Jonas Holmes May 19, 2006

CHRONICLE ARTICLE 

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Russ Tice, former NSA intelligence officer and current
Whistleblower, was to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee this
week. Apparently the testimony, Mr. Tice wanted to give, makes General Hayden’s phone surveillance
program look like very small potatoes. Mr. Tice’s testimony
is expected to reveal further illegal activity overseen by General Michael
Hayden which even loyal and patriotic NSA employees view as unlawful. I think
the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them.IT’S PRETTY HARD TO BELIEVE,Tice said. I hope that they’ll clean up the abuses and
have some oversight into these programs, which doesn’t exist right now.
According to Mr. Tice, what has been disclosed so far is only
the tip of the iceberg.What in the world
could Russ Tice be talking about! To figure it out let us take a look at Russ
Tice’s work at the NSA. According to the Washington Times and numerous other
sources, Mr. Tice worked on special access programs related to electronic
intelligence gathering while working for the NSA and DIA, where he took part in
space systems communications, non-communications signals, electronic warfare, satellite
control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems. Special Access
Programs or SAPs refer to Black Budgets or Black Operations. Black means that they are covert
and hidden from everyone except the participants.Feasibly there would be no arena with a
greater potential for abuse and misuse than Special Access Programs. Even now Congress and
the Justice Department are being denied the ability to investigate these
programs because they don’t have clearance. To put it in CNN’s Jack Cafferty’s
words a top secret government agency, the NSA, the largest of its kind in the world, is denying oversight or
investigation by the American people because investigators lack clearance. To
add a layer of irony to the Black Ops cake this travesty is occurring in
America, the supposed bastion of Freedom and Democracy, which we are currently
trying to export to Iraq.

It just gets scarier. The Black Ops that Mr. Tice was involved in related to
electronic intelligence gathering via space systemscommunications, non-communications signals, electronic
warfare, satellite control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems.
For greater insight as to the impact of these programs readers should review decades old FOIA authenticated
programs such as MKULTRA, BLUEBIRD,
COINTELPROand ARTICHOKE. Radar based Telemetry involves the ability to see
through walls without thermal
imaging. Electronic Warfare is
even scarier if we take a look at the science. NSA Signals Intelligence Use of
EMF Brain Stimulation. NSA Signals Intelligence uses EMF Brain Stimulation for
Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Electronic Brain Link (EBL). EMF Brain
Stimulation has been in
development since the MKUltra program of the early 1950’s, which included neurological research into
“radiation” (non-ionizing EMF) and bioelectric research and
development. The resulting secret technology is categorized at the National
Security Archives as “Radiation Intelligence,” defined as “information from
unintentionally emanated electromagnetic waves in the environment, not
including radioactivity or nuclear detonation.” Signals Intelligence
implemented and kept this technology secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare programs of the U.S. government. The NSA monitors available information
about this technology and withholds scientific
research from the public. There are also international intelligence agency agreements to
keep this technology secret. The NSA has proprietary electronic equipment that
analyzes electrical activity in humans from a distance. NSA computer-generated
brain mapping can continuously monitor all the electrical activity in the brain continuously. The NSA
records and decodes individual brain maps (of hundreds of thousands of persons)
for national security purposes. EMF Brain Stimulation is also secretly used by
the military for Brain-to-computer link. (In military fighter aircraft, for
example.) For electronic surveillance purposes electrical activity in the speech center of the brain can be
translated into the subject’s verbal thoughts. RNM can send encoded signals to the brain’s auditory cortex thus
allowing audio communication direct to the brain (bypassing the ears). NSA
operatives can use this to covertly debilitate
subjects by simulating auditory hallucinations characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia.
Without any contact with the subject, Remote Neural Monitoring can
map out electrical activity from the visual cortex of a subject’s brain and
show images from the subject’s brain on a video monitor. NSA operatives see
what the surveillance subject’s eyes are seeing. Visual memory can also be
seen.

