Domestic Spying's Price

NSA Call-Tracking Program Sparks Alarm
Bush Insists That Citizens' Privacy is 'Fiercely Protected'

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 11, 2006; 12:39 PM

President Bush, responding to a newspaper report on a previously undisclosed program to track the phone call patterns of millions of Americans, insisted today that U.S. intelligence activities he has authorized are lawful and aimed strictly at the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

In a hastily arranged appearance in response to a story in today's editions of USA Today, Bush also denied that the government listens to Americans' phone calls without court approval and maintained that citizens' privacy "is fiercely protected in all our activities."

"We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of Americans," Bush said. "Our efforts are focused on links to al-Qaeda and their known affiliates."

After his brief statement at the White House, Bush left the room without taking any questions from reporters.

Earlier, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said the panel will demand answers from America's leading telephone companies on the reported National Security Agency program to collect information on millions of calls.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) vowed to haul the companies before his committee in response to the USA Today report that says the NSA has been secretly using data provided by AT&T;, Verizon and BellSouth to build a massive database of foreign and domestic phone calls. The program was launched shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with the aim of analyzing calling patterns to detect terrorist activity, the paper reported. The effort does not involve recording or eavesdropping on phone conversations, it said.

The report drew alarmed reactions from congressional Democrats, who accused the Bush administration of violating Americans' civil liberties in its zeal to combat international terrorism. Another secret NSA program -- involving eavesdropping without warrants on calls between people in the United States and suspected terrorists abroad -- sparked strong controversy when it was revealed late last year. President Bush confirmed the eavesdropping program, insisting that it targeted only international calls and was vital to U.S. efforts to ferret out terrorist plots.

Specter told a Judiciary Committee executive meeting today that in addition to hearings on the eavesdropping program, "the committee will have an additional hearing" on the reported phone call database.

"We will be calling upon AT&T;, Verizon, and BellSouth as well as others to see some of the underlying facts," he said. "When we can't find out from the Department of Justice or other administration officials, we're going to call on those telephone companies to provide information to try to figure out exactly what is going on."

Specter said that testimony from telephone company executives was a key element in committee hearings that led to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act, known as FISA, regulates domestic eavesdropping on the communications of foreign agents.

Does anyone still think that any word out of Bush's mouth can be believed? Arlen Specter doesn't think so.

Michael Hayden's courtesy calls to senators have been cancelled for today and I'm hearing rumors that next week's confirmation hearings are being pushed back. This one is in trouble.