George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley was tapped today to serve as counsel to former intelligence officer David Faulk, who is working with Congress as it investigates claims that the National Security Agency listened in on private calls home from American military officers, aid workers, and journalists stationed in Iraq.
In an interview with ABC News, Faulk, who was stationed in Fort, Ga., says he routinely listened to personal phone calls of American officers calling home to the United States to speak with their spouses and girlfriends.
Faulk says some of the calls, which included intimate and sometimes sexual conversations, were passed around for entertainment and were routinely transcribed despite minimization rules which require eavesdroppers to cut off monitoring immediately and not transcribe American conversations.
“At times I was told: ‘Hey, check this out. There’s some good phone sex,’” he says in the second part of the interview.
Turley says Faulk blew the whistle and will be working with Congress as it investigates the alleged abuses.
"Mr. Faulk came forward to disclose an obviously shocking array of abuses, the monitoring of calls made by American citizens. Congress has already made it abundently clear that it considers these abuses to be very serious and has called for an investigation. Mr. Faulk intends to continue to cooperate with Congress and assist with the investigation in any way that he can," Turley says.
Turley says the alleged abuses thrived in a "fraternity-like atmosphere" where there was "little serious supervision."
"This scandal is to privacy law what Abu Ghraib was to criminal law. These types of abuses are breathtaking," Turley says.
Comments