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- On January 3, 2006, NBC's Andrea Mitchell interviewed
James Risen, one of the New York Times reporters who broke the story on
NSA eavesdropping of U.S. citizens. WMR reported on May 10, 2005 that NSA
had a special system that eavesdropped on journalists:
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- From May 10, 2005
- The WayneMadsenReport.com
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- Spying on Unfriendly Journalists
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- The inquisition side of NSA is the one that Hayden and
his advisers do not want the public to see. In fact, NSA maintains a database
that tracks unofficial and negative articles written about the agency.
Code named "FIRSTFRUITS," the database is operated by the Denial
and Deception (D&D) unit within SID. High priority is given to articles
written as a result of possible leaks from cleared personnel.
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- According to those familiar with FIRSTFRUITS, Bill Gertz
of The Washington Times features prominently in the database. Before Hayden's
reign and during the Clinton administration, Gertz was often leaked classified
documents by anti-Clinton intelligence officials in an attempt to demonstrate
that collusion between the administration and China was hurting U.S. national
security. NSA, perhaps legitimately, was concerned that China could actually
benefit from such disclosures.
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- In order that the database did not violate United States
Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18, which specifies that the names
of "U.S. persons" are to be deleted through a process known as
minimization, the names of subject journalists were blanked out. However,
in a violation of USSID 18, certain high level users could unlock the database
field through a super-user status and view the "phantom names"
of the journalists in question. Some of the "source" information
in FIRSTFRUITS was classified-an indication that some of the articles in
the database were not obtained through open source means. In fact, NSA
insiders report that the communications monitoring tasking system known
as ECHELON is being used more frequently for purely political eavesdropping
having nothing to do with national security or counter terrorism.
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- In addition, outside agencies and a "second party,"
Great Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), are permitted
to access the journalist database. FIRST FRUITS was originally developed
by the CIA but given to NSA to operate with CIA funding. The database soon
grew to capacity, was converted from a Lotus Notes to an Oracle system,
and NSA took over complete ownership of the system from the CIA.
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- Tens of thousands of articles are found in FIRSTFRUITS
and part of the upkeep of the system has been outsourced to outside contractors
such as Booz Allen, which periodically hosts inter-agency Foreign Denial
and Deception meetings within its Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility
or "SCIF" in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. Currently, in addition
to NSA and GCHQ, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
routinely access the database, which is, in essence, a classified and more
powerful version of the commercial NEXIS news search database.
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- In addition to Gertz, other journalists who feature prominently
in the database include Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker; author and journalist
James Bamford, James Risen of The New York Times, Vernon Loeb of The Washington
Post, John C. K. Daly of UPI, and this journalist [Wayne Madsen].
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- NSA abhors negative publicity. Anytime the agency is
the subject of unwanted media attention, [NSA Director Michael] Hayden
sends out an email known as an "All Agency." The memo reiterates
NSA's long standing "neither confirm nor deny" policy regarding
certain news reports:
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- "NSA personnel must refrain from either confirming
or denying any information concerning the agency or its activities which
may appear in the public media. If you are asked about the activities of
NSA, the best response is 'no comment.' You should the notify Q43 {Public
Affairs] of the attempted inquiry. For the most part, public references
to NSA are based upon educated guesses. The agency does not normally make
a practice of issuing public statements about its activities."
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- _________
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- The NBC transcript originally read:
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- "Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters
being swept up in this net?
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- Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one
of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses
of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that
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- Mitchell: "You don't have any information, for instance,
that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been
eavesdropped upon?"
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- Risen: "No, no I hadn't heard that."
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- Inexplicably, NBC then deleted the last two paragraphs
from its original transcript.
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- New information provided to WMR expands on our initial
reports about the Bush administration using NSA to spy on politicians,
including phone conversations between then-Secretary of State Colin Powell
and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson concerning diplomatic back channels
to North Korea's UN ambassador. Informed sources also report that Arizona
Republican Senator John McCain was also subject to NSA eavesdropping. Of
particular interest to the White House was McCain's actual commitment to
Bush during the 2004 presidential campaign, evidence his Indian Affairs
Committee collected on GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's tribal casino activities,
and details of McCain's medical condition. McCain is recovering from skin
cancer. McCain has also been assured by senior GOP officials that in the
event Dick Cheney steps down as Vice President, McCain would be rewarded
for his past support for Bush with the Vice President's slot.
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- McCain did not need that microphone -- NSA could hear
him just fine.
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- http://waynemadsenreport.com/
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