 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | January 2006 
Bush Defends Eavesdropping Amid Calls For Testimony
 Tabassum Zakaria - Reuters
| | President Bush walks away from the Marine One helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House, January 1, 2006. (Mannie Garcia/Reuters) |
San Antonio, Texas - President George W. Bush defended domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency early this week after a newspaper report about a Justice Department official's resistance to the program prompted new calls for a Senate inquiry.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that James Comey, a deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, was concerned about the legality of the NSA program and refused to extend it in 2004. White House aides then turned to Ashcroft while the attorney general was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the Times said.
"This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America," Bush said after visiting wounded troops at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
The NSA program "listens to a few numbers called from the outside of the United States and of known al Qaeda or affiliate people," he said.
"If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why," Bush said.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy later said that while the president focused on calls being made from abroad, the eavesdropping program was also conducted on communications originating from inside the United States.
"We're at war," Bush said. "I've got to use the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people. And that's what we're doing."
Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he would ask committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, to seek testimony from Comey, Ashcroft, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
"Today's revelations really heighten concerns about this," Schumer said on "Fox News Sunday."
LEGAL WRANGLE
The New York Times reported two weeks ago that Bush authorized the NSA to monitor, without court approval, the international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens suspected of links to foreign terrorists.
A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without the approval of a special court.
Schumer said if the president thought the law hampered the war on terrorism he should have asked Congress to consider making changes.
The Bush administration has argued the eavesdropping is legal and said congressional leaders were told of the program.
Bush said the program was being "constantly reviewed by people throughout my administration."
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on "Fox News Sunday" that Congress should focus on investigating who in the U.S. government leaked the existence of the program to the Times.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, which usually meets in closed session, would be a better place than the judiciary panel to investigate the program, McConnell said.
According to the Times report, Comey's refusal to reauthorize the NSA program prompted Card and Gonzales to try to get approval from Ashcroft in March 2004 while he was in a Washington hospital for gallbladder surgery.
The Times said accounts of the hospital meeting differed, but that some officials said Ashcroft also appeared reluctant to give his authorization to continue with aspects of the program.
It was unclear if the White House persuaded Ashcroft to approve the program or proceeded without him, the Times said. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us