Dust cover embassy, the national security agency, the balance between fear and safety

Anonymous US government officials told reporters that "intercepted messages" and "chatter" among Al Qaeda members imply that electronic surveillance of the kind conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA)was involved in raising the alarm. Since Sept. 11, 2001, both the Bush and Obama administrations have made improving this kind of intelligence collection a priority, and for a good political reason: the US public's alarm that another 9/11 could happen again and its demand that the government do everything to prevent it.

While a popular conspiracy theory that has emerged on the Internet the past few days, particular among people opposed to NSA surveillance, has held that the embassy closures are an elaborate ruse to scare US voters into acquiescing to US intelligence practices, the letter that was declassified at the end of last month spells out the position of successive governments.

The letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, prompted by a request for information about the legality of NSA intelligence collection efforts, seeks to justify use of secret warrants issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts by saying that 9/11 could have averted. It reads in part:

kǒu wù xiào huà shí tiáo 

1． dān wèi zhù cí ，yī wèi lǐng dǎo shuō ：“zhù dà jiā shēn tǐ yú kuài ……”biē zhù ，méi cí le 。 

2 yǒu yí cì bāng lǎo bǎn dìng jiǔ diàn ，xiǎng wèn wèn rén jiā yǒu méi yǒu shén me miǎn fèi shàng wǎng zhī lèi de fú wù ，què zěn me 

yě xiǎng bù chū lái zěn me shuō hǎo ，yú shì jiù wèn duì fāng :&ldquo