Bush Doesn't Confirm NSA Data Collection

WASHINGTON - President Bush did not confirm or deny a newspaper report Thursday that the National Security Agency was collecting records of tens of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls.

"Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates," Bush said. "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

USA Today, based on anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement, reported that AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. began turning over records of Americans' phone calls to the NSA shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Bush said any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he's approved are "lawful," and he says "appropriate" members of Congress have been briefed.

The disclosure could complicate Bush's bid to win confirmation of former NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA director.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country.

The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said he was shocked by the revelation about the NSA.

"It is our government, it's not one party's government. It's America's government. Those entrusted with great power have a duty to answer to Americans what they are doing," Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel in pursuit of what had transpired.

"We're really flying blind on the subject and that's not a good way to approach the Fourth Amendment and the constitutional issues involving privacy," Specter said of domestic surveillance in general.

The companies said Thursday that they are protecting customers' privacy but have an obligation to assist law enforcement and government agencies in ensuring the nation's security. "We prize the trust our customers place in us. If and when AT&T is asked to help, we do so strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions," the company said in a statement, echoed by the others.

Bush said that U.S. intelligence targets terrorists and that the government does not listen to domestic telephone calls without court approval and that Congress has been briefed on intelligence programs.

He vowed to do everything in his power to fight terror and "we will do so within the laws of our country."

On Capitol Hill, several lawmakers expressed incredulity about the program, with some Republicans questioning the rationale and legal underpinning and several Democrats railing about the lack of congressional oversight.

"I don't know enough about the details except that I am willing to find out because I'm not sure why it would be necessary to keep and have that kind of information," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., told Fox News Channel: "The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?"

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said bringing the telephone companies before the Judiciary Committee is an important step.

"We need more. We need to take this seriously, more seriously than some other matters that might come before the committee because our privacy as American citizens is at stake," Durbin said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (news, bio, voting record), R-Ala., argued that the program "is not a warrantless wiretapping of the American people. I don't think this action is nearly as troublesome as being made out here, because they are not tapping our phones."

The program does not involve listening to or taping the calls. Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.

The NSA and the Office of National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA spokesman Don Weber said in an e-mailed statement that given the nature of the agency's work, it would be "irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operations issues." He added, "the NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law."

NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping program that had been acknowledged earlier by Bush. The president said last year that he authorized the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.

The report came as Hayden — Bush's choice to take over leadership of the CIA — had been scheduled to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. However, the meetings with Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were postponed at the request of the White House, said congressional aides in the two Senate offices.

The White House offered no reason for the postponement to the lawmakers. Other meetings with lawmakers were still planned.

Hayden already faced criticism because of the NSA's secret domestic eavesdropping program. As head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005, Hayden also would have overseen the call-tracking program.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., who has spoken favorably of the nomination, said the latest revelation "is also going to present a growing impediment to the confirmation of Gen. Hayden."

The NSA wants the database of domestic call records to look for any patterns that might suggest terrorist activity, USA Today said.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, told the paper that the agency operates within the law, but would not comment further on its operations.

One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the program, the newspaper said, because of privacy and legal concerns.

Privacy 'fiercely protected' as US scours phone records: Bush
AFP

Stephanie Griffith

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government has monitored tens of millions of US phone records in a massive anti-terrorism effort, US media reported, as President George W. Bush insisted that Americans' privacy is "fiercely protected" under his administration.

The president made his statement following a report in the USA Today newspaper that the National Security Agency, a US military department, has tracked the domestic phone calls of tens of millions of Americans.

Without confirming or denying the existence of the program, Bush asserted that US intelligence is not "mining or trolling" through the lives of Americans, but rather, attempting "to intercept the communications of people with known links to Al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

After the September 11 attacks, he authorized the NSA to intercept international communications of people with "known links" to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks, Bush said.

"After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack," the US leader said in brief remarks before departing Washington for events later Thursday in Mississippi.

"If Al-Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they're saying," said the president, who added that the efforts appear to have paid off.

"So far, we've been very successful at preventing a new attack on our soil," Bush said.

The US president also gave assurances "the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected," as the surveillance activities continue.

"We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans," he said.

Nevertheless, the revelations unleashed a new barrage of criticism from those who question the scope and the legality of the domestic phone record monitoring, and another highly-criticized secret domestic eavesdropping program uncovered late last year.

"Our government must have every effective and legal tool needed to fight terrorism," said one longtime critic, Senator Harry Reid, Democratic leader in the Senate, in a statement Thursday.

"Unfortunately, the American people have less and less confidence that the administration has an effective strategy for waging the war on terrorism or being candid about its actions," Reid said.

Bush insisted Thursday, as he has in the past, that all intelligence activities he has authorized are "lawful" and have been explained in advance to "appropriate members of Congress."

The White House came under intense pressure after revelations back in December that US communications abroad had been intercepted without the usual required search warrant.

Advocates of that program, including General Michael Hayden, Bush's nominee to head the CIA, insist that it was lawful, even though it circumvents a law requiring the government to obtain warrants from a special court to conduct electronic surveillance of US persons.

Hayden and other supporters of the surveillance assert that had such a program been in place before the 9/11 attacks, many of the hijackers likely would have been detected, and the operation possibly thwarted.

While the eavesdropping program described by the New York Times late last year affected thousands of US citizens, the program outlined Thursday in USA Today detailed an NSA database of telephone records of tens of millions of US phone customers.

The newspaper quoted sources familiar with the program as saying the NSA launched the secret program shortly after the September 11 attacks, to analyze calling patterns in a bid to detect terrorist activity.

It said the plan does not involve listening in to phone conversations but consists of records of phone calls made across town or cross-country.

The newspaper said names, addresses and other forms of personal identification are not part of the information being shared, but it noted that the details can be easily obtained by cross-checking the records against other databases.

A computer workstation bears the National Security Agency logo inside the Threat Operations Center at Fort Meade, Maryland, in January 2006. The US government has monitored tens of millions of US phone records in a massive anti-terrorism effort, US media reported, as President George W. Bush insisted that Americans' privacy is "fiercely protected" under his administration.(AFP/File/Paul J. Richards)

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