NSA Wiretapping Program Only Part of the Surveillance Program

When will we find out the full extent of the Bush administration's encroachment into our civil liberties? When will it be important to ask these questions? In response to Arlen Specter's call to explain the perjury by Alberto Gonzalez Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence revealed that the NSA wiretapping and data mining programs are only part of a series of surveillance programs issued under one executive order by the President.

Rawstory reported on the story this morning:

Bush's executive order authorized "a number" of intelligence activities. The name created by the Bush team -- 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' -- applied only to "one particular aspect of these activities," McConnell wrote.

"This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly, because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged," McConnell said.

The Post did not say that the only reason warrantless wiretapping was acknowledged in the first place was due to a groundbreaking article by James Risen, that exposed the program in the New York Times.

"News reports over the past 20 months have detailed a range of activities linked to the program, including the use of data mining to identify surveillance targets and the participation of telecommunication companies in turning over millions of phone records," Eggen adds. "The administration has not publicly confirmed such reports."

When is illegal illegal with these guys? To try and clear Gonzalez from Perjury, the administration offers up more illegal programs. And the press just blinks like robots.