SurveillanceDeclassified documents strongly argue for keeping NSA programs secret

On Saturday, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, declassified a set of ten court documents which show that both the Bush and Obama administrations assert that that some of the more sensitive NSA surveillance programs should be kept secret.

The administration declassified the documents following a court order related to two lawsuits filed the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

NPR reports that the big headline to take from the DNI’s press release is that the Obama administration has finally decided publicly to admit President George W. Bush authorized the bulk collection of Internet and phone metadata in a program referred to as the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

The release documents explain that in  the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush believed that allowing the NSA to have quicker  access to phone and Internet metadata may help prevent another terrorist attack.

Bush authorized this kind of surveillance until 2004, when the authorization of handed over to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court.

NPR notes that these revelations are not exactly startling, and that much of what is discussed in the ten released documents was already part of media reports dating back to 2005 and, beginning this year, documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

What is more interesting in the documents is that they show that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration were convinced that these NSA programs are critical to national security, and that it was essential to keep these programs secret.

In 2007 court filing, Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, said the metadata collection programs “are among the most important intelligence tools available to the United States for protecting the Homeland from another catastrophic attack.”

Alexander asks the court to dismiss the case because it could reveal sensitive sources and methods. Alexander said that if the NSA confirmed that such programs existed, and confirmed that an individual was under surveillance, or reveal which phone or Internet companies was responding to information requests from the agency, then terrorists would be in a position to figure out  where surveillance-free the safe havens are.

James Clapper, makes a similar argument in a 20 December 2013 filing. Clapper argues that even though some information about the programs has been revealed, there is value in keeping as much as possible secret about the collection effort.

The Bush and Obama administration strenuously reject the EFF’s charge that they were running a “dragnet surveillance.” Both administrations contend that the collection programs with explicit limits and minimization procedures which effectively protected the Constitutional rights of Americans.

“I concur with the NSA that to the extent it must demonstrate that the NSA has not otherwise engaged in the alleged content dragnet, highly classified details about the scope and operation of the [Terrorist Surveillance Program] was not the content dragnet plaintiffs allege, or demonstrate that the NSA has not otherwise engaged in the alleged content dragnet, highly classified details about the scope and operation of the TSP and other NSA intelligence activities would be disclosed, including NSA intelligence sources and methods, thus risking exceptional harm to national security,” Clapper wrote in his filing.