‘This is Big Brother run amok’

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress from both parties expressed outrage Friday over revelations that President Bush launched a secret domestic surveillance program in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The disclosure that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on domestic telephone conversations created a furor that could have far-reaching implications for the Bush presidency. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised a thorough investigation into the secret program early next year.

The surveillance operation was disclosed Friday by the New York Times, which reported that the government has been monitoring phone calls and e-mail messages to foreign destinations without warrants for the past three years.

“There is no doubt that this is inappropriate. It’s inexcusable to have spying on people in the United States without court surveillance in violation of our law – beyond any question,” Specter said.

Democrats accused the administration of trampling constitutional rights in the name of national security.

“This administration feels it’s above the law, and the American people and our Constitution pay the price,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said on the Senate floor. “This is Big Brother run amok.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Bush may have broken the federal law restricting domestic surveillance and violated constitutional protections against intrusive searches by approving the wiretaps. “We are a government of law. The Congress was never asked to give the president the kind of unilateral authority that appears to have been exercised,” she said.

Bush declined to discuss the substance of the newspaper report, but said he tries to strike a balance between protecting Americans from terrorist attacks and safeguarding civil liberties.

“I think the point that Americans really want to know is twofold. One, are we doing everything we can to protect the people? And two, are we protecting civil liberties as we do so? And my answer to both questions is yes, we are,” Bush said in an interview with PBS anchorman Jim Lehrer.

Anger over the surveillance operation helped derail the Bush administration’s efforts Friday to extend the police powers granted by the Patriot Act, which is set to expire at the end of the year. “I don’t want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this (Senate) floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care,” Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said in opposing the law’s extension without an overhaul. “This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every senator and every American.”

The domestic surveillance effort – a significant departure from previous practice – is in keeping with Bush’s aggressive approach to potential terrorist threats. The president has faced similar criticism in the past over the treatment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the practice of sending suspects to third countries with a history of torture; and the establishment of secret interrogation facilities in Europe.

“This is a different kind of war,” he said in a speech shortly after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “Some victories will be won outside of public view, in tragedies avoided and threats eliminated. Other victories will be clear to all.”

According to The New York Times, Bush established the domestic surveillance program in 2002 by authorizing the National Security Agency to monitor international communications by suspected terrorists in the United States. The secret presidential order relaxed safeguards intended to prohibit government spying on American citizens.

Government officials told the newspaper that government eavesdroppers sought court-approved warrants only for conversations within the United States, not for overseas calls. The paper reported that “hundreds, perhaps thousands of people inside the United States” have been targeted for monitoring over the past three years.

“The president has, in effect, created an off-the-books surveillance procedure without any legislative authority,” said Marc Rotenberg, a law professor at Georgetown University and executive director of the Electronic Security Information Center, a civil liberties group. “The president has claimed an extraordinary power, the right to conduct surveillance without judicial review. He is in a place where no president has been before.”

Government officials told The New York Times that the clandestine program helped disrupt a planned 2003 attack on the Brooklyn Bridge. According to the paper, congressional leaders from both parties were briefed on the surveillance effort.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002, said he wasn’t informed of the domestic surveillance program. In an interview, Graham recalled a 2002 meeting in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office about a far more narrow plan by the National Security Agency to intercept communications from outside the United States to other foreign destinations that rely on U.S. satellite links.

“What the administration did was not justified,” Graham said. “You don’t fight terrorism by taking away the constitutional liberties of U.S. citizens. … I never saw a situation of extreme urgency that would warrant this.”

The revelations have the potential to be a major embarrassment to the National Security Agency, which despite its relative obscurity has more manpower and budget than the CIA. The NSA is so secretive that some say its initials stand for “No Such Agency.”

“My sense is, the day after 9/11, almost anybody in this country would have done anything they had to do to capture bad guys,” one former senior NSA official said, expressing fears that the agency’s reputation would be tarnished by the current furor. The official asked not to be identified by name because he does business with the NSA. “We constantly find ourselves in the position of, should people quit when the president of the United States starts to do something that you don’t think is a good idea?”

Some questioned the timing of The New York Times report, which came at a pivotal point in the Senate debate over the Patriot Act. Specter said the revelations essentially doomed efforts to extend the law without major revisions.

The newspaper said it held the story for a year at the administration’s request.