Posted by Orin Kerr:
NSA Intercepts Used To Obtain Conviction for Terrorist Plot to Blow Up
Transatlantic Flights:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_09_06-2009_09_12.shtml#1252454345
[1]Here is a story about national security surveillance that probably
won't get the attention it deserves:
The three men convicted in the United Kingdom on Monday of a plot
to bomb several transcontinental flights were prosecuted in part
using crucial e-mail correspondences intercepted by the U.S.
National Security Agency, according to Britain�s Channel 4.
The e-mails, several of which have been reprinted by the BBC and
other publications, contained coded messages, according to
prosecutors. They were intercepted by the NSA in 2006 but were not
included in evidence introduced in a first trial against the three
last year.
That trial resulted in the men being convicted of conspiracy to
commit murder; but a jury was not convinced that they had planned
to use soft drink bottles filled with liquid explosives to blow up
seven trans-Atlantic planes � the charge for which they were
convicted this week in a second trial.
According to Channel 4, the NSA had previously shown the e-mails
to their British counterparts, but refused to let prosecutors use
the evidence in the first trial, because the agency didn�t want to
tip off an alleged accomplice in Pakistan named Rashid Rauf that
his e-mail was being monitored. U.S. intelligence agents said Rauf
was Al Qaeda�s director of European operations at the time and that
the bomb plot was being directed by Rauf and others in Pakistan.
The NSA later changed its mind and allowed the evidence to be
introduced in the second trial, which was crucial to getting the
jury conviction. Channel 4 suggests the NSA�s change of mind
occurred after Rauf, a Briton born of Pakistani parents, was said
to be killed last year by a U.S. drone missile that struck a house
where he was staying in northern Pakistan.
Fascinating. The BBC has the text of the intercepts [2]here.
References
1. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/nsa-email/
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8193501.stm
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