there is confusion about NSA conduct before 9/11. On the one hand there is the warrantless surveillance program which was implemented after 9/11. Some government officials have claimed 9/11 could have been prevented if this program had been in place before 9/11. What they leave out is the fact that NSA already had two al Qaeda suspects under surveillance. Meaning the NSA already had the targets. NSA apologists don't like to talk about this fact.
NSA author James Bamford on Hayden's conduct:
Q: What do you believe are the principal reasons for the NSA's refusal to hand over the information on the two 9/11 hijackers to the FBI? Was it legal? Bureaucratic? And does that culture persist despite the improved communications between agencies?
Anonymous
Bamford: In my view, the principal reason that the NSA failed to pass key information on to the CIA and FBI was Gen. Hayden's reluctance to involve NSA in anything domestic—even though he had an obligation to pass this information on and there was no legal prohibition against it. He could have easily obtained a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on al Mihdhar's and al Hazmi's international calls, and the FBI could have gotten a FISA warrant to tap into their domestic calls. Had that been done, the agencies would almost certainly have discovered that a terrorist plot was under way.
Spy Factory Q & ABasically Hayden's conduct made no sense. What made even less sense was the claim that 9/11 was attributable to the lack of a domestic surveillance program.
Turning over the info to the FBI likely wouldn't have mattered because the info was turned over to the FBI by the CIA in late August. Instead of responding in an appropriate manner the FBI intelligence side Bin Laden unit proceeded to obstruct the investigation and instead have a single rookie intel side agent conduct a routine search for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
To this day the media has completely failed to find out why FBI, NSA and CIA officials found it appropriate to withhold info on al Qaeda operatives in the US who were linked to the embassy bombings, the Cole attack and the threat of another attack in the Summer of 2001.
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