President Bush Orders Illegal NSA Spying
President George W. Bush on this day secretly ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct illegal warrantless spying in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). (See October 25, 1978 for the enactment of FISA.)
When the illegal spying was exposed by reporter Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times on December 16, 2005, the spying became a major scandal for the Bush administration. And it was later revealed that the Times was ready to publish the story in the fall of 2004, when it could have influenced the presidential election in November. The Bush administration, however, pressured the Times into not publishing the story.
On June 5, 2013, documents stolen and leaked by former NSA contract employee Edward Snowden revealed an even greater pattern of illegal spying by the NSA under President Barack Obama. The Snowden revelations, among other things, revealed that the 2005 New York Times story, explosive as it was, had uncovered only part of the NSA’s illegal spying activities.
The NSA began operation on November 4, 1952, at the height of the Cold War. The agency remained secret for over twenty years (Washington insiders referred to it as “No Such Agency”). Finally, on October 29, 1975, NSA Director Lt. General Lew Allen testified in open hearings before the Senate Church Committee, marking the first time any agency person had testified publicly.
Read: Eric Lichtblau, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice (2008)
Get the full story of the Snowden revelations: Luke Harding, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man (2014)
Learn more about the NSA: James Bamford, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America (2008)