Bush Did Not OK Blanket Surveillance of US Citizens

Some quotes from Monday's press briefing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, about the National Security Agency's program that eavesdrops on Americans' communications:

Gonzales said one party to the communication must be outside the United States and linked with al-Qaida or an affiliate organization. "The president has not authorized ... blanket surveillance of communications here in the United States."

Gonzales would not provide the documents laying out the legal arguments for the program, but he didn't rule out releasing more information later. "We're engaged now in a process of educating the American people ... and educating the Congress."

Hayden asserted the program has worked in combatting terrorists, although he wouldn't offer specifics: "I can say unequivocally ... that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available."

Gonzales said "we'll just have to wait and see" whether there is an investigation into who leaked information about the program.

Hayden and Gonzales suggested the government felt constrained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The 1978 law gives the government _ with approval from a secretive U.S. court _ the authority to conduct covert wiretaps and surveillance of suspected terrorists and spies. Hayden said FISA requires a process of "marshaling arguments" and "looping paperwork around."
"FISA was built for persistence," Hayden said. "FISA was built for long-term coverage against known agents of an enemy power. ... This program isn't for that. This is to detect and prevent. And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger."

Gonzales said the administration considered changing FISA, but members of Congress advised them that lawmakers would not be likely to go along _ "certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program."

Judgments on who to monitor are made at the NSA, approved by an NSA shift supervisor and carefully recorded, Hayden said. "The reason I emphasize that this is done at the operational level is to remove any question in your mind that this is in any way politically influenced," he said.

On the importance of the intelligence, Hayden said, "There are probably no communications more important to what it is we're trying to do to defend the nation ... than those communications that involve al-Qaida and one end of which is inside the homeland."