After Holding Off a Year, 'NY Times' Scores Big Scoop

By: E&P Staff What will get the headlines Friday is The New York Times' report that months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity "without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials?. Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight."

But the critical sub-text is: The White House asked the Times to not publish the article -- and the newspaper waited a year to do so. Today?s article, written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, omits certain information flagged by the administration.

"The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny," the newspaper reported. "After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted." That was the extent of the newspaper's explanation.

"While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it said the N.S.A. eavesdropped without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time," Risen and Lichtblau wrote. "The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands over the past three years, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials."

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, "the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible 'dirty numbers' linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said." The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."

The full article can be viewed here.