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.

[jmcenanly]

ping

And the MSM wonders why he cannot wait to get a warrant.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

There's something fishy going on between the Clintonistas and al Qaeda.

How else to explain it?

An apt observation. What ever it is, at the bottom will be a plan to further Hillary's Communist takeover and Slick's personal aggrandizement.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

It was Judge Lamberth that Larry Klayman was taking everything concerning Clinton to. Lamberth would issue an order and the Clinton WH would ignore it and then it would disappear down a dark hole.

Dispite all his claims and money raising from those of us who wanted to nail Slick, I became suspicious, after months and years of lots of noise and no results, that Klayman was shilling for Slick. Once Klayman filed a court case, subpoena, etc., all other action would stop as everyone figured Klayman's efforts would bear fruit. They never did and no one else pursued the same angles. Remember Lamberth ordering the WH to produce Al Gore's e-mails and not destroy them? What happened to that?

Looks even more suspicious in light of this information on Lamberth.

[Peach]

That's how I remember Lamberth too.

[Grampa Dave]

Is this POS another Clintoon appointed judge?

[Sam Hill]

"FYI, Lamberth didn't stop those taps."

According to the article:

"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."

Do you have some information to the contrary?

[ichabod1]

Thanks for noticing. I read a rather long article on the origins of Political Correctness (truth unimportant, only thing that matters advancing the agenda), and how it is not a funny joke, it's real and it's deadly. It was sort of an outcast Marxist movement. A rather notorious communist from Italy named Gramsci was one of the early proponents. I wish I could link the article, but I can't find it.

[RightWhale]

The case can be argued, but just some lawyer saying what he thinks the law says doesn't mean that is what the law says.

[jess35]

You're quoting an opinion, vs a factual statement. If you want to base your opinion of Lamberth on the opinion of someone else who might also be having a "snit", knock yourself out.

[jess35]

The Justice Department went to the FISA court and admitted giving misleading, incomplete and erroneous information on 75 wiretaps. What should Lamberth have done? Said, Don't worry folks, It happens all the time. Well just give you a wink and a nudge if you promise to follow the law in the next 75 cases?

Once the Patriot Act was signed, the standards for wiretaps was changed but that did not occur in 2000. The Clinton administration was trying to do an end run around their own rules....for instance, the Gorelick wall which prevented the FBI from information sharing.

I'm not going to blame the court (in this instance) for ignoring existing law and holding the government to their own standards. For as much complaining as we do about judicial activism on this forum, sometimes it seems we're a-ok with it as long as it involves something we support.

[jess35]

He was appointed by President Reagan.

[TruthFactor]

Hang'em.... Hang'em High.

[right wing]

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...

This makes no sense unless Hillary's using her famous blackmail on Lamberth. And no, I'm not wearing a tin foil hat... :)

[Sam Hill]

"The Justice Department went to the FISA court and admitted giving misleading, incomplete and erroneous information on 75 wiretaps."

You seem obdurate to the fact that this "erroneous information" consists of leaving out that some of the people being tapped also were also of interest due to their criminal actions.

The Justice Department saw no need to mention that. It's all part of the Gorelick Wall that was strictly an artificial construct.

This is why they were called "trivial objections." 3,000 people may have died because of some pointless legalism. You defend that?

[petitfour]

Now that's interesting. Thanks for posting.

[petitfour]

After further research on Ms. Honegger, I'm not convinced of her ability to discern truth from fiction. She alleges that the October Surprise of 1980 was in deed reality.

[BARLF]

he sounded like one of the good guys in the bad old Clinton days.

Sounded like is right. The Hillary health care task force. Lamberth screamed and yelled but did nothing. Same with the Clinton emails and all the other clinton crap that came before him for judgement. The oldtimers here will remember Lamberth never did anything to the clintons.

[swheats]

Let's deal with the factual part then. Were the wiretaps stopped? Who deemed the FBI conducted illegal wiretaps? Why end the whole program due to errors of some wiretaps? It really doesn't "look" good here when you connect the dots and realize many lives could have been saved. This judge and court is just one failed part of the whole picture.

Due to our lack of human intelligence abilities and not having enough operatives to actually gather information you would think the judge would not have allowed the shutdown of this resource.

[jess35]

The Justice Department saw no need to mention that. It's all part of the Gorelick Wall that was strictly an artificial construct.

The government failed to mention it because they knew under existing law, they were not legally allowed to obtain the warrants under FISA if they told the court they were to be used for criminal prosecution vs foreign intelligence surveillance. Intelligence surveillance had to be the primary purpose, not building a criminal case. That was the law at the time under FISA. The Patriot Act changed the requirments. Now you can call that a trivial objection or an artificial construct but it was the law at the time. Neither the Clinton administration nor the Congress (even the Republican controlled congress) saw fit to change it.

[jess35]

This judge and court is just one failed part of the whole picture.

No, you're expecting the court to decide that FISA law was stupid out outdated and change it all on their lonesome. If it weren't for the patriot act, we'd still be under the very same restrictions. The Congress and President Clinton bear 100% responsibility for our inabilty to gather intelligence. That includes every single Republican in office at the time. Congress writes the legislation, not the FISA court.