RSSUsing PayPal
John Bolton & NSA Intercepts: The Connection That Mattered Was International
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Wednesday, Jan 04 2006, 8:44AM
CLOSE 
SOCIAL WEBSITES
http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://twn.riverlab.com/archives/2006/01/short_comment_o/&title=John Bolton & NSA Intercepts: The Connection That Mattered Was International&topic=political_opinion" target="_blank">Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Facebook
Newsvine
Stumble UponEMAIL THIS ARTICLE
TWN has been inundated with emails asking why I have not written more about revelations about non-court approved NSA intercepts of electronic phone and email transmissions within the United States and the connection to John Bolton's requests for NSA intercept material when he served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
My response will no doubt frustrate many, but it is an honest one. I don't believe that John Bolton was involved with electronic monitoring or spying domestically -- with a couple of potential exceptions.
There is a remote chance that Bill Richardson's activities with North Korean diplomacy may have been monitored by the NSA. Richardson had discussions with Colin Powell over his private diplomacy as well as electronic interactions with the North Korean mission to the United Nations.
The NSA does monitor transmissions in and out of the United Nations and is one of the ways that John Bolton was able to get hold of discussion transcripts with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. The United Nations, I am told, is not considered part of the definition of and prohibitions against "domestic" eavesdropping.
Bill Richardson thinks he was monitored. I am not sure, but Bolton would have had an interest in what Richardson was doing with the North Koreans. It is not clear to me why it would be inappropriate to monitor North Korean interactions with anyone, including Richardson -- whose name would have been redacted from the intercepts. What does bother me was Bolton's interest in a policy area as well as the names of specific people in an arena he had been fenced off from. Bolton was working overtime to undermine Colin Powell and staff on its Korea Peninsula diplomacy.
Of the ten intercepts that Bolton requested to know the identities of 18 American individuals whose identities had been redacted, we know that two of the intercepts were based on international communications.
One of these transcripts was leaked to Douglas Jehl of the New York Times and had to do with American corporate activity in China. Another of these intercepts -- or at least the contents of such -- came the way of TWN and dealt with American policy towards Libya. The name of the individual requested by Bolton was then Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs William Burns.
Although TWN has not had any other direct contact with the actual content of other Bolton-related NSA intercepts, we have had contact with some who are knowledgeable about such intercepts and have had discussions with those who have made sophisticated calculations about what the transcripts were about.
TWN also suspects -- but has not confirmed -- that the U.S. government official who was congratulated by Bolton after Bolton read something in an intercept was former Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation John Wolf. But this is speculation -- not confirmed information.
In all of my discussions with people about these intercepts, none -- other than the Richardson/North Korea matter which might have been monitored domestically -- ever had a "domestic spying" dimension to it.
The names that most suspected of being on the roster of names requested by Bolton might have been John Wolf, Richard Armitage, William Burns, and others. Or, they might have been names we simply do not know and which would not be easily recognized except by those familiar with working staff inside the national security and diplomatic bureaucracy.
In my view, Bolton was spying on his colleagues. He was engaged in a turf war with others in his Department and was attempting to systematically undermine his overseers, Colin Powell and Richard Armitage. Someone quite familiar with Bolton's activities -- and not Lawrence Wilkerson (just to make that clear) -- told me that his intercept activity demonstrated no high crimes but rather "poor judgment and personal vanity."
There is also the possibility that John Negroponte's name was among those requested by John Bolton -- and Negroponte, who now serves as Director of National Intelligence but served previously as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq as well as to the United Nations -- did not want Bolton's antics regarding colleagues put out for public consumption.
TWN learned quite a while ago that John Negroponte never viewed John Bolton with much favor. They are not friends and had little contact when Bolton was at the State Department. Some speculate that Negroponte's decision to withhold the roster of NSA intercept identities of such interest to Bolton was designed by Negroponte to neither hurt Bolton -- NOR help him. It was also designed to keep -- perhaps -- Negroponte's own name out of the mix.
