Doc ID 6571846 IDAHO CHAIIMF-H JOHN Trauma 157m mm EHAMMAN I thl' 1 HOWARD H wag-u I mpg mun nanny uewan'rca smz warty p HY alum MC c MATHIHE no naval MORGAN me momma 5 rm 3 iaics anode WILLIAM G- MILLER STAFF DIHCETOR FREDERICK A- a SCHWAHI Jib CHIEF CWNEEL cuuns n 5Mm tn5 Minna COUNSEL SELECT COMMITTEE To STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH - RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES runsuM ' To a nm canons WASHINGTON 0 0 20510 September 16 1975 Mr Thomas K Latimer Special Assistant to the Secretary 08D 3E941 The Pentagon Washington D C 20301 Dear Mr Latimer As Committee staff members discussed with you last Tuesday and with General Allen of the NSA last Thursday and yesterday the Select Committee may wish to hold pub lic hearings that focus on NSA's monitoring of interna tional lines of communication ILC that have one terminal in the United States Such public hearings will be pre ceded by an executive session of the full Committee to discuss not only the substantive issues but also the ques tion of what could properly be made public The executive session is nOW'tentatively scheduled for Friday morning Weiss To prepare for the e ecutigemsessigg we have drafted an Outline of Facts Tab A that we tentatively believe can or cannot be made public- I emphasize that this out line is very rough We are still obtaining testimony and documents and we have not had the benefit of your detailed views Committee staff representatives would hope to meet with NSA officials and any other officials you believe appropriate to seek agreement on what could be made public and where there might be differences of opinion to crys tallize these differences so that they can be addressed efw fectively at the executive session of the Committee It would be helpful if the meeting between the Committee staff and DOD representatives could be by this Thursday morning September 18 I also include a proposed format for proceeding in the executive session and the public hearings Tab B Your views on this would be appreciated when TAB A is attached in as I I Ana- Doc ID 6571846 Mr Thomas K Latimer September 16 1975 Page Two 9 Let me emphasize my strong confidence that we can mu tually and amicably agree on these matters Sincerely Frederick A 0 Schwarz Jr Chief Counsel cc General Law Allen Jr Attachments Tab '3ka 1 Doc ID 6571846 1 - m OUTLINE FACTUAL ISSUES Material That Can Be Developed At A Public Hearing I General Size Authority Capability The National Security Agency NBA is by far the largest intelligence organization in the United States Its budget is well over $1 billion and it has between 40w60 000 personnel These figures include the individual Service Security Agencies which are responsible to NBA the Army Security Agency the Naval Security Group and the Air Force Security Service NSA is generally marked by a very high degree of profes sionalism and many of its actiVities are extremely sensitive NSA's mission is defined in no statute and only very em- biguously in an NSC Intelligence Directive 6 NSCID 6 and sup- porting documents The Director of NBA is program manager for the signals intelligence SIGINT and communications security efforts of the U S Government NSA's primary mission is to collect and analyze SIGINT which includes communications intel ligence COMINT plus a variety of other signals such as radar emissions Much of the COMINT is This intelligence mission necessarily requires highly sophisticated monitoring equipment and NBA has it There is no known agency in the_world with as sophisticated communica tions gear or computers DRAFT 2 9116 75 TAB A VERY SENSITIVE 128 Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing No breakdown of NSA's budget into various categories such as SIGINT Communica- tions Security or collection No discussion of sensitive technology -- regarding the size or capabilities of Rae's equipment or computers except for elementary discussion of the Puerto Rican intercept see p 3 and the key- word computer dictionaries see p 4 Avoid discussion except in the most gen eral termsl of our capability or effort against the Soviet Union the People's I roman-win 1 we weak-at 1 T'Ilq in 1 ix- 19 Doc ID 6571846 i I J Material That Can Be Developed Public Hearing NSA does not produce finished intelligence reports but does only preliminary analysis so that it can determine the cons text of messages and to whom they should be disseminated i Monitoring of International Lines of Communications I uses a substantial part of its resources and unparallel- ed technology to intercept and analyze foreign communications The Executive Branch directiveS'define this phrase as including most communications involving one foreign citizen but NSA limits itself to communications with at least one foreign terminal NSA does not intercept domestic communications between U S citizens ne targeted type of communications is the international lines -Hence E03 mn3 Page 2 PL 86 36 50 USC 3605 VERY SENSITIVE Material That_Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing I the Middle East or the Third World This principle will sometimes conflict with public discussion of NSA capabilities and practices against U S citizens communi- cating