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Wiretap legislation struggles

BY TOM BRUNE | NEWSDAY WASHINGTON BUREAU

March 1, 2006

WASHINGTON - As Senate Republicans wrestled yesterday with legislation for the controversial warrantless wiretapping program, the Bush administration said there is no need for congressional approval and added there have been no abuses since the surveillance began shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

But faced with a range of Republican proposals to authorize the surveillance, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) convened a meeting in a first stab at sorting through ideas and hammering out a compromise bill.

Democrats said they were not invited to participate, but stressed that they believe it is premature to consider legislation before having a better understanding of what the surveillance program entails.

The meeting of eight Republican senators failed to produce an agreement, but Frist praised the progress they had made in "unifying" around a "core approach" to legislation that would establish a role for the secretive and special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as well as congressional oversight.

At issue is what, if any, congressional action there should be on President George W. Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to intercept communications between contacts in this country and overseas, without first getting a warrant as required by law.

In a letter yesterday to clarify his answers in a Feb. 6 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeated the White House position that revision of the existing law on domestic surveillance is "unnecessary."

And in response to a question at the hearing by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Gonzales said the oversight set up by NSA's general counsel and inspector general had "uncovered no abuses of the Terrorist Surveillance Program."

The NSA did not have an immediate response to the letter.

Gonzales also said that the Justice Department's legal analysis supporting the program "has evolved over time," and hinted that other surveillance programs may exist.

The claim of no abuses was met with skepticism.

"It's astonishing that this administration believes it can continue to claim that there have been no abuses of these powers when it hasn't even followed the law," said Lisa Graves, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) called the letter "more of the same stonewalling, steamrolling and intimidation" by the administration pushing its authority at the expense of checks and balances.

The prospects of consensus legislation happening anytime soon appeared dim after a hearing yesterday morning featuring a panel of seven experts who split into two camps for and against the legality of the NSA surveillance program.

The hearing was the second called by committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) on the NSA program.

Specter has circulated draft legislation requiring the NSA to seek approval for the eavesdropping and the constitutionality of the program from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court created in 1978.

While Republicans tested out ideas for legislation on the panel of experts, Democrats complained they needed more information. Leahy said the committee might have to issue subpoenas to get it.

Meanwhile, The New York Times, which first revealed the existence of the NSA surveillance, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Monday in federal district court in Manhattan seeking internal records, e-mails and legal memos about the program.