MANHATTAN, Kan. – President Bush pushed back Monday at critics of his once-secret domestic spying effort, saying it should be termed a “terrorist surveillance program” and contending it has the backing of legal experts, key lawmakers and the Supreme Court.
Several members of Congress from both parties have questioned whether the warrantless surveillance is legal.
“It’s amazing that people say to me, ‘Well, he’s just breaking the law.’ If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?” Bush asked.
Bush’s remarks were part of an aggressive administration campaign to defend the 4-year-old program as a crucial and legal terror-fighting tool. The White House is trying to sell its side of the story before the Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings on it in two weeks.
Back in Washington, Gen. Michael Hayden, the former National Security Agency director who is now the government’s No. 2 intelligence official, contended the surveillance was narrowly targeted. He acknowledged that the program established a lower legal standard to eavesdrop on terror-related communications than a surveillance law implemented in 1978.
Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, government officials must prove to a secretive intelligence court that there is “probable cause” to believe that a person was tied to terrorism. Bush’s program allowed senior NSA officials to approve surveillance when there was “reason to believe” the call may involve al-Qaida and its affiliates.
Hayden maintained that the work was within the law. “The constitutional standard is reasonable. … I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we are doing is reasonable,” he said at the National Press Club.
In his remarks, Bush said allowing the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists can hardly be considered “domestic spying.”
“It’s what I would call a terrorist surveillance program,” Bush said at Kansas State. “If they’re making a phone call in the United States, it seems like to me we want to know why.”
He said he “had all kinds of lawyers review the process” to ensure it didn’t violate civil liberties or the law.
And he insisted that a recent Supreme Court decision backs his contention that he had the authority to order the program under a resolution Congress passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks that authorizes him to use force in the anti-terror fight.
“I’m not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn’t prescribe the tactics,” Bush said.
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