The law seems pretty clear: there are legitimate reasons for the relevant US authorities to seek the names of the US persons on communications between foreign and US persons intercepted by the NSA. Those reasons come down to three:

1) the US person has consented to the dissemination of his/her name by the NSA;

2) the information is publicly available, e.g. in an unclassified news report;

3) but the main reason is if there's reason to believe the US person is engaged in criminal activity such as terrorism, narcotics trafficking, is serving as a foreign intelligence agent, or is the target of a foreign country intelligence operation.

Here's US Signals Intelligence Directive 18, declassified version, section 7.2, on "dissemination" of US person identities:

7.2 ...Dissemination of U.S. PERSON Identities. SIGINT reports may include the identification of a U.S. PERSON only if one of the following conditions is met and a determination is made by the appropriate approval authority that the recipient has a need for the identity for the performance of official duties:

a. The U.S. PERSON has CONSENTED to the dissemination of communications of, or about, him or her and has executed the CONSENT form found in Annex H of this USSID, or

b. The information is PUBLICLY AVAILABLE (i.e., the information is derived from unclassified information available to the general public), or

c. The identity of the U.S. PERSON is necessary to understand FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE information or assess its importance. The following nonexclusive list contains examples of the type of information that meet meet this standard:

(1) FOREIGN POWER or AGENT OF A FOREIGN POWER. The information indicates that the U.S. PERSON is a FOREIGN POWER or an AGENT OF A FOREIGN POWER.

(2) Unauthorized Disclosure of Classified Information. The information indicates that the U.S. PERSON may be engaged in the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

(3) International Narcotics Activity. The information indicates that the individual may be engaged in international narcotics trafficking activities. (See Annex J of this USSID for further information concerning individuals involved in international narcotics trafficking).

(4) Criminal Activity. The information is evidence that the individual may be involved in a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed, provided that the dissemination is for law enforcement purposes.

(5) Intelligence TARGET. The information indicates that the U.S. PERSON may be the TARGET of hostile intelligence activities of a FOREIGN POWER.

(6) Threat to Safety. The information indicates that the identity of the U.S. PERSON is pertinent to a possible threat to the safety of any person or organization, including those who are TARGETS. victims or hostages of INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST organizations. Reporting units shall identify to P05 P02 any report containing the identity of a U.S. PERSON reported under this subsection (6). Field reporting to P05 P02 should be in the form of a CRITICOMM message (DDIxx) and include the report date-time-group (DTG), product serial number and the reason for inclusion of the U.S. PERSON's identity.

(7) Senior Executive Branch Officials. The identity is that of a senior official of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. In this case only the official's title will be disseminated. Domestic political or personal information on such individuals will be neither disseminated nor retained.

In other words, if Osama bin Laden calls Mr. John Smith American, we can hope that the relevant authorities are going to figure out who Mr. Smith is. Same with several dozen other designated terrorist groups and rogue states one could imagine the US might have a legitimate interest in tracking US persons communicating with (and 3,000 such requests a year from the entire US national security establishment strikes me as none too high, given the groups being tracked during the "war on terror," and the fact that "US persons" includes even foreign citizens residing in the US). So, how did John Bolton use the US person identities he was provided with at his request, and for what purpose?

(Thanks to Steve Aftergood for help with this.)

Posted by Laura at April 25, 2005 12:32 PM