By Patrick Radden Keefe The New York Times
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005
President George W. Bush's use of a recess appointment to install John Bolton as America's representative at the United Nations may have ended an ugly confirmation battle, but it unfortunately left unresolved a significant mystery that had fueled Democratic questions about Bolton throughout the summer.
In April, Bolton told Congress that when he was an undersecretary at the State Department, he repeatedly circumvented the privacy protections that govern federal eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant. In Bolton's defense, it emerged that his actions were in keeping with a widespread - though unacknowledged - practice.
This was fairly shocking news even to those with long experience overseeing or reporting on U.S. security agencies, and it flies in the face of three decades of assurances by the government that it does not spy on its own citizens. Congress should begin a broader investigation.
Ever since the congressional hearings of the 1970s, led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, revealed that the National Security Agency had spied on Jane Fonda, Dr. Benjamin Spock and thousands of other antiwar protesters, the agency has been at pains to assure the public it does not use its formidable eavesdropping apparatus to listen in on U.S. citizens. <snip>
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/10/opinion/edkeefe.php
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