As counter-terrorism operations grew, the Bush administration wanted the NSA to secretly expand its surveillance as well. By 2002, Bush gave the agency broader surveillance authority.
In the early years of the operation, there were few, if any, controls placed on the activity by anyone outside the security agency, officials say. It was not until last year, when several officials raised concerns about its legality, that the Justice Department conducted its first audit of the operation.
Security agency officials had been given the power to select the people they would target for eavesdropping inside the US without getting approval for each case from the White House or the Justice Department, the officials said.
While the monitoring program was conducted without warrants, senior administration officials said the decision to move ahead with the program was justified by the pressing need to identify whether any remaining "sleeper cells" were still operating within the US after the Sept. 11 attacks and whether they were planning "follow-on attacks."
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