on international lines of communi cations with one terminal in the U S Avoid discussion of any treaty relation- ships with our Allies re SIGINT activi- ties of communications Although intercepting all ILCs is far be yond capabilities and resources NSA does intercept vast num- bers of communications orer some of them including some that have one terminal in the United States - i I I I These are international commercial links and do not include do- mestic internal communications links military links etc II mam I Iprah' II as Doc ID F571846 Van Material That Can Be Developed Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing- At A Public Hearing A Voice Traffic While sorting and analyzing voice communications over the ILCs is difficult NSA does do some of this Only a handful of the links now monitored or monitored in the past year have one terminal in the United States Many additional links however No listing of any specific voice links can be listened to very simply - - other than those mentioned below Questionable Practice U S South American Monitoring E03 nu3 NBA has intercepted telephone calls between the United States - and some South American cities NSA did this most recently by intercepting at a military base in Puerto Rico the high frequency radio waves carrying these calls This was a simple technological effort that a good ham radio operator could do in the same gene No discussion of technical details of the oral locations Puerto Rican operation -- such as the number of links that could be monitored This activity just ended on July 9 1975 after conr tinuing with one brief interruption since late 19 0 Neither NSA nor any other agency had obtained a warrant to conduct this moni- toring For the last two years this monitoring was to collect economic intelligence and 1 When a frequency was being monitored each telephone call even a personal call between husband and wife had to be lis- tened to and recorded by_the operators and reduced to a summary and sometimes a transcript There can be no computer sorting until then Note See comments later under 11 3 about public discussion of computer sorting 2 The value of the monitoring was marginal In 1974-75 the Puerto Rican station sent only call summaries gists a 1 day back to NSA for even the most elementary analysis and NBA only requested one or two full transcripts i res l ire-er wereDoc 6571846 1 our Material That Can Be Developed Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing At A Public Hearing In the initial period from late 1970 through June 19 3 the primary purpose of this U S South American monitoring was to gather information about drug traffic The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs BNDD asked NSA to initiate the monitoring 'and also supplied NBA with the names of various individuals in- cluding U S citizens who were especially suspicious Existing laws and Executive-Branch directives are unclear whether combating drug traffic is a valid foreign intelligence pur- pose The NSA General Counsel distinguishes between control of - international drug traffic and domestic law enforcement only the former he considers a valid foreign intelligence purpose - - 3 Non-Voice Traffic a very high proportion of NSA's monitoring effort against Do not use a 95-99% figure ILCs is to intercept telegrams This is because telegrams can be fed directly into the computer which can sort through them looking for key words and select out the most valuable messages and NBA believes that most important information is communicated at some point by telegram Note The hasic fact that HSA computers sort through messages by using a keyword dictionary should not be Existing directives do not limit NSA to foreign intelligence col- lection but NSA consistently tells Congressional committees that it perceives this to be its purpose and believes this is the only collection it is now engaged in 1' - 1 tin- - ttwl Will s l nut-H Doc ID f571846 Material That Can Be Developed' At A Public Hearing sensitive technology today Many private companies index and sort through material by use of computer dictionaries It is 1 the size of the dictionary and the capabilities of com peters that seem sensitive Contrary-to some statements in the media NBA does not monitor most telegram traffic on the other hand it does handle 1 an enormous volume An estimated 2 billion telegrams a month - - pass over ILC channels Computers at NSA field stations scan many millions of them forward about 2 8 million to NSA head kpj quarters and NSA probably see 1 million of these Questionable Practice The Watch List Activity Start v ing sometime in the early 19605 and switching into high gear in i 196 NBA included the names of U S citizensXentities on its 4 a watch list of names Foreign citizens or entities were also on the list This meant that intercepted messages to or from d 3 these individuals or even mentioning them would be sent to NSA and often forwarded to consumer agencies especially 8 ngfr the FBI and Secret Service dike At one time or another the list included the names of At its high point in 1973 it had least 1 200 U S citizens about 250-300 names on it One document from NSA's files a'four- my page memorandum