RNM can send images direct to the visual cortex. bypassing the
eyes and optic nerves. NSA operatives can use this to
surreptitiously put images in a surveillance subject’s brain while they are in R.E.M. sleep for brain-programming purposes. Individual citizens occasionally
targeted for surveillance by independently operating NSA personnel NSA
personnel can control the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals in the
U.S. by using the NSA’s domestic intelligence network and cover businesses. The
operations independently run by them can sometimes go beyond the bounds of law.Long-term control and sabotage of tens of thousands of unwitting
citizens by NSA operatives is
likely to happen. NSA Domint has the ability to covertly assassinate U.S.
citizens or run covert psychological control operations to cause subjects to
be diagnosed with ill mental health. National Security Agency Signals Intelligence Electronic Brain
Link Technology NSA SigInt can remotely detect, identify and monitor a person’s
bioelectric fields. The NSA’s Signals Intelligence has the proprietary ability to remotely and non-invasively monitor information in the human
brain by digitally decoding the evoked potentials in the 30-50 hz,.5 milliwatt
electro-magnetic emissions from the brain. Neuronal activity in the brain
creates a shifting electrical pattern that has a shifting magnetic flux. This
magnetic flux puts out a constant 30-50 hz, .5 milliwatt electromagnetic (EMF)
wave. Contained in the electromagnetic emission from the brain are spikes and
patterns called “evoked potentials.” Every
thought, reaction, motor command, auditory event, and
visual image in the brain has a corresponding “evoked potential” or
set of “evoked potentials.” The EMF emission from the brain can be
decoded into the current thoughts, images and sounds in the subject’s brain.
NSA SigInt uses EMF-transmitted Brain Stimulation as a communications system to
transmit information (as well as nervous
system messages) to intelligence agents and also to transmit to the
brains of covert operations subjects (on
a non-perceptible level).

EMF Brain Stimulation works by sending a complexly coded and
pulsed electromagnetic signal to trigger evoked potentials (events) in the brain,
thereby forming sound and visual images in the brain’s neural circuits. EMF
Brain Stimulation can also change a person’s brain-states and affect motor
control. Two-way Electronic Brain-Link is done by remotely monitoring neural
audio-visual information while transmitting sound to the auditory cortex (bypassing the ears) and
transmitting faint images to the visual cortex (bypassing the optic nerves and
eyes, the images appear as floating 2-D screens in the brain). Two-Way
Electronic Brain Link has become the ultimate communications system for CIA/NSA personnel. Remote
Neural Monitoring (RNM, remotely monitoring bioelectric information in the
human brain) has become the ultimate surveillance system. It is used by a limited
number of agents in the U.S. Intelligence Community. RNM
requires decoding the resonance frequency of each specific brain area. That
frequency is then modulated in order to impose information in That specific
brain area. The frequency to which the various brain areas respond varies from
3 Hz to 50 Hz. Only NSA Signals Intelligence modulates signals in this
frequency band.

This modulated information can be put into the brain at varying
intensities from subliminal to perceptible. Each person’s brain
has a unique set of bioelectric resonance/entrainment frequencies. Sending
audio information to a person’s brain at the frequency of another person’s
auditory cortex would result in that audio information not being perceived.
Additionally, A 1994 congressional hearing reported that nearly half a million Americans were subjected to
some kind of cold war era tests, often without being informed and without their
consent.In addition, experimentation law is well grounded in constitutional and
international law. It is an under-reported fact that
two major reports on human rights and torture in the U.S. recently listed
illegal radiation experiments. Many more facts are
documented below. Therefore, human research subject protections should be a
high priority and are just as significant as current issues of torture and
illegal wiretapping. It is time for America
to wake up. It is time for America to protect its Whistleblowers who are our
last line of defense against dictatorship and despotism. It is time for America
to take responsibility for oversight of its
tax dollars and elect leaders who will assume such responsibility now. Yes, the
war on terrorism is important. It is even more important and fearful if the terrorism is from within and unknowingly funded by hard working American citizens. There is no Special Access
Program beyond the oversight of political leaders elected by the people and for
the people. If these political leaders jeopardize national security then that
shall be handled in a court of law. But to tell America, to tell the American
people, to tell the political leaders elected by the American people that
America does not deserve to know what happening in the NSA’s dark, black rooms,
with billions of dollars, behind closed doors, when we know that privilege has
already been abused; that is the true definition of terrorism. That is the true
definition of Communism and a Police State, no oversight. So fellow Americans,
you may hem and haw in the face of truth but know that one day you will realize
that your country has been usurped from the very principles upon which it was founded.

Godspeed, Russ Tice, the Patriots are with you.

Former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice condemns reports that
the Agency has been engaged in eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court
warrants. Tice has volunteered to testify before Congress about illegal black
ops programs at the NSA. Tice said, “The freedom of the American people cannot
be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has
decayed into a police state.” [includes rush transcript]

