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Bush got the NSA to do electronic surveillance on US citizens.
When the CIA gathers information and comes to conclusions the vast majority of the information which goes into that conclusion is second hand. It can come from hundreds of sources, some reliable and some not. Information gathered by the NSA is different. It comes straight from the horses mouth and is generally considered (in context) to be reliable.
The difference in what is gathered and how between the two agencys drives another point. When information is gathered by the CIA is may languish for a long time before it finds its way as supporting evidence for an analysis. Information from the NSA, on the other hand, much more often has time value. The NSA is not in the business of writing history. When they collect information it is immediately reviewed and either used very soon or never used.
So that brings up the very intriguing question. If there were many wiretaps of approximately 500 people then something was done with the information gathered. What happened to some of it is obvious, it was found to be of no value and discarded (probably stored away somewhere). But there will be other stuff, stuff that found its way to Bush (inclusive of his immediate Staff) - because that is where it had to be going, there is no other end user - what was it used for? That is the real question.
Any program that lasted over a year and was renewed many times must have been useful, so once again I ask, what was it used for?
I think it would serve the New York Times well to follow this story to the next step.
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