[117520] in Cypherpunks
FBI and NSA Hides COMINT
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Young)
Sat Sep 4 21:18:19 1999
Message-Id: <199909050057.UAA10632@smtp4.mindspring.com>
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 20:44:57 -0400
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
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Reply-To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
There's a 1956 FBI document released under FOIA about
the Venona project which describes how the FBI and
NSA withheld COMINT info from other members of the
US Communications Intercept Board, such as the CIA,
Navy and Air Force. The full document is a big 3.2MB
but we've transcribed and converted to HTML the dozen
pages that describe the nature of the intercepts and their
being withheld from those whom the FBI and NSA believed
to be untrustworthy:
http://cryptome.org/fbi-nsa.htm
Annotations show that NSA signed off on declassifying
the document in 1997.
The primary justification back then was that COMINT means
and methods had to be protected despite reporting requirements.
And that those who knew unilaterally decided to keep the
unknowing ignorant. Even then, the FBI displayed concern
about being blamed unfairly for protecting the ignorant nation.
This duopolistic decision to withhold information too sensitive
to be shared with legitimate consumers reminds of the current
flap about NSA withholding the fruits of Echelon and other
advanced technologies from Congressional intelligence
oversight committees.
Whether this arrogance of techno-power has bearing on the
Branch Davidian/Reno/Freeh cover-up remains to be FOIAed.
But it is clear that the career FBI people, like those in many
federal agencies, believe their duty requires them to act
in disregard of pass-through political appointees. Hoover is
only the most well-known petty tyrant who used patriotism
to conceal his Machiavellianism. Recall that the FBI director
is appointed to a long-term specifically to avoid being subject
to opportunistic political orders from above. Problem with that
is that it seems to make the directors believe they are above
the law -- not unlike long-term Justice Department lawyers and
judges and generals and priests and swelled heads of most
monopolies in and out of government.
The WSJ had an informative report on the two lawyers who have
been birddogging the Waco case for years. I believe it said that the
listing of incendiary grenades was discovered by one of them
in an FOIAed doc.
