Fergie's Tech Blog

CIA: Warrants Hurt al Qaeda Hunt

A Reuters newswire article, via Wired News, reports that:

CIA Director Michael Hayden told senators on Wednesday that the requirement of court orders to carry out electronic surveillance inside the United States was ill-suited for tracking al Qaeda and other militant groups.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the intelligence official who crafted President George W. Bush's domestic spying program also said international phone calls targeted by warrantless surveillance are the most valuable to protecting national security.

"Why should our laws make it more difficult to target al Qaeda communications that are most important to us -- those entering or leaving this country," said Hayden, an Air Force general who set up the administration's eavesdropping program in 2001 as director of the National Security Agency.

Congress is debating how to accommodate the legally questionable NSA eavesdropping program by changing the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

posted by Fergie @ 7/26/2006 09:31:00 AM