WASHINGTON — The fight over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program began anew Tuesday as the nation’s spymaster urged Congress to make permanent a law that gives intelligence agencies more latitude to monitor overseas phone calls and e-mails.
Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell testified that the administration needs the expanded powers because old versions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act forced intelligence agents to obtain time-consuming warrants for any communications that passed through U.S. networks — even if the call was between two foreign suspects.
“The old (legal) requirements prevented the intelligence community from collecting important foreign intelligence information on current terrorist threats,” McConnell told the House Judiciary Committee.
McConnell said he did not know how many Americans have had phone conversations monitored as a result of the administration program but insisted it was “a very small number, considering that there are billions of transactions every day.” He added that no one in the U.S. has been targeted without a warrant since he became director in February.
Before Congress went on its summer break in August, McConnell launched a push for changes in the law following a secret court’s ruling that portions of the administration’s surveillance program were illegal.
Since the rushed passage of the changes, however, many Democrats now believe that the new provisions violate long-held privacy protections for U.S. citizens.
“The right to privacy is too important to be sacrificed in a last-minute rush before a congressional recess, which is what happened,” said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Judiciary Committee chairman.
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