From ABC News, 1/10/06:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1491889
NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal SpyingFormer Employee Admits to
Being a New York Times Source
Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the NSA, alleges secret operations
were conducted in ways that he believes violated the law.
By BRIAN ROSS
Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is
now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.
For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United
States spy on other people's conversations around the world.
"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of
his job.
"We called them 'black world' programs and operations."
But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world"
operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes
violated the law.
He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged
wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the
National Security Agency in the post-9/11 efforts to go after
terrorists.
"The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do
whatever it takes to get them," he said.
Tracking Calls
Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every
domestic and international phone call as they are switched through
centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or
phrases that a terrorist might use.
"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said,
"the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you
pull it out of the system for processing."
According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to
develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone
number to hundreds or even thousands more.
Tice Admits Being a New York Times Source
President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA
to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual
requisite warrants.
But Tice disagrees.
He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA
could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is
used.
"That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you
know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were
sucked into that vacuum," Tice said.
The same day The New York Times broke the story of the NSA
eavesdropping without warrants, Tice surfaced as a whistleblower in
the agency.
He told ABC News that he was a source for the Times' reporters.
But Tice maintains that his conscience is clear.
"As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't say anything that's
classified, I'm not worried," he said.
"We need to clean up the intelligence community. We've had abuses, and
they need to be addressed."
The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on
what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him.
Tice calls that bunk and says that's the way the NSA deals with
troublemakers and whistleblowers.
Today the NSA said it had "no information to provide."
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The picture of a deathly frightened group of very weak right-wing
thugs.
Harry
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