Rockefeller Questions NSA's
Authority
Yahoo News/AP
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
February 17, 2006
WASHINGTON - The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee wants the
panel to look into whether the National Security Agency was eavesdropping
without proper authority in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks
It was one of the questions outlined by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., in
writing this week in a proposal to investigate.
The Bush administration has repeatedly said intelligence officials acted
lawfully.
As a leader on the intelligence committee, Rockefeller is one of a select
group of lawmakers who has been briefed more fully on the program, but he and
others still have a number of questions they want answered.
Rockefeller wants the full committee to understand the NSA's activities
— "including any warrantless surveillance" — that took place
between the suicide hijackings in 2001 and the initiation of President Bush's
controversial surveillance program.
Rockefeller also wants the panel to investigate how that may have
supplemented intelligence collected and analyzed before the attacks. That line
of inquiry is the first of 13 questions Rockefeller circulated to committee
members as part of his motion to investigate.
More members of Congress are also expressing interest in weighing in on the
program. Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., told reporters
that he's had conversations with members of the "Gang of 14" — centrist
senators who defused a showdown over judicial filibusters last year —
about whether they should consider reviewing laws relating to the president's
program. But, he said, they haven't reached a decision.
Warner also would not say whether he personally believes Bush acted within
his authority.
"All I know, there's considerable doubt out there," said Warner, who as
Senate Armed Services Committee chairman can attend intelligence panel
meetings.
Rockefeller asked his committee to vote on his investigative proposal
Thursday, but Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and other Republicans
instead voted to adjourn a closed-door session without considering the
investigation.
Roberts said the committee needed more time to work with the White House on
further briefings for Congress and possible legislative fixes to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. If the negotiations fail, Roberts said the panel
could consider Rockefeller's motion at a meeting next month.
Rockefeller also wants the committee to study how intelligence collected as
part of the NSA program is retained, the program's operational procedures,
concerns raised by federal judges, and technology used in the operations.
NSA spokesman Don Weber said he had no information to provide.
The precise details of the presidential authorization, including the date,
have not been made public. In the weeks after Sept. 11, Bush has said he
authorized surveillance — without warrants — of Americans whose
international calls and e-mails may be linked to al-Qaida.
In a press conference last month, Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 U.S.
intelligence official and former NSA director, said he introduced the new
surveillance authority to key employees in October 2001.
"I told them that we were going to carry out this program and not go one
step further," Hayden said.
Bush has seen Republican congressional support for his eavesdropping program
erode in the last two months, but Republican leaders have managed — for
now — to stave off full-scale investigations.
White House officials originally said congressional debate could damage
national security, and the bar for any legislative changes would be high. But a
day after striking the agreement with Roberts to work on legislation and more
briefings for his committee, the White House appeared more open to
congressional debate.
"The president believes that he has the authority necessary," White House
spokesman Trent Duffy said Friday. "But we're willing to work with the Congress
if they feel that further codification of that is needed."
The House Intelligence Committee has also been working on a list of
questions that it plans to have answered in writing or in hearings in the
coming weeks.
House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and other committee
members have agreed to look at whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act needs modernizing, his spokesman Jamal Ware said Friday.
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., who chairs a subcommittee that oversees the
NSA, said she does not expect a committee vote to open an inquiry, but members
were conducting a "workmanlike" review as part of their regular oversight.
Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti contributed to this report.
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