FISA Court Prevented Al Qaeda Taps Before 9/11

Sweetness & Light ^ | December 27, 2005 | N/A

[Sam Hill]

How soon (and conveniently) the media forget.

Behold this passage from the May 2002 issue of the DNC organ, Newsweek:

US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth

WHAT WENT WRONG

The inside story of the missed signals and intelligence failures that raise a chilling question: did September 11 have to happen?

By Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff
May 27/02

...NEWSWEEK has learned there was one other major complication as America headed into that threat-spiked summer.

In Washington, Royce Lamberth, chief judge of the special federal court [the FISA Court] that reviews national-security wiretaps, erupted in anger when he found that an FBI official was misrepresenting petitions for taps on terror suspects. Lamberth prodded Ashcroft to launch an investigation, which reverberated throughout the bureau.

From the summer of 2000 on into the following year, sources said, the FBI was forced to shut down wiretaps of Qaeda-related suspects connected to the 1998 African embassy bombing investigation.

“It was a major problem,” said one source familiar with the case, who estimated that 10 to 20 Qaeda wiretaps had to be shut down, as well as wiretaps into a separate New York investigation of Hamas.

The effect was to stymie terror surveillance at exactly the moment it was needed most...

And yet elsewhere Judge Lamberth has bizarrely cited the African embassy wiretaps as proof of the importance of his job:

An Interview with Judge Royce C. Lamberth

Judge Royce C. Lamberth, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was appointed to the federal bench in 1987. Before joining the Judiciary he was a U.S. Army Captain in the JAG Corps, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Chief of the Department of Justice Civil Division. He recently completed a term as presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Q: You've called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "the least known, but probably most important court in the war on terrorism?" Why?

A: The FISC has nationwide jurisdiction to authorize the United States government to conduct electronic surveillances and physical searches for national security purposes when the target is a foreign power or the individual is acting as the agent of a foreign power. Major international terrorist groups may be targeted by the FBI, CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies. Since 9-11, invaluable intelligence information has been sought and obtained as a result of warrants and orders issued by this court.

There's no question that every judge who has ever served on this court has thought it was the most significant thing they've ever done as a judge. When I did the hearings on the embassy bombings in Africa, we started the hearings in my living room at 3:00 in the morning. And some of the taps I did that night turned out to be very significant and were used in the New York trials of the people indicted for the bombings.

These wiretaps were so "significant" that Lamberth stopped them and any others like them in the year and a half prior to 9/11 -- just because of a personal snit.

Something to bear in mind when we hear it bewailed how Bush neglected to go to the FISA courts for permission to monitor al Qaeda phone calls.

[festus]

This is grounds for a trial on treason and a public hanging.

[Judith Anne]

An amazing thread. The best of Free Republic.

[MNJohnnie]

I think you all may be intrested in this thread.

[wildbill]

I'll say this for Judge Lamberth. When the Clinton's were in ofice he fined the DOJ $250,000 and cited what he called perjury in testimony about Hillary's health care task force. He tried to get the Clinton justice department to look into it, but you know how far that got.

I used to have all the details, but threw my research away some years ago. Perhaps it will all come out again when Hillaryt runs for Pres.

[chaosagent]

Great Story!

[Just A Nobody]

Yes! Thanks for the ping!!

[swheats]

Of all the names that come to mind goofball wasn't one of them. This judge seems to be a renegade, unfortunately not for America's interest.

[swheats]

FYI

[jess35]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/692148/posts

#5

[jess35]

I can't honestly say he is a renegade. His service was during the Clinton years and the Reno justice department. The entire court was apparently sick and tired of their antics and failure to fulfil their obligations when bringing requests before the court. They turned down 75 requests....but you won't hear the media talking about that.

[jess35]

Excuse me...actually they later found that 75 requests for wiretaps and warrants were based on false information that the Reno Justice department reported to the FISA court in 2000.

[Sam Hill]

Article | FBI Handcuffed

"In November 2000, the chief judge of the FISA court, Royce Lamberth, blasted the FBI for 75 trivial breaches of the Wall. The Reno Justice Department, it turned out, was unable to abide by the Reno Wall. The "violations" consisted of minor disseminations of FISA information to criminal anti-terror agents, and failures to disclose that FISA suspects were also being investigated for crimes.

After the court's temper tantrum, the Justice Department went into shock and hunkered down completely. The Wall went even higher. Surveillance requests were strangled under miles of red tape."

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_nypost-fbi_handcuffed.htm

[RobbyS]

Much that passes as "due process" is nothing more than judicial red tape.

[swheats]

"I can't honestly say he is a renegade."

That's your right. 75 out of ?# of requests. The court being sick and tired...During the Clinton Admin did any law enforcement do their job? Clinton did his best to shut down or cut any agency tasked with law enforcement. Starting with firing all US attorneys nationwide. It seems law enforcement didn't happen until Clinton ended and the Bush admin began. I realize I used a broad brush, but I believe you get my point.

I based my thought on this, as far as calling him a renegade.

..."The effect was to stymie terror surveillance at exactly the moment it was needed most..."

and this
"These wiretaps were so "significant" that Lamberth stopped them and any others like them in the year and a half prior to 9/11 -- just because of a personal snit."

[jess35]

I suspect the Reno justice department played fast and loose with every single wiretap request. With everything else that was going on within the Clinton administration, one can hardly fault the court with deciding they weren't going to be a tool for a corrupt administration. Believe me, I don't like the FISA court and I think they've overstepped their bounds at times but would you want to put your @ss on the line rubberstamping requests from that particular administration?

[jess35]

FYI, Lamberth didn't stop those taps. The FBI decided to apply even more stringent restrictions to their requests than FISA required. This was after the justice department reported to the court that the FBI was disseminating information in violation of the Gorelick wall and failed to tell the court that some of the FISA suspects were also being investigated for crimes that had nothing to do with the request for wiretaps.

[swheats]

hmmmm let me see which has more credibility. Lamberth, Reno Justice Department or Louie Freeh. I'll pass on this one...I find it difficult to defend the judge.

The judge would be happy to know he has a following on FR I'm sure.

what part of this sentence excuses the judges behavior?

"These wiretaps were so "significant" that Lamberth stopped them and any others like them in the year and a half prior to 9/11 -- just because of a personal snit."

[XenaLee]

And YET.....any time the word communist is mentioned....the leftists laugh and pretend that communism is dead and that we on the right are just being paranoid.

How typically duplicitous and dishonest of them! I would have never thought they had a method to their madness.

Thanks for the new perspective and insight!




"History is what they say it is. In their minds. People act surprised that the rats and the left propose no solutions, only criticisms. Yet, I recently learned that this is a communist PC tactic called "Critical Theory", where no solutions are ever intended to be offered, only criticism, because after the revolution the world will be so different that proposing a solution NOW is only counter-productive. Only later might a solution present itself."

[Peach]

Thanks so much for providing that, deport. I'd been confused because I had thought the court upheld Ashcroft in this matter.

On Nov. 18, 2002, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court of Review, convening for the first time ever, overturned the lower FISA Court's May 17 ruling. The Court of Review said that Attorney General John Ashcroft's guidelines did not, in fact, violate FISA law or the Constitution, as the FISA Court had ruled.

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm