The Watchers (61 page)

164
So, he tasked a team of senior managers, including Wertheimer and another NSA lifer named Maureen Baginski, to reshape signals intelligence for the digital age:
The
New Yorker
's Elsa Walsh recounts this mission in her profile of Baginski, “Learning to Spy,” published on November 8, 2004.

165
Hayden explained that any effective system for spotting terrorists before they struck had to meet three criteria:
Hayden recounted this meeting in his 2006 confirmation hearing.

166
They would also need access to a source that the NSA had not been collecting systematically in the past: e-mail:
Two former administration officials said in interviews that the NSA hadn't systemically collected e-mails, and that after the 9/11 attacks, agency officials realized this had been a mistake.

166
Wertheimer had led an exercise to find out whether Russian mobsters were supplying weapons of mass destruction to Iran:
See Walsh's
New Yorker
piece.

166
As Hayden set up the new surveillance program, it was increasingly clear to NSA officials that e-mail, not phone calls, would constitute the bulk of their collection:
A former senior intelligence official, who had direct knowledge of the NSA's capabilities and was read into the surveillance program, emphasized that the agency was more interested in e-mails than in any other kind of communication.

167
Hayden had come up with a plan, and Bush personally felt it was a good idea:
Bush emphasized his support for the program on numerous occasions, and he personally intervened with the
New York Times
to keep the newspaper from writing about it. See the president's remarks during a press conference on March 20, 2006, in which he said that “after September the eleventh, I spoke to a variety of folks on the front line of protecting us, and I said, Is there anything more we could be doing, given the current laws? And General Mike Hayden of the NSA said there is.” Bush said that Hayden described the surveillance program as “hot pursuit” and that Hayden “designed a program that will enable us to listen from a known al Qaeda, or suspected al Qaeda person and/or affiliate.”

167
On September 25, Yoo sent a memo to a senior official in the Justice Department:
See “Memorandum for David S. Kris, Associate Deputy Attorney General” regarding “Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the ‘Purpose' Standard for Searches.” A copy of the memo is on the Justice Department's Web site.

168
But then Yoo offered an unsolicited assessment:
A Justice Department official told me that Yoo was never asked to offer an opinion regarding the modification of FISA, and that Kris was surprised to read an expansive analysis of the president's surveillance authorities.

170 “I can't
not
do this,”
Hayden told himself:
In Hayden's 2006 confirmation hearing, Senator Kit Bond asked, “Did you believe that your primary responsibility as director of NSA was to execute a program that your NSA lawyers, the Justice Department lawyers, and White House officials all told you it [
sic
] was legal and that you were ordered to carry it out by the president of the United States?” Hayden replied, “Sir, when I had to make this personal decision in early October, 2001—and it was a personal decision—the math was pretty straightforward. I could not not do this.”

171
Stellar Wind:
This code name was first reported by Michael Isikoff in
Newsweek
on December 22, 2008, in his article “The Fed Who Blew the Whistle.” I asked a former senior administration official if this was the code name for NSA activities, including those that became the center of major internal controversy in 2004. The former official confirmed that Stellar Wind was the code name. It's worth mentioning an amusing anecdote here, because it sheds light on the often fragmentary process of reporting about the intelligence program. In late 2007, while reporting a story about the NSA's surveillance activities before the 9/11 attacks, I interviewed a former White House official who referred to the warrantless surveillance program but actually had trouble recalling its name. This official couldn't remember if it was called “star something” or “whirlwind.” I know from interviewing a former high-ranking intelligence official who advised the president on a regular basis that the NSA activities were often just referred to as “the president's program.”

171
They called it the Big Ass Graph:
The term “big ass graph” is known to those with deep technical knowledge of surveillance, and who are also close to the agencies and companies with expertise in that realm. Poindexter, for one, knows the term, and that it refers to a program developed by a computer scientist mentioned in a later chapter. The source for the use of “big ass graph” and “the BAG” as a synonym for the NSA's surveillance program is a private-sector official with technical expertise and direct knowledge of the program.

All statements, thoughts, and actions attributed to John Poindexter in this chapter come from interviews unless otherwise noted.

Details of all Information Awareness Office programs came from interviews with former office staff, including Doug Dyer and the late Tom Armour. When the IAO was still active its Web site was also a richly detailed repository of information about the programs. Many of those documents have been removed from their official pages, but they continue to reside on Web sites hosted by archivists, historians, and activists.

172
Bob Popp had always wanted to work for DARPA, but the right job had yet to come along:
I first met Popp in 2002, when he was working for John Poindexter at DARPA. I conducted interviews with him again in 2008. All statements, thoughts, and actions attributed to him here come from those interviews unless otherwise noted.

In his e-mail Poindexter explained that he had read Popp's proposal.

174
McCarthy was incredulous. “No, John!
You're
going to do this? No.” “Yes, I am,” Poindexter replied resolutely”:
Interviews with Poindexter and Mary McCarthy. Her thoughts on TIA and Poindexter's role also come from an interview.

176
In one chart, Poindexter had used “profiling” to describe a method of screening particular individuals for terrorist characteristics:
Interview with Popp.

180
Lukasik assembled a group of academics:
I interviewed Steve Lukasik about his work on red teams in 2008. Lukasik generously supplied access to documents chronicling the team's work. Poindexter also described the concept and the team's work in multiple interviews, as did Popp.

All statements, thoughts, and actions attributed to John Poindexter in this chapter come from interviews unless otherwise noted.

