NSA has been spying on -1. their own employees - 2. People who resisted going along with the "party-line" of the administration.- 3 other members of the government who may have been potential whistleblowers - 4. employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies -- including the CIA and DIA – 5. CIA and DIA contacts in the media - 6. members of Congress, oversight agencies and offices - and 7. Journalists - The journalist surveillance program was code named "Firstfruits".
Indeed, Did NSA knowing Judith Millers contact keep the media from publishing Millers revelation about Bush in June 2001 knowing Osama'a plans?
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BACKGROUND INFO:
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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/19/14619/9977 NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts.
Operation FirstFruits : NSA spied on Dissenters and Journalists?
by Vyan Wed Jan 18, 2006 at 10:46:19 PM PDT
While doing research on a post discussing the recent speech by Vice-President Al Gore, I discovered a webpage/blog called MediaChannel.org which described a secret NSA program called FirstFruits (COMMENT:previously described by not too credible on DU Wayne Madsen Report?) whose aim is even more dark and heinous than anything previously discussed concerning the current scandal of performing warrantless surveillance of partially domestic al-Qaeda communications .<snip>
In addition, beginning in 2001 but before the 9-11 attacks, NSA began to target anyone in the U.S. intelligence community who was deemed a "disgruntled employee." According to NSA sources, this surveillance was a violation of United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The surveillance of U.S. intelligence personnel by other intelligence personnel in the United States and abroad was conducted without any warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The targeted U.S. intelligence agency personnel included those who made contact with members of the media, including the journalists targeted by Firstfruits, as well as members of Congress, Inspectors General, and other oversight agencies. Those discovered to have spoken to journalists and oversight personnel were subjected to sudden clearance revocation and termination as "security risks."
“Firstfruits was a database that contained both the articles and the transcripts of telephone and other communications of particular Washington journalists known to report on sensitive U.S. intelligence activities, particularly those involving NSA. According to NSA sources, the targeted journalists included author James Bamford, the New York Times' James Risen, the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, UPI's John C. K. Daly, and this editor , who has written about NSA for The Village Voice, CAQ, Intelligence Online, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).”
What is also quite interesting is that Democratic Underground reports that the CNN Transcript of this interview was altered to remove the Amanpour question –
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.
When originally posted it was mere speculation, but apparently the salient details have been confirmed by NBC (regarding the question, investigation and it's subsequent scrubbing...)
NBC confirms it's investigating whether Bush spied on CNN's Christiane Amanpour
by John in DC - 1/04/2006 10:27:00 PM
NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.
No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."