reportedly unproductive and led the FBI to dead ends or innocent Americans.

The monitoring of international telephone calls and computer messages placed by Americans to suspected terrorists abroad, and vice versa, produced such a huge amount of unfiltered information that it overwhelmed the Federal Bureau of Information, current and former officials told The New York Times.

FBI officials checking up on post-September 11 NSA information, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, said the checks were "pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy," said the daily paraphrasing its sources.

The stream of data led to few potential terrorists inside the United States not already known to authorities and diverted attention from counter-terrorism work FBI officials viewed as more productive.

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former FBI official. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration," he added.

FBI director Robert Mueller, one official said, questioned the legality of a program of eavesdroppoing without warrants, but deferred to Justice Department legal opinions.

The revelation in December by The New York Times that Bush had authorized monitoring of overseas communications by people in the US without court approval, has extended a debate over presidential powers and whether civil liberties have been sacrificed in the administration's "war on terror."

President George W. Bush has insisted repeatedly that he has the authority to order domestic spying without warrants to protect Americans, and Vice President Dick Cheney maintains the program has saved "thousands of lives."

In response to FBI complaints it was being swamped with unfiltered information, the NSA began ranking its tips on a three point scale of priority, but FBI agents said the new tips were still unproductive.

The disagreement between the two agencies, the daily said, was partly due to bureaucratic rivalry and their different approaches to intelligence gathering.

The NSA collects huge amounts of data across the world that may only yield tiny nuggets of useful information, while the FBI, although tasked with fighting terrorism, retains the traditions of a law enforcement agence more focused on solving crimes.

Some lawmakers have been calling for an independent investigation into the president's legal authority to order domestic spying without a court order, while the Bush administration is probing who leaked the secret eavesdropping program to the media.

Former vice president Al Gore late Monday backed an independent probe of the wiretapping program, which he said "compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and consistently."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, asked by CNN to comment on Gore's statement, said the eavesdropping program "has been reviewed carefully by lawyers at the Department of Justice and other agencies within the administration.

"We firmly believe that this program is perfectly lawful. The president has a legal authority to authorize these kinds of activities."