We turn now to the growing controversy over President Bush’s
decision to order the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens
inside the country without the legally required court warrants. Bush’s decision
was first revealed in the New York Times in mid-December. The Times published
the expose after holding the story for more than a year under pressure from the
White House. The paper reportedly first uncovered the illegal order prior to
the 2004 election. When the editors at the Times decided last month to go ahead
with the article, President Bush personally summoned the paper’s publisher,
Arthur Sulzberger, and executive editor, Bill Keller, to the Oval Office in an
attempt to talk them out of running the story. Since the story broke, calls for
Congressional hearings and the possible impeachment of the president have
intensified. Conservative legal experts have even admitted Bush may have
committed an impeachable offense by ordering the NSA to break the law. On
Sunday, the New York Times revealed there was dissent within the upper echelon
of the Bush administration over the legality of the president’s order.
According to the Times, Attorney General John Ashcroft’s top deputy, James
Comey, refused to sign on to the continuation of the secret program in 2004
amid concerns about its legality and oversight. At the time, Comey was serving
in place of then Attorney General John Ashcroft while Ashcroft was hospitalized
for a medical condition. Comey’s refusal prompted senior Presidential aides
Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to visit Ashcroft in his hospital room to
grant the approval. The Times reports Ashcroft expressed reluctance to sign on
to the program. It is unclear if he eventually relented. Both Ashcroft and
Comey’s concerns appear to have led to a temporary suspension of parts of the
program for several months. But the administration has repeatedly defended its
actions. • President Bush, speaking on Sunday: “If somebody from al-Qaeda is
calling you, we’d like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious of people’s civil liberties as am

I. This is is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the
United States of America–and I repeat limited. It is limited to calls from
outside the United States to calls within the United States. But, they are of
known numbers of known al Qaeda members or affiliates. I think most Americans
understand the need to find out what the enemy is thinking. And that’s what we
are doing. We’re at war with a bunch of cold blooded killers who will kill in a
moment’s notice. I have a responsibility to act within the law which I am
doing. The program has been reviewed constantly by Justice Department
officials. A program to which the Congress has been briefed. A program that is
in my judgment necessary to win this war and to protect the American people.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting that the NSA passed on records of
intercepted email and phone calls to other government agencies including the
FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and the Department of Homeland
Security. This news come on the heels of several other reports that the FBI’s
Joint Terrorism Task Force, military intelligence and local police departments
have all been engaged in monitoring peaceful groups including Greenpeace,
PETA–the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Catholic Worker, anti-war
groups and even bicyclists in New York City.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on
U.S. peace activists. It was this domestic surveillance that led Congress to
intervene and pass Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 in order to
prevent future such abuses. The statute permits domestic intelligence
surveillance with the approval of a court order from the FISA court. In 1975,
Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, said, “We have a particular
obligation to examine the NSA, in light of its tremendous potential for abuse.
. . .

The interception of international communications signals sent through the air is the job of NSA;
and, thanks to modern technological developments, it does its job very well.
The danger lies in the ability of the NSA to turn its awesome technology
against domestic communications.” Now Congress is considering holding a new
round of hearings on Bush’s domestic spying program. A bipartisan group series
of Senators have already issued their public support including several top
Republicans including Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Two weeks ago, a former NSA intelligence
officer publicly announced that he wants to testify
before Congress. His name is Russell Tice. For the past two decades
he has worked in the intelligence field both inside and outside government,
most recently with the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence
Agency. He was fired in May 2005 after he spoke out as a whistleblower. In his
letter, Tice wrote, “It is with my oath as a US intelligence officer weighing
heavy on my mind that I wish to report to Congress acts that I believe are unlawful
and unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected
when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a
police state.” • Russell Tice, former intelligence agent at the National
Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. He worked at the NSA up until
May 2005. Rush Transcript This transcript is available free of charge. However,
donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on
our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate – $25, $50,
$100, More…

AMY GOODMAN: This is President Bush speaking on Sunday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I can say that if somebody from al-Qaeda
is calling you, we’d like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious
of people’s civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program designed to
prevent attacks on the United States of America. And I repeat: limited. And
it’s limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within the United
States. But, they are of known numbers of known al Qaeda members or affiliates.
And I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy is
thinking. And that’s what we are doing. We’re at war with a bunch of
cold-blooded killers who will kill on a moment’s notice. And I have a
responsibility, obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing. It’s a
program has been reviewed constantly by Justice Department officials, a program
to which the Congress has been briefed, and a program that is in my judgment
necessary to win this war and to protect the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Bush speaking Sunday. Meanwhile,
The Washington Post is reporting the N.S.A. passed on records of intercepted
email and phone calls to other government agencies, including the F.B.I., the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the C.I.A. and the Department of Homeland
Security. This news comes on the heels of several other reports that the
F.B.I.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, military intelligence and local police
departments have all been engaged in monitoring peaceful groups, including
Greenpeace, PETA (the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the
Catholic Worker antiwar groups, and even cyclists in New York City. During the
1960s and 1970s, the military used N.S.A. intercepts to maintain files on U.S.
peace activists. It was this domestic surveillance that led Congress to
intervene and pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, in order
to prevent future such abuses. The statute permits domestic intelligence
surveillance with the approval of a court order from the FISA court. In 1975,
Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, said, quote, “We have a particular
obligation to examine the N.S.A. in light of its tremendous potential for
abuse. The interception of international communications signals sent through
the air is the job of N.S.A., and thanks to modern technological developments,
it does its job very well. The danger lies in the ability of the N.S.A. to turn
its awesome technology against domestic communications,” Church said. Congress
is now considering holding a new round of hearings on Bush’s domestic spying
program. A bipartisan group of senators have already issued their public
support, including several top Republicans, including Senator Dick Lugar of
Indiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
This is Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: This warrant-less eavesdropping program is not
authorized by the PATRIOT Act, it’s not authorized by any act of Congress, and
it’s not overseen by any court. According to the reports it’s being conducted
under a secret presidential order, based on secret legal opinions by the same
Justice Department, lawyers, the same ones who argued secretly that the
President could order the use of torture. Mr. President, it is time to have
some checks and balances in this country. We are a democracy. We are a
democracy. Let’s have checks and balances, not secret orders and secret courts
and secret torture, and on and on.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. Two weeks
ago, a former N.S.A. intelligence officer publicly announced he wants to
testify before Congress. His name is

