Writing in Slate, Shane Harris and Tim Naftali report that elements of the NSA warrantless eavesdropping on US communications preceded the September 11th attacks:

A former telecom executive told us that efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source, who asked not to be identified so as not to out his former company, reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a "data-mining" operation, which might eventually cull "millions" of individual calls and e-mails.

Like the pressure applied to ITT a half-century ago, our source says the government was insistent, arguing that his competitors had already shown their patriotism by signing on. The NSA would not comment on the issue, saying that, "We do not discuss details of actual or alleged operational issues."

Beyond the legal arguments, what's interesting about this is, it didn't work. The NSA getting access to all of this domestic telecommunications information from private companies ahead of September 11th didn't stop the big terrorist attack.

Update: No harm done? Don't miss this Mort Halperin post.

Posted by Laura at January 3, 2006 08:56 AM