Negroponte's decision nearly sunk Bolton's appointment as the failure to provide the NSA intercepts, which the National Security Agency had consented to be released to the relevant Senators before being blocked by the Director of National Intelligence, stopped Bolton's Senate confirmation.
TWN is confident that the pattern of vanity, jealousy, and professional vindictiveness that would emerge from both the subject matter of the NSA intercepts that interested Bolton as well as the roster of 18 names would have been enough to turn a majority of the Senate against Bolton's confirmation in an up-or-down vote. The content of several other of the NSA intercepts that interested Bolton and his then chief-of-staff Frederick Fleitz dealt with policy matters that Colin Powell and Rich Armitage had blocked Bolton from participating in.
None of these matters were domestically focused, and my own sense is that Bolton was not interested in private American citizens who might have been chatting with al Qaeda-connected operatives. Bolton was acting as Vice President Cheney's agent inside the State Department on what they considered to be bigger policy battles involving Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea.
Bolton's errors of judgment don't need to be stretched to include the current controversy over President Bush's duplicitous side-stepping of the courts in approving domestic wiretaps. They are bad enough as they are.
-- Steve Clemons
« Previous Article - Saudi Arabia Trip Postponed Til Next Year» Next Article - Doug Bandow's Confession and Call for Debate on Punditry Ethics
"Domestic spying" or not, I find it both stunning and absurd that the NSA is willing to simply hand over what appears to be a wildly diverse mix of recorded communications to a guy who doesn't appear to wield very much power. The fact that he can request and receive intecepts of his BOSS, apparently without his boss knowing or having to OK the transfer, simply floors me. Indeed, does not the "boss--understudy" relationship get completely flipped if the understudy can now monitor your work, your calls, and your contacts?
Or this--would Powell have the power and fortitude to have "spied" on Bolton? Did he monitor Bolton the same way? The mere thought that there could exist these "tit-for-tat", back and forth intercept transfers by the NSA makes me sick, as both an enormous waste of resources and the potential for abuse. Is there ANY oversight as to who the NSA will and will not provide these communications to?
"...my own sense is that Bolton was not interested in private American citizens who might have been chatting with al Qaeda-connected operatives."
I'm sure that's right, and this whole post is very illuminating. However, we have only the administration's word that the domestic surveillance involved exclusively Americans who were chatting with al Qaeda-connected operatives. Since there would have been no problem in getting FISA warrants in such cases, there is plenty of reason to suspect that something more was going on here, and that something more might have been of interest to journalists.
In my view, Bolton was spying on his colleagues. He was engaged in a turf war with others in his Department and was attempting to systematically undermine his overseers, Colin Powell and Richard Armitage. Someone quite familiar with Bolton's activities -- and not Lawrence Wilkerson (just to make that clear) -- told me that his intercept activity demonstrated no high crimes but rather "poor judgment and personal vanity."
GIVE ME A BREAK!!! "poor judgment and personal vanity."!!!!!!!!!! In Bolton's position it IS high crimes. We are talking about US Foreign Policy.... this is NOT office politics that don't affect international relations, peoples' lives and war and peace!! Powell, Armitage, and the rest of the 18 whose names we still do not know---- are they NOT Americans????
Sounds like this person "... quite familiar with Bolton's activities..." telling u it's simply petty internal office jealousy is side-stepping and hiding the point that the names Bolton listed are American citizen. One cannot deny the fact. One cannot do window-dressing by calling it petty office jealousy.
Very interesting post Mr Clemons as usual but I gotta agree with the concerns of the above posters...NSA must have been up to something more than just monitoring suspected oversea calls from al Quaida (sp?)or they would have pursued approval from the FISA board...it can't simply be just a power grab by Cheney/Bush etc...and it is pretty freakin bizarre that an underling can spy on their boss and somehow that is an isolated incedent of petty office politics...
Off topic. But Steve, I wonder if you intend to address the McCain business, and how this torture bill was completely misrepresented as a "success" for human rights. I recall that you were a bit "taken in" by this business on one of your postings, and I am curious if your opinion on this issue has evolved, and if so, how so.
Excerpt from the article:
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.
