t r u t h o u t - Some Fear Eavesdropping Could Undermine Work of Spy Agency: "The White House decision to order surveillance of international phone calls by US citizens without a warrant violated longstanding practices and could undermine a key US intelligence agency that's critical in the struggle against terrorists, former senior intelligence officials and other experts said this week.

    

The super-secret National Security Agency, which eavesdropped on the Soviet Union's leaders and scored other intelligence coups during the Cold War, has spent three decades recovering from domestic spying scandals in the 1970s.

    

Now, with its electronic ears and vast computer banks turned primarily to intercepting suspecting terrorists, the officials said they fear that the NSA once again will bear the brunt of congressional scrutiny and public outrage, complicating its mission.

    

'The damage it's done to NSA's reputation is almost irreversible in my view,' said a longtime top intelligence official with intimate knowledge of the agency's workings.

    

Those concerns are part of a broader backlash in the intelligence community against some of the Bush administration's tactics in the war on terror."

(Via t r u t h o u t.)