Russell Tice. For the past two decades he has worked in the
intelligence field, both inside and outside of government, most recently with
the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was fired in May 2005, after he spoke out as a whistleblower. In his letter, Tice wrote, quote, “It’s with my oath as a U.S.
intelligence officer weighing heavy on my mind that I wish to report to
Congress acts I believe are unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of the
American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are
ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.” Russell Tice joins us
now in our Washington studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!

RUSSELL TICE: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us.

RUSSELL TICE: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: What made you decide to come forward? You worked for
the top-secret agency of this government, one that is far larger and even more
secret than the C.I.A.

RUSSELL TICE: Well, the main reason is, you know, I’m involved
with some certain aspects of the intelligence community, which are very closely
held, and I believe I have seen some things that are illegal. Ultimately it’s
Congress’s responsibility to conduct oversight in these things. I don’t see it
happening. Another reason is there was a certain roadblock that was sort of
lifted that allowed me to do this, and I can’t explain, but I will to Congress
if allowed to.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the letter you have written to
Congress, your request to testify?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, it’s just a simple request under the
Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection
Act, which is a legal means to contact Congress and
tell them that you believe that something has gone wrong in the intelligence
community.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you start off by talking overall? Since most
people until recently, until this latest story of President Bush engaging in
these wiretaps of American citizens, as well as foreign nationals in this
country, perhaps hadn’t even heard of the N.S.A., can you just describe for us
what is the National Security Agency? How does it monitor these communications?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, the National Security Agency is an agency that
deals with monitoring communications for the defense of the country. The
charter basically says that the N.S.A. will deal with communications
of—overseas. We’re not allowed to go after Americans, and I think ultimately
that’s what the big fuss is now. But as far as the details of how N.S.A. does
that, unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say that. I don’t want to walk out
of here and end up in an F.B.I. interrogation room.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Tice, you have worked for the National
Security Agency. Can you talk about your response to the revelations that the
Times, you know, revealed in—perhaps late, knowing the story well before the
election, yet revealing it a few weeks ago—the revelation of the wiretapping of
American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, as far as an intelligence officer, especially
a SIGINT officer at N.S.A., we’re taught from very early on in our careers that
you just do not do this. This is probably the number one commandment of the
SIGINT Ten Commandments as a SIGINT officer. You will not spy on Americans. It
is drilled into our head over and over and over again in security briefings, at
least twice a year, where you ultimately have to sign a paper that says you
have gotten the briefing. Everyone at N.S.A. who’s a SIGINT officer knows that
you do not do this. Ultimately, so do the leaders of N.S.A., and apparently the
leaders of N.S.A. have decided that they were just going to go against the
tenets of something that’s a gospel to a SIGINT officer.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Russell Tice. We will go to break
and come back to him. He’s a former intelligence agent with the National
Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, worked at the N.S.A. up
until May of this past year, May of 2005. [break]

AMY GOODMAN: We talk to Russell Tice, former intelligence agent
with the National Security Agency, formerly with the Defense Intelligence
Agency, worked with the N.S.A. up until May 2005. Russell Tice, what happened
then? What happened in May 2005?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, basically I was given my walking papers and
told I was no longer a federal employee. So—

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

RUSSELL TICE: Some time ago I had some concerns about a co-worker
at D.I.A. who exhibited the classic signs of being involved in espionage, and I
reported that and basically got blown off by the counterintelligence office at
D.I.A. and kind of pushed the issue, because I continued to see a pattern of
there being a problem. And once I got back to N.S.A., I pretty much dropped the
issue, but there was a report that came across my desk in April of 2003 about
two F.B.I. agents that were possibly passing secret counterintelligence
information to a Chinese double agent, Katrina Leung, and I sent a secure
message back to the D.I.A. counterintelligence officer, and I said I think the
F.B.I. is incompetent, and the retaliation came down on me like a ton of
bricks.