After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said."
''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."
"Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law."
Interesting. All this crap going on and yet Americans are supposed to trust their government.
Anybody seen Poindexter lately?
As far as Bolton and the NSA taps go. Who cares? Why are we trying to dig deeper into an issue that apparentluy is not even going to be investigated on a SHALLOW level. Besides, with these mewling cowards that are touted as being the "opposition party" voicing their ineffectual mewlings, we will never hold Bush or his handlers responsible for ANYTHING.
Call Reid. NOW. Demand representation. HE IS the "minority leader". Demand that he ACT LIKE IT. Ask where the Phase Two progress report is. Ask whether or not he intends to support Conyers. Ask where he stands on the NSA issue, and what he intends to do about it. TELL HIM you expect representaion. TELL HIM you are sick of watching your party posture and mewl while Bush wipes his ass with our Constitution. If YOU don't tell him, no one will.
Call him. NOW.
Nevada office.... 702-388-5020
Washington office....202-224-3542
It doesn't represent high crimes, but merely poor judgement and personal vanity?
Au contraire. This is a person who intercepted secret information to which he was not entitled which he attempted to use for personal benefit.
That's nothing but a high crime. I'm astonished at the selectively cavalier attitude of Americans to misconduct.
If John Bolton is Boris Badanoff, would Condoleeza Rice be Natasha? Bolton does seem like a really bad cartoon.
The UN ambassadors and their staffs must really love not being able to communicate electronically without being 'overheard' by the US. I can imagine that this makes 'the art of diplomacy' even more difficult than it already is. Is the US still bugging UN offices for person-to-person conversations too? Just a little paranoid, don't you think?
I share Punchy's view re: John Bolton. If Bolton was able to 'request' NSA intercepts involving Powell, Richardson, etc., then does the NSA also provide transcripts from the 'new' program to interested parties? Also, I don't believe that the 'new' program simply involves transcripts of calls from suspected Al Qaeda members to US citizens and vice versa. What does that have to do with 'new' technology? Is this what Rockefeller and Pelosi objected to so vehemently? I hope we get some answers, some believeable ones.
As someone who has also been making this argument let me put it differently (and in a way that will address Mark Schmitt's comment).
Almost every credible speculation about this program suggests it involves some kind of data mining. Some kind of pattern recognition to pick targets for eavesdropping.
Bolton wouldn't need data mining to decide who to eavesdrop on. He could develop his own list all by himself.
Although I will say this. I'm not so sure that Bolton's communiques all involve international discussion. One of the mysteries that came out of the Bolton testimony is that Bolton's office was quite sure that Fulton Armstrong leaked the contents of the IC's consensus on Cuba (which countered the claims Bolton made in a speech) to the NYT. Now, I've never been able to find an article written off of that leak, so I'm not sure who Armstrong was purported to have leaked this to. But I can think of two ways that Bolton et al might have learned that Armstrong made such a leak. Either because Armstrong leaked it to Judy Miller (who reliably puts loyalty to neocons above the story, and who has been shown to be willing to burn a source), and she promptly told Bolton. Or, Bolton had arranged for Armstrong's communications to be tapped. Frankly, I could easily believe either scenario.
It's pretty clear that to the administration whether or not Bolton's access to the intercepts was illegal is immaterial. The McCain ammendment signing statement shows Bush's total disregard for law when it stands between him and something he wants.
I do wonder if Bolton's access to the intercepts wasn't against policy guidelines for access to compartmentalized classified information. If the intercepts were concerning areas outside his official duties what would be the difference from someone walking in off the street and being handed the documents?
I believe a lot of this confusion can be cleared up buy checking on Boultons citizenship status. (Dual citizenship?) and checking on ties to the Mossad. Try Ask Jeves. " John Boulton Isreali citizen?" and "John Boulton Mossad agent?" Unless they have caught up on this it should still be in there. If not check around. Old newpaper articles are hard to hide they tend to pop up at the oddest times.
