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Domestic spying details revealed by the White House

After weeks of insisting it would not reveal details of its domestic spying program, the White House reversed course and provided a House of Representatives committee with highly classified information about the operations.

The White House has been under heavy pressure from lawmakers who wanted more information about the National Security Agency's (NSA) electronic eavesdropping without obtaining judicial warrants first. Democrats and many of President George W. Bush's fellow Republicans rejected the administration's implicit suggestion that they could not be trusted with national security secrets.

Wednesday's shift came the same day Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, a Republican, announced he was drafting legislation that would require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the administration's monitoring program and determine if it is constitutional.

It also came after Heather Wilson, yet another Republican, chairwoman of a House intelligence subcommittee that oversees the NSA, broke with the Bush administration and demanded a full review of the NSA's program, along with legislative action to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

She and others also wanted the full House Intelligence Committee to be briefed on the program's operational details. Although the White House initially promised only information about the legal rationale for surveillance, administration officials broadened the scope to include more sensitive details about how the program works.

"I think we've had a tremendous impact today," Wilson said at a news conference as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, the nation's number two intelligence official, briefed the full Intelligence Committee.

"I don't think the White House would have made the decision that it did had I not stood up and said, `You must brief the Intelligence Committee,"' she said.

When asked what prompted the move to give lawmakers more details, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino maintained the administration had said "from the beginning that we will work with members of Congress, and we will continue to do so regarding this vital national security program."

As part of his planned bill, Specter said he wants the FISA court to review the program to weigh the nature of the terror threat, the program's scope, the number of people monitored and how information is handled. If the judges find the program unconstitutional, he said, the administration should make changes.

"The president should have all the tools he needs to fight terrorism, but we also want to maintain our civil liberties," Specter said

Democrat Bud Cramer left the four-hour House session saying he had a better understanding of legal and operational aspects of the anti-terrorist surveillance program being conducted without warrants. But he said he still had a number of questions.
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