Bush rejects charges that domestic spying illegal
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-24 09:43

US President George W. Bush rejected charges his domestic eavesdropping program was illegal on Monday, while other administration officials said the war on terrorism had made the federal law on electronic surveillance outdated.

Bush appeared on stage at Kansas State University as part of a White House public relations campaign to defend a National Security Agency spying program that has raised an outcry among Democrats and Republicans who say Bush may have overstepped his authority.

"You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said.

The NSA program, exposed last month by the New York Times, was authorized by Bush to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants as a means of aiding in the hunt for al Qaeda suspects in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

Critics say the program violates both the U.S. Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without the approval of a special secret court.

Democrats have also criticized Bush for notifying only eight top lawmakers in Congress about the surveillance program, rather than the full intelligence oversight committees of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Bush appeared in Kansas alongside Sen. Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who so far has resisted Democratic calls to investigate the eavesdropping program.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the program for February 6 at which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will testify.

POLITICAL IMPACT

The administration is mounting a push this week, including speeches by senior officials and a visit by Bush to the NSA headquarters, to counter criticism of the program on legal grounds and portray it as a vital tool against terrorism.

Political analysts have said Republicans may try to use the issue against Democrats in congressional elections later this year to suggest they are weak on security.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada responded that it was possible to be strong and operate within the law. "We will stop at nothing to hunt down and defeat the terrorists and we will do that by holding firm to our deepest values of democracy and liberty," he said in a statement.

While Bush made his comments in Kansas, other administration officials said the surveillance program was necessary because the 28-year-old FISA law is not as effective against terrorism.

"I don't think that anyone can make the claim that the FISA statute is optimized to deal or prevent a 9/11 or deal with a lethal enemy who likely already had combatants inside the United States," said Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who was NSA director when Bush authorized the domestic spying program.

"(For) this particular aspect, this particular challenge -- detect and prevent attacks -- what we're doing now is operationally more relevant, operationally more effective."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that FISA was created in "a different time period" and did not anticipate technological advances that have occurred in telecommunications in recent decades.

Hayden, who is now principal deputy to U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte, also stressed that the program dealt strictly with international communications, not those between people inside the United States, and was directed at people he said were associated with al Qaeda.

"This isn't a drift-net out there where we're soaking up everyone's communications," Hayden said.

"This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda," he said in remarks delivered at the National Press Club in Washington.

The White House's stepped-up effort to defend the program followed an audio tape last week from Osama bin Laden in which the al Qaeda leader threatened new attacks in the United States, a prospect that has heightened security concerns.