contains some names that may have been included on the watch list NSA does not'know the history of the document or whether the names were entered on the watch list The names in the memorandum include Whitney Young Benjamin Spock the NAACP and the Urban League Already documented as entries on the watch list are such other names as Donald Sutherland FBI 1971-73 Muhammad Ali FBI 1971 73 Roy Innis FBI 1971-73 the Women's Liberation Movement Secret Service Vietnam Veterans Against the War Secret Quaker Action Group Secret Service 1971-73 and Bertram Zweibon Secret Service l9 l-73 a U S Court of Appeals recently ruled that an FBI wire- tap on Zweibon during Some of the same period was illegal without a warrant i fir 13 H gl' l - 5 59 51 $313 -l i illPage 5 VERY SENSITIVE n1 Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing No discussion of the number of words in the dictionary or the speed of the compu- ters No discussion of NBA use of voice prints I - e Ii mentioned one of them Material That Can Be Developed At A Public Hearing The inclusion of U S names was sharply curtailed in August-October 1973 as a result of self-doubts by NSA officials and the intervention of the Department of Justice Attorney Gen- eral Richardson found that this was electronic surveillance with out a warrant and that the dissemination of information obtained to the FBI might be illegal NSA then asked other agencies to eliminate all U S names from the watch list except for a few that the Secret Service new maintains to carry out its purposes Some characteristics of the watch list are 1 There usually was some justification given that a name waslon the list to help determine the individual s or the group's links to foreign governments terrorists or subversive groups 2 The inclusion'ofgnames was extremely casual Some requests were initially given over the telephone at a relatively low staff level Written requests often contained only a Very brief justification for including names The four-page unidenti- fied memorandum from NSA's files was poorly typed and some names were presented in almost random order 3 Communications between two U S citizens would be intercepted if one of them was on the watch list or if the cable Note that one of them would have to be at a foreign terminal Even now the NSA computer might send a com4 munication between two U S citizens to an analyst if a keyword is contained in the message 4 The incidental fallout from the watch list meant that there was a considerable collection effort against other U S citizens For instance a cable mentioning the Women's Liberation Movement a target might include the names of U S citizens as senders recipients and attendees at a meeting d I c r '3 ru- 1 171$ I Mr I wereivf- f Page 6 VERY SENSITIVE Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing Do not discuss the number or identity of the Secret Service entries d Doc ID 6571846 D- pln Material That Can Be Developed At A Public Hearing The normal practice was to leave these names in the text dis- seminated to other agencies and to add them to biographic files Note Even though the use of the names of U zensfentities in the computer has been sharply curtailed citi some of the intercepted communications telephone as well as telegram still sent to NBA have U S or mentioned in the text citizens entities as a party This is because the messages contain other keywords that identify it as appropriate for analysis NSA now has internal regulations that require that specific S citi- zens entities not be identified in any material disseminated to other agencies as a result of ILC intercepts ligence significance is gained by doing so Another Questionable Practice ass - with-the only if great intel- aid of CIA had an arrangement in New York whereby some telegram companies provided NBA the opportunity to duplicate certain tele grams _ bly three or four decades C Files On U S This practice apparently continued for many years It was recently terminated possi In the course of monitoring many communications links and stores hundreds ILC and otherwise NBA intercepts analyzes of millions of messages per year many ways '41 a ii h 4 in 1 9' - The information therein much irrelevant to the reason the message was intercepted is filed in Page 7 VERY SENSITIVE I Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing This activity would only be considered insofar as it involved looking for comm munications to from or involving U S citizens entities There would be no discussion of targeting telegrams of for eign governments entities or individu uals - 1 nitrit- I -F - I L i Doc ID 6571846 Questionable erectice The C5 Files on U S Citizens Until as part of its OVerall responsibility to maintain biographic information in support of NSA's missionknaintained limited biographic and organizatio rfiles on tens of thousands of U S citizens including members of Congress such as Senators Church and Goldwater who would likely appear in foreign diplomatic communications The files_them selves composed misreprints or hard copy page containing informav tion filledfat their high pointj filing cabinets each with approximately nine cubic feet of storage space The information came not only from published