AMY GOODMAN: What would you say to those who say you are speaking
out now simply because you are disgruntled?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, I guess that’s a valid argument. You know, I
was fired. But, you know, I’ve kind of held my tongue for a long time now, and
basically, you know, I have known these things have been going on for a while.
The classification level of the stuff I deal with, basically what we call black
world programs and operations, are very, very closely held. And you know,
whether you think this is retaliation or not, I have something important to
tell Congress, and I think they need to hear it. I’d like to think my motives
aren’t retaliation, but, you know, after what I have been through, I can
understand someone’s argument to think I have been jaded.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the risks you take as a whistleblower? I
wanted to play a clip of F.B.I. whistleblower, Sibel
Edmonds. She was working for
the F.B.I. after 9/11 as a translator, translating intercepts, and ultimately
she lost her job. And I asked her if she was afraid of speaking out.

SIBEL EDMONDS: There are times that I am afraid, but then again, I
have to remind myself that this is my civic duty and this is for the country,
because what they are doing by pushing this stuff under this blanket of
secrecy, what they are hiding is against the public’s welfare and interest. And
reminding that to myself just helps me, to a certain degree, overcome that
fear.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sibel Edmonds. Russell Tice, you are a
member of her group, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

RUSSELL TICE: That, I am. National Security Whistleblower
Coalition is basically put together of people who are in sort of the same boat
that I am in, that have brought whistleblower concerns to the public or to
their perspective chain of supervisors and have been retaliated against. And
the intelligence community, all of the whistleblower protection laws are—pretty
much exempt the intelligence community. So the intelligence community can put
forth their lip service about, ‘Oh, yeah, we want you to put report waste fraud
abuse,’ or ‘You shall report suspicions of espionage,’ but when they retaliate
you for doing so, you pretty much have no recourse. I think a lot of people
don’t realize that. And Sibel has basically started this organization to bring
these sort of concerns out into the public and ultimately to get Congress to
start passing some laws to protect folks that are going to be in a position to
let the public or just, you know, to let Congress know that crimes are being
committed. And that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a crime here.
So, you know, all of this running around and looking for someone who dropped
the dime on a crime is a whole lot different than something like the Valerie
Plame case.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the Justice Department launching
an investigation into the leak, who leaked the fact that President Bush was
spying on American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, I think this is an attempt to make sure that
no intelligence officer ever considers doing this. What was done to me was
basically an attempt to tell other intelligence officers, ‘Hey, if you do
something like this, if you do something to tick us off, we’re going to take
your job from you, we’re gonna do some
unpleasant things to you.’ So, right now, the atmosphere at N.S.A. and D.I.A.,
for that matter, is fear. The security services basically rule over the
employees with fear, and people are afraid to come forward. People know if they
come forward even in the legal means, like coming to Congress with a concern,
your career is over. And that’s just the best scenario. There’s all sorts of
other unfortunate things like, perhaps, if someone gets thrown in jail for
either a witch-hunt or something trumping up charges or, you know, this guy who
is basically reporting a crime.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of the news that the National
Security Agency spying on American citizens without a court order and foreign
nationals is now sharing this information with other agencies like, well, the
other agency you worked for, the Defense Intelligence Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: Intelligence officers work with one another all the
time. As an analyst, you might have a problem. Everybody gets together. It’s
just common sense to find out what everybody knows, you know, come to a
consensus as to what the answer is. It’s sort of like a puzzle, you know,
chunks of the puzzle. And maybe you have a few chunks as a SIGINT officer, and
the C.I.A. has a few chunks in their arena and D.I.A. has a few elements of it,
and everybody gets together and does a little mind meld to try to figure out
what’s going on. So it’s not unusual for the
intelligence community to share information. But when we’re talking about
information on the American public, which is a violation of the FISA law, then
I think it’s even something more to be concerned about.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you ever asked to engage in this?

