 |
Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday defended efforts by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to obtain financial records of Americans suspected of terrorism or espionage, calling the practice a “perfectly legitimate activity” used partly to protect troops stationed on military bases in the United States.
But the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee expressed concern over the expansion of the military’s domestic intelligence collection efforts and said his committee would investigate how the Pentagon was using its authority.
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Cheney said “national security letters” issued to banks and credit agencies were an essential tool for investigating terrorism cases in the United States.
He said the Pentagon had crossed no legal boundaries in issuing the letters independent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“There’s nothing wrong with it or illegal,” Mr. Cheney said. “It doesn’t violate people’s civil rights. And if an institution that receives one of these national security letters disagrees with it, they’re free to go to court to try to stop its execution.”
Representative Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who is the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said his panel would examine the matter. Mr. Reyes also indicated that he might renew efforts to pass a law requiring various agencies to get court approval before issuing national security letters.
“Any expansion by the department into intelligence collection, particularly on U.S. soil, is something our committee will thoroughly review,” he said in a statement issued to the news media.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon has issued hundreds of letters to American banks and other financial institutions seeking information about suspects in counterterrorism or counterespionage investigations.
Banks are not required to hand over the information, but Pentagon officials said that financial institutions usually complied.
The C.I.A. also uses the letters as an investigative tool, but issues them far less frequently than does the Pentagon, intelligence officials said.
The use of the national security letters by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. was first reported in The New York Times yesterday.
By law, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. are barred from any domestic law enforcement activities. But government officials said that their authority to issue the letters dated back several decades and was strengthened by the USA Patriot Act, an antiterrorism law passed in 2001.
Mr. Cheney said yesterday that the letters were valuable for protecting American forces stationed at hundreds of bases in the United States.
Since Sept. 11, the Pentagon has increased its domestic intelligence collection efforts to help ensure that American bases are protected from potential terrorist attacks.
The efforts have been criticized by civil liberties organizations, who say the Pentagon is using “force protection” to spy on Americans and collect information on groups like war protesters.
The American Civil Liberties Union said yesterday that it had “serious concerns” about the use of the letters by the Pentagon and the C.I.A., and it called for a Congressional investigation to examine the frequency and legal basis for the records demands, along with civil liberties safeguards in place.
“This country has a long tradition of rejecting the use of the C.I.A. and the Pentagon to spy on Americans, and rightfully so,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the A.C.L.U.’s Washington office. “Today’s published report that the Pentagon and C.I.A. have been relying on ‘national security letters’ to collect the financial records of Americans without judicial supervision or Congressional oversight raises a host of questions that need to be answered.”
Pentagon officials said the financial documents obtained through the national security letters usually did not establish an individual’s links to terrorism or espionage and had rarely led to criminal charges.
But officials said the records still had intelligence value, and the Pentagon plans within the next year to incorporate the records into a database at its Counterintelligence Field Activity office.
With the Democrats now in charge of both houses of Congress, the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees are planning hearings on various intelligence programs conducted by the Bush administration since Sept. 11, 2001.
At the top of the agenda are hearings on the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.
Mr. Reyes indicated yesterday that the military’s domestic collection efforts could also be a priority for his committee.
“We want our intelligence professionals to have strong tools that will enable them to interrupt the planning process of our enemies and to stop attacks against our country,” his statement said.
“But in doing so, we also want those tools to comply fully with the law and the Constitution.”
No comments:
Post a Comment