Q: James Bamford is the author of "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 To The Eavesdropping On America." Mr. Bamford, it is great to have you with us. I remember, when you wrote "The Puzzle Palace," no one even knew what the NSA was, and here you are back with this other book taking us inside, behind the scenes on 9/11. Can you tell the folks what is new in this book that you haven't written before about the NSA?

Bamford: Well, virtually everything is new in it, Tammy. When I wrote "The Puzzle Palace" -- it came it came out in 1982 -- and then I did a sequel called "Body of Secrets" in 2001, and at that time NSA seemed to be obeying the law and everything, and today NSA has completely switched. They have gone from following the law under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They switched to doing warrantless surveillance.

And the people I interviewed for the book were some of the intercept operators who actually have the earphones on and work on the front lines of NSA, and they were telling me that among the people they eavesdrop on are Americans -- innocent Americans talking to innocent Americans -- and a lot of that is just family talk, bedroom talk, personal finances. And there is no restriction on what they're listening to, transcribing and storing. So it offended them, and that's one of the reasons they came forward.

Q: You say that prior to 9/11 this was an agency that was about, not to go out of business, but was in the middle of downsizing. So we know what happened that day, but what happened inside the government that allowed this agency to do as you say?

Bamford: Well, the main thing was that prior to 9/11 NSA was eavesdropping on several of the terrorists while they were in the United States. Actually, the terrorists ended up putting their final base of operations in the same town NSA was. So here is NSA on one side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and the terrorists are in a motel on the other side. NSA blew it, because they were listening to them and never figured out where they were.

So after 9/11 the general in charge of NSA, General [Michael] Hayden, largely went the opposite direction instead of... Before 9/11 he was too cautious; after 9/11 he, at the direction of Dick Cheney, the vice president, decided to forgo the protections that are given to Americans, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and just began warrantless eavesdropping without any checks and balances.

Q: Well he didn't do it alone, right? I mean didn't someone tell him to do it?

Bamford: Well, like I said, it was that Cheney and Bush basically told him to do it. Those are the only two people, and the person most responsible was probably Cheney and his top deputy, [David] Addington.

Q: I am sorry. We've lost you there, James. Now, was the president required to sign anything? Or did they just give him, you know, the nod -- "Go ahead, do this, America is under attack"?

Bamford: Well the director of NSA actually started doing some of that before the Bush administration ever signed any kind of order. President Bush did sign an order, but it was an order basically violating a law. The law says that if you want to eavesdrop on an American you have to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and what he did was sign a piece of paper saying you don't have to do that anymore. But the law still holds, and as a result of that you had almost a mass exodus from the Justice Department, from the attorney general, deputy attorney general, head of the FBI. They all threatened to resign over this.

Q: Former Senator Bob Kerrey criticized you and your book in -- I believe it was in the Washington Post -- saying that your emphasis that U.S. support of Israel was the motivator behind the 9/11 attacks just is not true. Do you want to respond to that?

Bamford: Well, I found it was true. I mean, I spent a long time looking at it, and that's what the terrorists were... their main concern was. Mohamed Atta, for example -- the day he decided to become a terrorist was the day Israel invaded Lebanon, and he went to a mosque that day, signed his last will and testament, and dedicated his life to attacking the United States for its support of Israel. So it was a key factor. It wasn't the only factor, obviously, but it was certainly one of the key factors in there.

I mean, I appreciated Kerrey's review. It was a fantastic review of the book. He said that everybody in Congress should read it. He had one quibble on that issue, but if he goes actually back to the [9/11] Commission report it was actually debated in the commission report -- about releasing details of U.S. foreign policy being the reason for the attacks, but they decided not to release it because they didn't want to make the final report political.

Q: And the 9/11 Commission did not investigate the NSA, right?

Bamford: It bypassed the NSA almost completely.

Q: And why?

Bamford: Well, according to the people who worked for the 9/11 Commission at the time, they said it was largely laziness. They didn't want to go up all the way up to NSA to look at the documents; then when the documents were actually brought down, they didn't want to go to the secure room, which was a few blocks away, and take a look at them. And they were far more interested, according to the people that were on the commission -- this came out in Phil Shenon's book on the commission -- that they were far more interested just in looking at the CIA, because it's a far more sexy topic, and they didn't want to deal with the high-tech issues involving NSA. So as a result, the NSA was virtually overlooked during this entire investigation. And NSA played probably the lead role in the whole thing.

Q: And Michael Hayden was promoted.

Bamford: I am sorry?

Q: And Michael Hayden got a promotion.

Bamford: That is right. Michael Hayden, instead of being criticized for this, was promoted several times, first to deputy head of the whole intelligence community, as deputy director of national intelligence, and then as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. So yeah, that seems the way it was working within the Bush administration -- the worse job he did the higher the promotion.

Q: Well, we are about 10 days away from the election. Can you give us any insight on Senator Obama or Senator McCain -- whoever wins -- their views on the NSA and the CIA and the issues that you bring up in this book?

Bamford: Well, Senator Obama at first was very outraged by the whole warrantless eavesdropping operation and threatened to filibuster any bill sort of authorizing that. And when it came down to it, he decided to sign the bill rather than filibuster against it, so he had sort of a mixed record on the whole issue. Senator McCain, on the other hand, was more favorable towards the whole issue of amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier to eavesdrop on Americans. So between the two, obviously Senator Obama, I think, had more concern for civil liberties than Senator McCain did.

Q: Thank you, James Bamford. The book is "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 To The Eavesdropping On America." If you are going to read the book, and I suggest you do, make sure you bring your highlighter. There is a lot of good stuff in here. Thanks, James.

Bamford: Thanks, Tammy. I appreciate it. Bye-bye.

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