Hmmm. Thanks, Ethan! Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe the NSA was always
allowed to pass criminal evidence across to the civilian police forces.
It's a very strange world.
iang
On 1/07/13 06:12 AM, Ethan Heilman wrote:
>The way I read that (and combined with the overall disclosures that
they are basically collecting everything they can get their hands on)
the NSA has now been de-militarised, or civilianised if you prefer that
term. In the sense that, information regarding criminal activity is now
being shared with the FBI & friends. Routinely, albeit secretly and
deniably.
The NSA became "demilitarised" that is, involved in civilian law
enforcement, when it stopped being the AFSA (Armed Forces Security
Agency) and the NSA was "created" in 1952. But even prior to that in
it's earlier form as the AFSA, ASA, and etc, the NSA did some civil law
enforcement work with the FBI. For example Project Shamrock which
started in 1945 (seven years before the AFSA became the NSA) involved:
"Intercepted messages were disseminated to the FBI, CIA, Secret
Service, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and the
Department of Defense."
Earlier forms of the NSA were also involved in cryptanalysis of pirate
radio stations and prohibition era "booze barons".
The case of their abuses was Project MINARET 1967-1975 which spied on US
citizens that suspected of being dissidents or involved in drug
smuggling. This information was passed on to the FBI and local law
enforcement.
Project MINARET that uses “watch lists” to electronically and
physically spy on “subversive” activities by civil rights and
antiwar leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Jane Fonda,
Malcolm X, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and Joan Baez—all members of Richard
Nixon’s infamous “enemies list.”
The NSA has been a civil law enforcement organisation in practice if not
always in principal since before it's inception (its charter broadened
its role beyond its previous role as a military support organisation).
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