RUSSELL TICE: No, no, and if I did so, I did so unwittingly, which
I have a feeling would be the case for many of the people involved in this.
More than likely this was very closely held at the upper echelons at N.S.A.,
and mainly because these people knew—General Hayden, Bill Black, and probably
the new one, Keith Alexander, they all knew this was illegal. So, you know,
they kept it from the populace of N.S.A., because every N.S.A. officer certainly
knows this is illegal.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean if you did so, you did so
unwittingly?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, there are certain elements of the aspects of
what is done where there are functionaries or technicians or analysts that are
given information, and you just process that information. You don’t necessarily
know the nitty gritty as to where the information came from or the—it’s called
compartmentalization. It’s ironic, but you could be working on programs, and
the very person sitting next to you is not cleared for the programs you’re
working on, and they’re working on their own programs, and each person knows to
keep their nose out of the other person’s business, because everything’s
compartmentalized, and you’re only allowed to work on what you have a need to
know to work on.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the telecoms, the telecommunications
corporations working with the Bush administration to open up a back door to
eavesdropping, to wiretapping?

RUSSELL TICE: If that was done and, you know, I use a big “if”
here, and, remember, I can’t tell you what I know of how N.S.A.
does its business, but I can use the wiggle words like “if” and scenarios that don’t incorporate specifics, but nonetheless,
if U.S. gateways and junction points in the United States were used to siphon
off information, I would think that the corporate executives of these companies
need to be held accountable, as well, because they would certainly also know
that what they’re doing is wrong and illegal. And if they have some sort of
court order or some sort of paper or something signed from some government
official, Congress needs to look at those papers and look at the bottom line
and see whose signature is there. And these corporations know that this is
illegal, as well. So everyone needs to be held accountable in this mess.

AMY GOODMAN: When you come on board at these intelligence
agencies, as at the National Security Agency, what are you told? I mean, were
you aware of the Church hearings in the 1970s that went into the illegal spying
on monitoring, of surveilling, of wiretapping of American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, that’s something that’s really not drummed in
your head. That’s more of a history lesson, I think. And the reasoning,
ultimately, for the FISA laws and for what’s called USSID 18, which is sort of
the SIGINTer’s bible of how they conduct their business, but the law itself is
drilled into your head, as well as the tenets of USSID 18, of which the number
one commandment is ‘Thou shalt not spy on Americans.’

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Russell Tice, former intelligence
agent with the National Security Agency, worked at the N.S.A. up until May of
2005. What is data mining?

RUSSELL TICE: Data mining is a means by which you—you have
information, and you go searching for all associated elements of that
information in whatever sort of data banks or databases that you put together
with information. So if you have a phone number and you want to associate it
with, say, a terrorist or something, and you want to associate it with, you know,
‘Who is this terrorist talking to?’ you start doing data on what sort of
information or what sort of numbers does that person call or the frequency of
time, that sort of thing. And you start basically putting together a bubble
chart of, you know, where everybody is. Lord help you if you’ve got a wrong
phone call from one of these guys, a terrorist overseas or something, and
you’re American. You’re liable to have the F.B.I. camping out your doorstep,
apparently, from everything that’s going on. But it’s basically a way of
searching all of the data that exists, and that’s things like credit card
records and driver’s license, anything that you can get your hands on and try
to associate it with some activity. I think if we were doing that overseas with
known information, it would be a good thing if we’re pinning them down. But
ultimately, when we’re using that on—if we’re using that with U.S. databases,
then ultimately, once again, the American people are—their civil rights are
being violated.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect you are being monitored, surveilled,
wiretapped right now?

RUSSELL TICE: Yes, I do. As a matter
of fact, in—you know, sometimes you just don’t know. And
being, you know—what they’ve basically accused me of, I can’t just walk around
thinking that everybody is looking at my heels and are following me around. But
in one scenario I turned the tables on someone I thought was following me, and
he ducked into a convenience store, and I just walked down there—and I saw him
out of my peripheral vision—and I basically walked down to where he ducked into
and in the store, I walked up behind him. He was buying a cup of coffee, and he
had a on his hip and his F.B.I. badge. I don’t think it takes a rocket
scientist to figure out what was going on there.