"Enemy of the State"
NSA intercepts for Bolton masked as 'training missions'
By Wayne Madsen
April 25, 2005â€â€According to National Security Agency insiders, outgoing NSA Director General Michael Hayden approved special communications intercepts of phone conversations made by past and present U.S. government officials. The intercepts are at the height of the current controversy surrounding the nomination of Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
It was revealed by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) during Bolton's Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing that Bolton requested transcripts of 10 NSA intercepts of conversations between named U.S. government officials and foreign persons. However, NSA insiders report that Hayden approved special intercept operations on behalf of Bolton and had them masked as "training missions" in order to get around internal NSA regulations that normally prohibit such eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.
It is noteworthy that in the fictional movie "Enemy of the State," it was under the authority of a "training mission" that renegade NSA officials targeted U.S. civilians for eavesdropping. United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18, the NSA's "Bible" for the conducting of surveillance against U.S. persons, allows "U.S. material," i.e., listening to U.S. persons, to be used for training missions. However, USSID 18 also requires that all intercepts conducted for such training missions are to be completely destroyed after completion of the training operation.
http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/042505Madsen/042505madsen.html
I don't think I understand this. Were the intercepts done at Bolton's request? I thought he was asking to see the intercepts, not that he was responsible for their existence. So the question of spying is still valid, it seems to me. These were NSA intercepts, yes? At least one of the persons involved in the intercepts you have described in the post above was an American citizen. This would require a FISA warrant, normally. It would be hard to see how such a warrant could be justified, however.
My apologies if this has already been covered previously. I just find this entire situation baffling, frankly. I believe that spying on the UN would have been a matter of some shame in previous administrations. Under the current administration, however, the antipathy toward the UN has been massaged and manipulated to make the most outrageous behavior on our part appear justifiable to far too many Americans.
John Bolton is a menace to peace and well-being. He is a hate-filled man who seems to experience himself as a righteous fury.
I wonder if we'll end up learning there's a connection between Bolton-inspired wiretapping and the new rumors surrounding Christiane Amanpour (see http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/nbc-changes-official-transcript-of.html). Recall that Amanpour is married to a Clinton-era State Department spokesman who may still be plugged in to events in Foggy Bottom.
re: the question of these intercepts not being part of the NSA scandal because they were 'international intercepts'.....
The original NY Times article was specifically about "international intercepts" -- how AMERICANS were targeted for surveillance of their overseas conversations without warrants.
It should also be known that under FISA, you can only wiretap an "agent of a foreign power" without a warrant if there is "no substantial likelihood" that the target of the wiretap will be communicating with Americans. So, if they were wiretapping someone like El Baradei -- who obviously talks to Americans -- without a warrant, that would be illegal.
Finally, there are supposed to be strict procedures in force regarding the dissemination of information collected through court ordered wiretaps regarding Americans who are not a target of the wiretap. (i.e. a very strict "need to know" basis). The question of why Bolton would "need to know" the identity of the American in a given transcript in order to "understand foreign intelligence information" or "assess its importance" raises serious questions.
I read the posts above and I think to myself. "Good now people are thinking". I only say this because I look at others in my daily life and find that STILL the majority of the people around me are not paying attention. My father rests in a military section of the cemetary that he was buried in. My uncle was a tail gunner on a B17 in WWII. I look at our country today and ask myself is this what they fought for? A military that hires paid mercaneries? Oh excuse me they are undoubtedly security contractors. They keep saying this is an all volunteer military. While that is true. Shouldn't the men and women that volunteer be able to trust that their lives will not be put in jepordy for reasons less than defending our country? I would rather die at the hands of a terrorist than surrender my civil liberties to this regime.
Steambomb, I read the above and have a different reaction. I wonder how many of you believe you were abducted (and probed) by aliens, or perhaps have evidence of LBJ's involvement in JFK's assasination...
You are adults (likely) act like it. No, Santa's not real, and nor are the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairly OR the Evil Demonic Criminal John Bolton of whom you all speak so familiarly...
How can you take this guy seriously when he has brown hair and a grey mustache? Sheesh, he looks like the tool he is.
Reader Comments (20) - post a comment