Poindexter described his meeting with Rumsfeld in detail, and on several occasions in interviews spoke about their history working together in the Pentagon. After the program attracted significant controversy in November 2002, Rumsfeld publicly acknowledged that he had met with Poindexter about Total Information Awareness. But, as detailed in subsequent chapters, he played down his knowledge of the program.

187
It was the Information Dominance Center, former home of Erik Kleinsmith and the Able Danger team:
Poindexter's selection of the IDC as a home base for his network is documented in the IAO literature. I also discussed the selection of the site with Popp in interviews.

188
Poindexter drew an impressive crowd for his first TIA briefing:
Details of the meeting at the CIA come from interviews with Poindexter and an interview with Alan Wade in 2008.

190
Fran Townsend seemed like she would know for sure:
I interviewed Townsend in 2009 about her consultations with Poindexter. All statements, thoughts, and actions attributed to her in this chapter come from the interview and some follow-up questions via e-mail.

193
Perhaps no one understood that better than Mike McConnell. As a former director of the National Security Agency:
Poindexter and McConnell provided accounts of their meeting in separate interviews conducted in 2008 and 2009, respectively. They corroborated each other's account, although McConnell was quick to emphasize that he was concerned Poindexter would end up creating dossiers of innocent people. Poindexter, in our interview, focused more on McConnell's offer to pave a path with influential members of Congress, which McConnell confirmed he was willing to do, provided that he could give assurances Poindexter's research was limited to foreign intelligence.

195
Under a contract Poindexter awarded later that year, worth more than $8 million, Booz was tapped to help bring a prototype TIA system to life:
A list of the contracts awarded by the Information Awareness Office is maintained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. It is available at
http://epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/contractors_table.html
.

195
Bob Popp sat at his desk, thinking about a sandwich:
Popp told me the story of how he designed the logo during an interview. Poindexter concurred that the logo was Popp's inspiration and that he thought highly of it.

197
The TIA network attracted new members every month:
A brochure written to promote the network and detail its work lists the number of members that joined on a month-by-month basis. It was prepared after TIA was officially shut down and Poindexter had left government. The document is unclassified but it is not, to the best of my knowledge, publicly available. I obtained it from a private-sector source who was not employed by DARPA.

197
At the beginning of his research experiments Poindexter drew a bright line in the kinds of data he would use:
Interviews with Poindexter and Popp. McConnell confirmed that Poindexter told him the research would be divided into two paths. This is also spelled out in DARPA's “Report to Congress Regarding the Terrorism Information Awareness Program” dated May 20, 2003.

200
Dr. J. C. Smart started his technical career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
Smart's detailed biography is publicly available. Poindexter confirmed that he is the inventor of the BAG. Also, an internal document about a Homeland Security Department data-mining program, mentioned in a subsequent chapter, lists Smart as the creator of the BAG and details how it was used in the intelligence community.

A number of other technical experts who were familiar with the BAG and the concept of graphic analysis provided valuable sources of background information for this chapter. In addition, a private-sector source who declined to be named, but who has direct knowledge of the NSA surveillance program, provided detailed information and documentation about how the technology was used in multiple interviews.

201
James Payne, the head of Qwest Communications' federal government business unit, accompanied the company's chief executive to a business meeting with Hayden at his Fort Meade headquarters:
Payne testified about this meeting to federal agents investigating Nacchio. Sections of the transcript of the interview are contained in the case documents for
USA v. Nacchio
. See particularly “Exhibit 1 to Mr. Nacchio's Reply to SEC. 5 Submission,” which contains “FBI Form ‘302' Regarding November 14, 2005, Interview of James F. X. Payne.”

202
The CEO, Joe Nacchio, wanted a piece of a new NSA contract called Groundbreaker:
This is detailed in Payne's interview with federal authorities and in Nacchio's case documents.

202
Payne had made plenty of drop-in calls like this before to discuss potential business with large, important clients:
See Payne's interview with federal authorities.

202
he was an old hand in the close-knit club of federal telecom contractors and agency executives:
I covered the government telecommunications market as a technology reporter for
Government Executive
magazine, beginning in 2001. In that capacity, I met Payne and other executives with various companies.

202
The company had allocated portions of its telecom network for the agency's exclusive use:
As I detail in my article “NSA Sought Data Before 9/11,” Qwest worked for the agency beginning at least in 1999. Internet number registration files showed that Qwest allocated a portion of its network that year to the Maryland Procurement Office, the NSA's contracting unit. In March 2001, Payne sent an e-mail to colleagues noting that Qwest was already a “provider” of telecom services to the NSA through existing contracts.

202
The agency was going after digital spies, not terrorists:
This information came from an interview with a former White House official, who at the time was involved in network defense and other intelligence programs. This official told me in early 2001 that the NSA proposal to Qwest was “Can you build a private version of Echelon and tell us what you see?” Echelon is a name used within the intelligence community to refer to a signals-gathering-and-dissemination network operated by the NSA and its official counterparts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

203
Government officials had also begun to fear a “digital Pearl Harbor”:
One of the most prominent officials warning about such a catastrophe after 9/11 was Dick Clarke, who became the Bush administration's “cyberczar.”

203
It promised faster, more powerful data flows, and it caught the attention of senior U.S. military officials:
This interest is documented in Nacchio's trial documents. Also see “NSA Sought Data Before 9/11.” It was common knowledge among reporters covering technology in government that Qwest was making inroads with the defense and intelligence communities because of its high-speed network.