What are Cheney, Addington and Gonzales Hiding About NSA Spying on Americans? Part II

May 20 (EIRNS)--There are a number of obvious, specific areas that Congress should investigate, in order to find out whether the Bush-Cheney Administration's domestic surveillance program was much bigger than has so far been admitted []. Congress's findings will add still more evidence for the growing bill of impeachment against Vice President Cheney, known to be the chief promoter of these illegal spying programs.

Among the public hints of a much broader surveillance program, was a January 2007 PBS "Frontline" interview with former Justice Department official John Yoo, in which he suggested that the NSA program involved tapping into the entire data flow of electronic communications, and then using data-mining techniques to search for suspects and targets.

Here are some questions which Congress should be asking:

* What is the relationship between the Pentagon's "Able Danger" data-mining program, which was used in two known areas, terrorism and suspected technology transfers to China, and other areas which are still classified, to the known NSA domestic surveillance program? Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, speaking at a forum at the Georgetown University Law Center in February 2006, said that his sources had told him that the NSA surveillance program was an outgrowth of a data-mining program targeting China in 1999, which, EIRNS has confirmed, was one of the so-called "Able Danger" programs.

* What triggered the testimony of long-time NSA employee Russell Tice, to a House Government Reform subcommittee in February 2006, that he was concerned about the legality and constitutionality of another "special access" electronic surveillance program being conducted by the NSA? Tice said that this program was different, and more far-reaching, than the warrantless wiretapping program which the New York Times had revealed in December 2005, but that he was forbidden to discuss the program because of its highly-classified nature.

* What really happened to the so-called Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, a massive data-mining effort developed in the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under retired Adm. John Poindexter? TIA was somewhat similar to what is known about the "Able Danger" program, except that TIA was to create a permanent data-base using government and commercial records, such as bank and credit card records, telephone bills, travel records, etc. Although TIA was officially terminated in 2003, the National Journal reported on Feb. 23, 2006, that the program had been secretly transferred from DARPA to the NSA, with the same funding, and still using the same private defense contractors.