Bush Leads Defense of NSA Domestic Spying

Bush Leads Defense of NSA Domestic Spying
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 20, 1:19 PM ET



The Bush administration is opening a campaign to push
back against criticism of its domestic spying program,
ahead of congressional hearings into whether President
Bush has the legal authority to eavesdrop on
Americans.

President Bush will visit the ultra-secret National
Security Agency on Wednesday, underscoring his claim
that he has the constitutional authority to let
intelligence officials listen in on international
phone calls of Americans with suspected ties to
terrorists.

"We are stepping up our efforts to educate the
American people," White House press secretary Scott
McClellan said about Bush's trip to the NSA, based at
Fort Meade in Maryland.

"This is a critical tool that helps us save lives and
prevent attacks," he said. "It is limited and targeted
to al-Qaida communications, with the focus being on
detection and prevention."

On Monday, deputy national intelligence director Mike
Hayden, who headed the National Security Agency when
the program began in October 2001, will speak on the
issue a the National Press Club.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is
delivering a speech on the program in Washington.

Gonzales plans to testify Feb. 6 after an agreement
with Senate Judiciary Committe Chairman Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., to answer questions about the legal basis — but
not the operations — of the NSA's warrantless
eavesdropping on telephone conversations between
suspected terrorists and people in the United States.

Gonzales this week sent congressional leaders a
42-page legal defense of warrantless eavesdropping,
expanding on arguments that he and other
administration officials have been making since the
program was first disclosed last month.

The memo argues that Bush has authority to order the
warrantless wiretapping under the Constitution and the
post-Sept. 11 congressional resolution granting him
broad power to fight terrorism.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who was to meet with
congressional leaders at the White House on Friday to
discuss the issue, defended the program on Thursday in
New York in a speech to the conservative Manhattan
Institute. He stressed that the program was limited
and conducted in a way that safeguards civil
liberties.

At a briefing held by House Democrats on Friday, the
American Civil Liberties Union called the program an
illegal operation.

"The executive power of our country is not an imperial
power," Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the ACLU
legislative office in Washington, told Democratic
members of the House Judiciary Committee.

"The president has demonstrated a dangerous disregard
for our Constitution and our laws with his
authorization for this illegal program," she said.

Fredrickson spoke to Democratic members of the House
Judiciary Committee. The ACLU filed suit against the
NSA on Jan. 17 on behalf of journalists, nonprofit
groups, terrorism experts and community advocates. The
suit alleges that the NSA program violates the First
and Fourth amendments and the separation of power.

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