Can Paranoids Warn Us of Real Enemies?
The officially "paranoid" former NSA official Russell Tice warns a congressional subcommittee that there are other, yet unrevealed, programs of NSA surveillance skulduggery, that he can't say any more about, roughly on the "if I told you I'd have to kill you" principle. From the UPI account:
Russell D. Tice….has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.
Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees—members or their staff—because they lack high enough clearance.
Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.
…….
Tice was testifying because he was a National Security Agency intelligence officer who was stripped of his security clearance after he reported his suspicions that a former colleague at the Defense Intelligence Agency was a spy. The matter was dismissed by the DIA, but Tice pressed it later and was subsequently ordered to take a psychological examination, during which he was declared paranoid. He is now unemployed.
The Inspector General of the NSA is not authorized to know what the NSA is doing? America–what a country! In Soviet Russia, Inspector General watches agencies! Er, uh, wait….
Reason's Julian Sanchez chatted with Tice himself about this same set of issues back in January.