AMY GOODMAN: The National Security Agency, or I should say the
United Nations Security Council, there was a scandal a year or two ago about
the monitoring of the diplomats there. It was in the lead up to the invasion,
the U.S. wanting to know and put pressure on these Security Council ambassadors
to know what they were saying before any kind of vote. What is the difference
between that kind of monitoring and the monitoring of American citizens?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, if the monitoring was done against foreigners
and the monitoring was done overseas, as far as I know, that’s perfectly legal.
It’s just a matter of who you are monitoring and where you’re doing the
monitoring. If it’s done at home and they’re Americans, then you have a
different scenario. And we’re all trained that, you know, hands off. If you
inadvertently run across something like that in the conduct of what you’re
doing, you immediately let someone know; if it’s involved in something being
recorded, it’s immediately erased. So, you know, it’s something that we all
know you just don’t do. Overseas, okay; here at home, not so okay.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play for you the clip that we ran of
President Bush earlier and get your response. This is President Bush on Sunday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I can say that if somebody from al-Qaeda
is calling you, we’d like to know why. In the meantime, this program is
conscious of people’s civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program
designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America. And I repeat: limited.
And it’s limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within the
United States. But, they are of known numbers of known al Qaeda members or
affiliates. And I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the
enemy is thinking. And that’s what we are doing. We’re at war with a bunch of
cold-blooded killers who will kill on a moment’s notice. And I have a
responsibility, obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing. It’s a
program has been reviewed constantly by Justice Department officials, a program
to which the Congress has been briefed, and a program that is in my judgment
necessary to win this war and to protect the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush. Russell Tice, you’re with the
National Security Agency, or you were until May 2005. If al-Qaeda’s calling,
the U.S. government wants to know. Your response?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, that’s probably a good thing to know. But
that’s why we have a FISA court and FISA laws. The FISA court—it’s not very
difficult to get something through a FISA court. I kinda liken the FISA court
to a monkey with a rubber stamp. The monkey sees a name, the monkey sees a word
justification with a block of information. It can’t read the block, but it just
stamps “affirmed” on the block, and a banana chip rolls out, and then the next
paper rolls in front of the monkey. When you have like 20,000 requests and
only, I think, four were turned down, you can’t look at the FISA court as
anything different. So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would
someone want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think
the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the President has
been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner approach may have been
used, in which case you don’t get names, and that’s ultimately why you wouldn’t
go to the FISA
court. And I think that’s something Congress needs to address.
They need to find out exactly how this system was operated and ultimately
determine whether this was indeed a very focused effort or whether this was a
vacuum cleaner-type scenario.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you support the President, Russell Tice? Did you
vote for President Bush?

RUSSELL TICE: I am a Republican. I voted for President Bush both
in the last election and the first election where he was up for president. I’ve
contributed to his campaign. I get a post—I mean, a Christmas card from the
White House every year, I guess, because of my nominal contributions. But—so,
you know, it’s not like, you know—I think you’re going to find a lot of folks
that are in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community are apt to
be on the conservative side of the fence. But nonetheless, we’re all taught
that you don’t do something like this. And I’m certainly hoping that the President has been misled in what’s going on here and that the true crux of this problem is in the leadership
of the intelligence community.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re saying in the leadership of your own agency,
the National Security Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: That’s correct, yeah, because certainly General
Alexander and General Hayden and Bill Black knew that this was illegal.

AMY GOODMAN: But they clearly had to have authorization from
above, and Bush is not contending that he did not know.

RUSSELL TICE: Well, that’s true. But the question has to be asked:
What did the President know? What was the President told about this? It’s
just—there’s just too many variables out there that we don’t know yet. And,
ultimately, I think Congress needs to find out those answers. If the President
was fed a bill of goods in this matter, then that’s something that has to be
addressed. Or if the President himself knew every aspect of what’s going on, if
this was some sort of vacuum cleaner deal, then it is ultimately, I would
think, the President himself that needs to be held responsible for what’s going
on here.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think should happen to him?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, you know, it’s certainly not up to me, but
I’ve heard all of the talk about impeachment and that sort of thing. You know,
I saw our last president get impeached for what personally I thought should
have been something between his wife and his family, and the big guy upstairs.
It’s not up to me, but if the President knew, if this was a vacuum cleaner job
and the President knew exactly what was going on—and ultimately what we’re
hearing now is nothing but a cover-up and a whitewash—and we find that to be
the case, then I think it should cause some dire consequences for even the
President of the United States, if he indeed did know exactly what was going on
and if it was a very large-scale, you know, suck-up-everything kind of
operation.

AMY GOODMAN: This investigation that the Justice Department has
launched—it’s interesting that Alberto Gonzales is now Attorney General of the
United States—the latest story of The New York Times: Gonzales, when he was
White House Counsel, when Andrew Card, chief of staff, went to Ashcroft at his
hospital bedside to get authorization for this. Can he be a disinterested party
in investigating this now, as Attorney General himself?

