US State Dept: Domestic Spying on US Citizens Is Legal As FISA Does Not Apply
It may be early, I may be bleary-eyed and need of coffee, but I heard this loud and clear. John Bellinger* , interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, less than 5 mins ago:
“…. I think FISA only covers certain kinds” [of surveillance programmes] “the programmes Bush put in place doesn’t fit the narrow technical definition of FISA, therefore it was legal beacuse FISA doesn’t apply…. people should understand that after the 911 attacks, it’s important to detect communications from Al Qaeda into us… a detailed monitoring of US citizens does occur under FISA. We should be told… we feel we are in a legal state of war with Al Qaeda … which is why we apply the legal laws of war .”
As I was typing as he was speaking there are necessarily a couple of elisions for umms and errs but this is substantially verbatim. In any case you can hear the broadcast again after 9am UK time here.
*John B. Bellinger, III was sworn in as the Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State on April 8, 2005. He is the principal adviser on all domestic and international law matters to the Department of State, the Foreign Service, and the diplomatic and consular posts abroad. He is also the principal adviser on legal matters relating to the conduct of foreign relations to other agencies and, through the Secretary of State, to the President and the National Security Council. Bellinger joined the Department of State in January 2005 as Senior Advisor to Secretary Rice, having previously co-directed her transition team.
Well, he should know – which means we can take this as an authoritative policy statement, yes?
Tags: US Politics Spying NSA FISA
