Reporter: NSA analysts spied on own wives and girlfriends
NSA TORTURE TECHNOLOGY, NEWS and RESEARCH
Reporter: NSA analysts spied on own wives and girlfriends
By David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: June 18, 2009
Updated 1 day ago
According to the reporter who first broke the NSA wiretapping story, there
is no proof the agency has scaled back its interception of the personal
phone calls and email messages of American citizens as promised by the Obama
administration or even that it is being straight with Congress about its
activities.
James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed the NSA's over-collection of data in
an article for the New York Times on Tuesday, noting that one NSA analyst
was even found to have been reading the private email of former President
Bill Clinton.
Risen told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann the next day that he knew of no other
cases like the Clinton incident but that many NSA analysts had been abusing
their powers in other ways. "It sounded like, from the former NSA analyst
that we interviewed, that it was rare to access the emails of celebrities or
famous people," Risen stated, "but that it was fairly routine, according to
him, for people to access the emails of girlfriends or wives or other people
that they might know."
Risen further addressed the more serious question of whether the Obama
administration is complying with its promise to scale back NSA data
collection. He said that Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), who is the chairman of an
intelligence oversight committee, "told us that he is not convinced that the
NSA . has put an end to it. . He believes that it's not inadvertent and
that . this may be a flagrant problem that is continuing."
Risen did acknowledge, however, that "other people on the Hill seem to
disagree with that."
Risen also pointed out there's "a division within Congress" on whether or
not they're getting straight answers from the NSA. "Senator Feinstein said
today that she believes the NSA is following the law. . Congressman Holt
disagrees with that. . It's unclear where the oversight is right now."
Risen concluded by noting that "there was a very interesting exchange today
in Congress between Attorney General Holder and Senator Russ Feingold.
Feingold tried to get Attorney General Holder to agree that the Bush
warrantless wiretapping program had been illegal, and Attorney General
Holder refused now to use that word 'illegal.' . That was very
interesting. . It represented a change from the Obama campaign's position on
that."
This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast June 17, 2009
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