SCRIPT: Exclusive: NSA Insider Speaks Out 1/10/06
Jan. 10, 2006 — -- We're learning much more tonight about the government's secret program to eavesdrop on the U.S. It may have involved spying on millions of Americans, not just a few highly suspicious characters. That's according to the whistleblower, who speaks exclusively to ABC News tonight. A man who may now face a government investigation for his candor. ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross joins us now.
BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS
Blowing the whistle on alleged illegal acts inside the secret world of spies and satellites is a tricky act as 44-year-old Russ Tice is finding out. The former intelligence officer wants the Congress and the American public to know something is wrong, but if he gives away too much, he could be the one who ends up in prison.
RUSSELL TICE, FORMER NSA OFFICIAL
I feel like the, you know, the striptease artist, and I'm not really giving you the goods here, I'm just flashing leg and some arm and a little bit of cheek or something.
BRIAN ROSS
Russ Tice spent 20 years working in the shadows, helping the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.
RUSSELL TICE
Well, I specialized in what's called special access programs. These programs are very closely held. And only very few people have access to these programs.
BRIAN ROSS
So you worked with the most secret of the operations this country conducts?
RUSSELL TICE
That's correct.
BRIAN ROSS
Tice is now coming forward to allege wrongdoing in those secret programs, run by the Defense Department and the NSA in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.
RUSSELL TICE
The mentality was 'we need to get these guys and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them."
BRIAN ROSS
You have written to the United States Senate and said you're prepared to talk about what you call unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while you were an intelligence officer at the NSA.
RUSSELL TICE
That's correct.
BRIAN ROSS
What are you talking about?
RUSSELL TICE
Well, it involves these special access programs that are closely held. We call them black world programs and operations.
BRIAN ROSS
Until President Bush gave the approval after the 9/11 attacks, the NSA says it did not eavesdrop on Americans without a court warrant.
RUSSELL TICE
From a very young age in a career it's drummed into your head that you will not spy against Americans. That was the number one commandment of the ten commandments.
BRIAN ROSS
But you're saying you saw things and were aware of things that were done unlawfully at the NSA?
RUSSELL TICE
I believe so, yes.
BRIAN ROSS
Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers like this one in New York and search for keywords or phrases that terrorists might use.
RUSSELL TICE
If you pick the word "jihad" out of a conversation, the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation and you pull it out of the system with the processing.
BRIAN ROSS
Tice says intelligence analysts then develop graphs called spider webs, like this one, linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or thousands more.
RUSSELL TICE
What associations of numbers does that number call? And you make little spiders from each one of those points to determine, you know, where those communications are going.
BRIAN ROSS
President Bush says he gave the orders to the NSA to protect the country. But Administration officials say the eavesdropping involved only a small number of Americans.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
As the Commander in Chief, I've got to use the resources at my disposal within the law to protect the American people.
BRIAN ROSS
But Tice says the potential number is likely in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs was used.
RUSSELL TICE
That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted or, you know, placed overseas communications, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum. If that scenario is correct.
BRIAN ROSS
The fact that the NSA has now admitted it has been conducting surveillance on Americans without a court order, how has that gone over with you and with others who you used to work with inside the NSA?
RUSSELL TICE
You feel betrayed. Your leadership, you know, has gone against the tenets that you've been taught your entire career.
BRIAN ROSS
Tice surfaced as a whistleblower on the same day "The New York Times" broke the story of the NSA eavesdropping without court warrants. The "Times" had more than a dozen sources, and Tice told ABC News he was one of them and now expects to be under criminal investigation.
BRIAN ROSS
Did you reveal to the "New York Times" any classified information?
RUSSELL TICE
No. No. I've not told them anything classified.
BRIAN ROSS
But you have talked with them?
RUSSELL TICE
I've talked to them, yes.
BRIAN ROSS
Do you regret doing that?
RUSSELL TICE
No. I don't regret that at all. I'm bringing out things that need to be addressed. We need to clean up the intelligence community. We've had abuses, and they need to be addressed.
BRIAN ROSS
Are you concerned you could be prosecuted, sent to prison for talking to the "New York Times" and talking to us today?
RUSSELL TICE
As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't say anything that's classified, I'm not worried.
BRIAN ROSS
Intercepting the conversations and communications between Osama Bin Laden and his al Qaeda deputies and followers around the world, including in the US, has been a high priority since the 9/11 attacks and a huge success, according to Tice.
BRIAN ROSS
Wouldn't that potentially save American lives, stop terror attacks?
RUSSELL TICE
True. Yeah. It potentially could.
BRIAN ROSS
So what's wrong with that?
RUSSELL TICE
If we basically come to the conclusion that we don't mind spying on millions of Americans to find, you know, a few bad eggs or some terrorists, then - and that's the consensus, then okay. But I think you have to pretty much rewrite the Bill of Rights and change the laws around to adjust for that.
BRIAN ROSS
Tice lost his job last may after the NSA revoked his security clearances, citing psychological reasons, which Tice calls a lot of bunk.