History > 2006 > USA > Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (I)
 

White House Agrees

to Eavesdropping Review,

Specter Says

July 13, 2006
Filed at 12:29 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday.

Specter said President Bush has agreed to sign legislation that would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations.

''You have here a recognition by the president that he does not have a blank check,'' the Pennsylvania Republican told his committee

Since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the NSA has been eavesdropping on the international calls and e-mails of people inside the United States when terrorism is suspected. Breaking with historic norms, the president authorized the actions without a court warrant.

The disclosure of the program in December sparked outrage among Democrats and civil liberties advocates who said Bush overstepped his authority as president.

Specter said the legislation, which has not yet been made public, was the result of ''tortuous'' negotiations with the White House since June.

''If the bill is not changed, the president will submit the Terrorist Surveillance Program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,'' Specter said. ''That is the president's commitment.''

It wasn't immediately clear how strong or enduring the judicial oversight would be.

An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the bill's language gives the president the option of submitting the program to the intelligence court, rather than making the review a requirement.

The official said that Bush will submit to the court review as long the bill is not changed, adding that the legislation preserves the right of future presidents to skip the court review.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's senior Democrat, said Bush could submit the program to the court right now, if he wished. He called the potential legislation ''an interesting bargain.''

''He's saying, if you do every single thing I tell you to do, I'll do what I should have done anyway,'' Leahy said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration still does not believe changes in law are necessary, but added that it remains willing to work with Congress.

''The key point in the bill is that it recognizes the president's constitutional authority,'' she said. ''It modernizes (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to meet the threat we face from an enemy who kills with abandon.''

Specter told the committee that the bill, among other things, would:

-- Require the attorney general to give the intelligence court information on the program's constitutionality, the government's efforts to protect Americans' identities and the basis used to determine that the intercepted communications involve terrorism.

--Expand the time for emergency warrants secured under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from three to seven days.

--Create a new offense if government officials misuse information.

--At the NSA's request, clarify that international calls that merely pass through terminals in the United States are not subject to the judicial process established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The administration official, who asked not to be identified because discussions are still ongoing, said the bill also would give the attorney general power to consolidate the 100 lawsuits filed against the surveillance operations into one case before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Specter did not explain to his committee that detail, which is likely to raise the ire of civil liberties groups.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in an interview that Specter's agreement with the White House raises the ''thorny question'' about whether the content of conversations should be subject to individual courts warrants.

''I really need to see the bill,'' said Feinstein, one of a select group of lawmakers who has been fully briefed on the monitoring operations.

    White House Agrees to Eavesdropping Review, Specter Says, NYT, 13.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Eavesdropping.html?hp&ex=1152849600&en=2441c18a3f8da880&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Court Review of Wiretaps May Be Near, Senator Says

June 26, 2006
The New York Times
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, June 25 — Senator Arlen Specter said Sunday that the White House and Congress were close to reaching a resolution on submitting a National Security Agency wiretap program to judicial review.

"I think there is an inclination to have it submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and that would be a big step forward for protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties," Mr. Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday."

President Bush and his top advisers have resisted calls for formal legal oversight of the program under which the N.S.A. listens in on phone calls and reads e-mail messages to and from Americans and others in the United States who the agency believes may be linked to terrorists. Only those communications into and out of the country are monitored, administration officials say.

Until late 2001, the security agency focused only on the foreign end of such conversations; if the agency decided that someone in the United States was of intelligence interest, it was supposed to get a warrant from the intelligence surveillance court. Now such warrants are sought only for communications between two people in the United States.

Revelations about that program have incited debate in Congress and beyond about the president's constitutional authority to order the wiretaps, and lawsuits have been filed against the government and phone companies.

At a Senate hearing in March, five former judges on the intelligence surveillance court urged Congress to give the court a formal role in overseeing the program. Members of Congress have offered proposals for oversight, and discussions continue with the administration over possible legislation.

Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, has proposed such legislation. In his television appearance on Sunday, he said discussions with Vice President Dick Cheney appeared to be leading to that end.

Mr. Specter expressed less concern over new reports that the administration, in another effort to investigate and block terrorists, has been secretly tracing financial records through a banking consortium in Brussels. He said he had not yet seen the need to hold hearings on the financial monitoring, disclosed Thursday by The New York Times and other news organizations.

But Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, said he was outraged that such a sensitive method had been exposed and called for a criminal investigation into The Times.

"I'm calling on the attorney general to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of The New York Times, its reporters, the editors that worked on this and the publisher," Mr. King said on the same Fox News program. "What they've done here is absolutely disgraceful."

He did not say on the program why he had singled out The Times in his remarks when others had also published articles about the banking program.

In a telephone interview on Sunday night, Mr. King said the reason was that "The Times is more of a recidivist" because of its publication of its article on the N.S.A. program last year. He added, however, that he believed that the actions of other news organizations, including The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, should also be examined.

Responding to Mr. King's remarks on the television program, Mr. Specter said: "I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of The New York Times, just like I think it's premature to say that the administration is entirely correct. I think you start with the proposition that there is not the privacy interest in bank records that there is in a telephone conversation. And let's find out more before we try to make a judgment here."

In a letter to readers posted Sunday on The Times's Web site, Bill Keller, the executive editor, wrote about the decisions to report about secret programs to monitor terrorism.

"Most Americans seem to support extraordinary measures in defense against this extraordinary threat, but some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to The Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight," Mr. Keller said. "We believe The Times and others in the press have served the public interest by accurately reporting on these programs so that the public can have an informed view of them."

Asked on Sunday whether Mr. Bush was moving closer to accepting legal curbs on the N.S.A. program, Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, said: "The administration has long said that while we don't believe additional legal authority is necessary that we are willing to listen to the ideas of members of Congress on possible legislation. Further active discussions are ongoing, and we'll continue to work with Chairman Specter, as well as members of the Intelligence Committee, as that process proceeds."

    Court Review of Wiretaps May Be Near, Senator Says, NYT, 26.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/washington/26bank.html