2001-2002: Vice President’s Staff Read Unedited Transcripts of NSA Intercepts

According to one National Security Counsel staffer, I. Lewis Libby’s staff regularly reads unvetted transcripts of National Security Agency intercepts. Libby is the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 5] Policy makers are not supposed to have direct access to raw intelligence. The information is supposed to first be scrutinized and vetted by professional analysts in the intelligence community to ensure that the information is sound. This filtering process, which has been in place for some 50 years, is also intended to prevent intelligence from being used to service a particular political agenda. [New Yorker, 10/27/2003]