Eighties Surveillance Revival

By Peter Dale Scott, Pacific News Service. Posted January 5, 2006.

Illegal eavesdropping and detentions of U.S. citizens may have grown from a secret program in the 1980s that planned to suspend the U.S. Constitution in the event of a national emergency.

Revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has engaged in warrantless eavesdropping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act prompted President Bush to admit last month that in 2002 he directly authorized the activity in the wake of 9/11.

But there are reasons to suspect that the illegal eavesdropping, and the related program of illegal detentions of U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals, began earlier. Both may be part of what Vice President Dick Cheney has called the Bush administration's restoration of "the legitimate authority of the presidency" -- practices exercised by Nixon that were outlawed after Watergate.