Hints of NSA/FBI Spying Before Snowden's Revelations

[link to larouchepac.com] On May 1 of this year, CNN's Erin Burnett reported, in a then-breaking story, that the FBI had intercepted a phone call to Tamerlan Tsarnaev from his wife on April 18, the day that the FBI had posted the pictures of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. Among Burnett's guests was former FBI counterterrorism expert Tim Clemente, with whom Burnett had the following exchange:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE: No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.

BURNETT: So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.

CLEMENTE: No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.

Clemente's statement, apparently not noticed at the time, would seem to contradict FBI Director Robert Mueller's assertion, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 13, that the FBI would need a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to actually monitor a phone call.

Another hint came in March 2013 when FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissman told a luncheon of the American Bar Association that the FBI's top priority was real-time monitoring of internet communications. He complained that gaps in existing law were preventing the FBI from tapping into internet-based communications. "We're making the ability to intercept communications with a court order increasingly obsolete," he said. "Those communications are being used for criminal conversations." He added: This huge legal apparatusto prevent crimes, prevent terrorist acts is becoming increasingly


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