SIGINT but also press and published USIB Agency Intelligence Reports NBA used the files to support NSA in various stages of product preparation If clarification of message text was required identification of U S personalities ass were infrequently included in a footnote Access to the CS files was restricted to NSA with a need-to know and accredited USIB agency personnel on a very limited basis inactive The files were after 1973 because of lack of manpower to maintain them and were destroyed in Oct l9 3 because the use of the files had decreased to the point they did not warrant utilization I I I 3 - if of the very limited floor space available for - unuu 4m Page 8- VERY SENSITIVE I Material That Can Be Developed Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing -At A Public Hearing Questionable Practice The 0-5 Files on U S Citizens Until 1973 NSA maintained extensive biographic and organization files on U S citizens and entities The biographic files included files on tens of thousands of U S citizens including members of - Congress such as Senators Church and Goldwater The files them y j selves composed of 5x8 cards with small print filled at their gs high point 8 to 10 filing cabinets each with 9 cubic feet of storage g zgm - space The information came not only from SIGINT intercepts but also from other agencies NSA apparently used thgw ilesggi h_few restrictiOns in adding disseminaggd_tg_ot er agencies In a a encres a ess toughe_files CIA had an employee who worked among the files -- without Nga supervision from at least 1971 73 The files were inactive after 1971 and destroyed in 19 3 because NSA says they were running out of space For background information on U S citizens entities NSA now apparently relies on the data bank maintained by the New York Times Underlying Problems An underlying problem appears to be the lack of a statutory charter and clear Executive Branch directives Three phrases might be examined more carefully A Foreign communications This phrase now seems to in clude under present Executive Branch directives almost all commu nications except those between two U S citizens As a result No discussion ofl except for NSA's own-directive a telephone call betneen a for citizens or entities heing treated as signer in Des Moines and a U S citizen in Chicago appears to be U S a foreign communication - so 3 3b 3 PL 86-36 50 USC 3605 3 Pass - Irrt'rsher- 351 in v a IDOCH - 571846 Material That Can Be Developed At A Public Hearing B Foreign intelligence Does this include for ex ample intelligence relating to national security only national security and foreign affairs national security foreign affairs including possible foreign influence on domestic groups eco- nomic matters and domestic law enforcement C National security 1 Eil l I r' 211 - 1 1 1 quPage 9 VERY SENSITIVE Material That Should Not Be Developed At A Public Hearing 1-- Doc ID 6571846 TAB September 16 1975 SENSITIVE P PROPOSED PRESENTATION OF ISSUES The hearings on NBA monitoring would begin with an executive session of the full Committee where GenEIal Allen the Director of NSA can brief the Senators about NSA and to avoid later questions in public hearings about some of the technical means for intercept ing communications Drawing upon prior negotiations between the Committee staff and the Department of Defense Allen would address what NBA believes can be presented in public and what cannot The executive session would be on Friday September 19 After a few days' interval to iron out any disputes over the classification issue the Committee would hold public hearings de signed to last three mornings These hearings would be on Tuesday September 23 through Thursday September 25 The public hearings would proceed with the following witnesses from NBA 1 General Allen NSA Director He would sketch the role of NSA its size and its monitoring capabilities w the latter in very general terms He might also note that NSA has stopped the question able practices to be addressed See Outline of Factual Issues 2 Mrs Mood director of the NSA group in charge of customer relations Croupl She has had long experience in the Agency and is Very familiar with the questionable practices to be investigated She would be accompanied by Milton lredell who knows more about the drug monitoring than Mrs Moody With Mrs Moody in the lead the two would discuss questionable practices in the past in the voice American monitoring and then the non voice watch list area 3 Mr Richard Tragi Tracy was in charge of the biographic and organization files from 1971 3 He would describe the extent of the files on U S citizens ntities and the fact that outside in telligence agencies had easy access to these fllES 4 Mr Richard Kern the'recently appointed head of the NSA group responsible for ILC monitoring G Group He was hot ln volved in the questionable practices He would testify that NSA has stopped these practices through interna1 regulation 5 Mr Roy Banner the General Counsel-of NSA Sander would discuss the applicable statutes and Executive Branch noting the wide discretion for the Agency under the terms foreign communications and foreign intelligence - 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