Reports all over the media yesterday and today confirm what we’ve known all along. Surveillance programs touted as critical to protect national security have in fact been used to monitor the private communications of innocent Americans abroad, including humanitarian workers and U.S. service-members.
Two former military intercept operators -- the people at the National Security Agency (NSA) who actually listen in to people’s calls -- revealed the news in an ABC report released yesterday.
Contrary to direct assurances from Bush administration officials that NSA monitoring was directed at suspected terrorists, the intercept operators report that "hundreds of U.S. citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they call friends and family back home."
The NSA even intentionally directed its surveillance powers at well-established humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.
It is outrageous that service men and women and international aid workers have had their private conversations needlessly and wantonly invaded by our government.
That is why the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Congress’s expansion of the NSA’s surveillance authority under the FISA Amendments Act is so critical. Our case, Amnesty International v. McConnell -- brought on behalf of an impressive array of journalists, human rights organizations and lawyers -- shines a spotlight on the devastating effect of unchecked spying power on Americans doing indispensable work around the globe.
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