The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, breaking ranks with the president on domestic eavesdropping, says he wants a special court to oversee the program.
But less than a day later, a top aide to Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican, sought to clarify his position.
Roberts told The New York Times that he is concerned that the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) could not issue warrants as quickly as the monitoring program requires. But he is optimistic that the problem could be worked out.
"You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit," Roberts said on Friday.
While he did not know how such a process would work, Roberts said the much-discussed National Security Agency program "should come before the FISA court."
Roberts was not available on Saturday. The Senate Intelligence Committee's majority staff director, Bill Duhnke, said the Times story did not reflect "the tenor and status" of the negotiations between Congress and the White House, as well as within Congress.
Duhnke said Roberts is looking at changes within the federal law but not necessarily involving the approval of the court.
"The senator remains open to a number of legislative and oversight options," Duhnke said on Saturday.
"His preference is always that the entire [intelligence] committee be briefed and involved in oversight issues," Duhnke said.
"He also realizes that, as you negotiate between the branches, that isn't always possible," he said.
Duhnke said Roberts hopes that during this negotiation process that all sides will be able to be accommodated.
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