WASHINGTON – After weeks of insisting it would not reveal details of its eavesdropping without warrants, the White House reversed course Wednesday and provided a House committee with highly classified information about the operation.
The White House has been under heavy pressure from lawmakers who wanted more information about the National Security Agency’s monitoring. Democrats and many Republicans rejected the administration’s contention that they could not be trusted with national security secrets.
The shift came the same day Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced he was drafting legislation that would require the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the administration’s monitoring program and determine if it is constitutional.
As part of his upcoming bill, Specter said he wants the court to review the program to weigh the nature of the terrorist threat, the program’s scope, the number of people being monitored and how the information is being handled. If the judges find the program unconstitutional, he said the administration should make changes.
It also came after Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., chairwoman of a House intelligence subcommittee that oversees the NSA, broke with the Bush administration and called for a full review of the NSA’s program, along with legislative action to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
She and others also wanted the full House Intelligence Committee to be briefed on the program’s operational details. Although the White House initially promised only information about the legal rationale for surveillance, administration officials broadened the scope Wednesday to include more sensitive details about how the program works.
“I think we’ve had a tremendous impact today,” Wilson said as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Gen. Michael Hayden, the nation’s No. 2 intelligence official, briefed the full Intelligence Committee.
“I don’t think the White House would have made the decision that it did had I not stood up and said, ‘You must brief the Intelligence Committee,’” said Wilson, a U.S. Air Force veteran.
When asked what prompted the move to give lawmakers more details, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration has stated “from the beginning that we will work with members of Congress, and we will continue to do so regarding this vital national security program.”
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