RUSSELL TICE: Yeah, I think that for anyone to say that the
Attorney General is going to be totally unbiased about something like this, I
think that’s silly. Of course, the answer is “No.” He can’t be unbiased in
this. I think that a special prosecutor or something like that may have to be
involved in something like this, otherwise we’re just liable to have a
whitewash.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the term “police state”?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, anytime where you have a situation where U.S.
citizens are being arrested and thrown in jail with the key being thrown away,
you know, potentially being sent overseas to be tortured, U.S. citizens being
spied on, you know, and it doesn’t even go to the court that deals with these
secret things, you know, I mean, think about it, you could have potentially
somebody getting the wrong phone call from a terrorist and having him spirited
away to some back-alley country to get the rubber hose treatment and who knows
what else. I think that would kind of qualify as a police state, in my
judgment. I certainly hope that Congress or somebody sort of does something
about this, because, you know, for Americans just to say, ‘Oh, well, we have to
do this because, you know, because of terrorism,’ you know, it’s the same
argument that we used with communism years ago: take away your civil liberties,
but use some threat that’s, you know, been out there for a long time. Terrorism
has been there for—certainly before 9/11 we had terrorism problems, and I have
a feeling it’s going to be around for quite some time after whatever we deem is
a victory in what we’re doing now in the Middle East. But, you know, it’s just
something that has to be addressed. We just can’t continue to see our civil
liberties degraded. Ultimately, as Ben Franklin, I think, had said, you know,
those who would give up their essential liberties for a little freedom deserve
neither liberty or freedom, and I tend to agree with Ben Franklin.

AMY GOODMAN: And your colleagues at the N.S.A. right now, their
feelings, the National Security Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: Boy, I think most folks at N.S.A. right now are just running scared.
They have the security office hanging over their head, which has always been a
bunch of vicious folks, and now they’ve got, you know, this potential witch
hunt going on with the Attorney General. People
in the intelligence community are afraid.
They know that you can’t come forward. You have no protections as a
whistleblower. These things need to be addressed.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean you have no protection?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, like I said before, as a whistleblower, you’re
not protected by the whistleblower laws that are out there. The intelligence
community is exempt from the whistleblower protection laws.

AMY GOODMAN: So why are you doing it?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, ultimately, I don’t have to be afraid of
losing my job, because I have already lost my job, so that’s one reason. The
other reason is because I made an oath when I became an intelligence officer
that I would protect the United States Constitution, not a president, not some
classification, you know, for whatever, that ultimately I’m responsible to
protect the Constitution of the United States. And I think that’s the same oath
the President takes, for the most part. So, something like—imagine if
something—if we were like, I don’t know, taking Americans and assassinating
them for suspicions of suspicions of terrorism, and then we just put some
classification on it and said, ‘Well, this is super top secret, so no one can
say anything about that.’ Well, at what point do you draw the line and say
enough is enough. We have to say something here.

AMY GOODMAN: What was your classification? How high up was your
clearance?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, clearances go up to the top secret level. But
once you get to the top secret level, there are many caveats and many programs
and things that can happen beyond that point. I specialized in what’s known as
black world operations and programs that are very closely held, things that
happen in operations and programs in the intelligence community that are
closely held, and for the most part these programs are very beneficial to
ultimately getting information and protecting the American people. But in some
cases, I think, classification levels at these special—we call them special
access programs, SAPs—could be used to mask, basically, criminal wrongdoing. So
I think that’s something ultimately Congress needs to address, as well, because
from what I can see, there is not a whole lot of oversight when it comes to
some of these deep black programs.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Tice, did you know anyone within the N.S.A.
who refused to spy on Americans, who refused to follow orders?

RUSSELL TICE: No. No, I do not. As far as—of course, I’m not
witting of anyone that was told they will spy on an American. So, ultimately,
when this was going on, I have a feeling it was closely held at some of the
upper echelon levels. And you’ve got to understand, I was a worker bee. I was a
guy that wrote the reports and did the analysis work and—you know, the detail
guy. At some point, your reports have to get sent up up the line and then, you
know, the management takes action at some point or another, but at my level,
no, I was not involved in this.

AMY GOODMAN: Has Congress responded to your letter offering to
testify as a former employee of the National Security Agency?

RUSSELL TICE: Not yet. Of course, the holidays—you know, we just
had the holidays here, so everybody is out of town. I can’t condemn Congress
too much yet, because I faxed it out on, I do believe, the 18th of December,
and we’re just getting into the new year. AMY GOODMAN: And who did you send it
to?

RUSSELL TICE: I sent it to the chairs of the Senate Intelligence
Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, the SSCI and the HPSCI.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with
us. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

RUSSELL TICE: Well, I can’t think of a whole lot, except
ultimately I think the American people need to be concerned about allegations
that the intelligence community is spying on Americans. You know, one of my
fears is that this would cause, just going into the N.S.A. and just tearing the
place up and making the good work that’s being done at the N.S.A. ineffective,
because the N.S.A. is very important to this country’s security. And I
certainly hope that some bad apples, even if these bad apples were at the top
of N.S.A., don’t ultimately destroy the capabilities of N.S.A.’s ability to do
a good job protecting the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: Russell Tice, former intelligence agent with the
National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, worked for the
N.S.A. up until May of last year. Thanks for joining us.

RUSSELL TICE: Thank you.