In following postings on the revelations on the Domestic Surveillance Program, see the text of this Press Briefing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence, December 19, 2005.
“The President confirmed the existence of a highly classified program on Saturday. The program remains highly classified; there are many operational aspects of the program that have still not been disclosed and we want to protect that because those aspects of the program are very, very important to protect the national security of this country. So I’m only going to be talking about the legal underpinnings for what has been disclosed by the President. The President has authorized a program to engage in electronic surveillance of a particular kind, and this would be the intercepts of contents of communications where one of the — one party to the communication is outside the United States. And this is a very important point — people are running around saying that the United States is somehow spying on American citizens calling their neighbors. Very, very important to understand that one party to the communication has to be outside the United States.”
ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: This is not a backdoor approach. We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance. We have had discussions with Congress in the past — certain members of Congress — as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible. [emphasis added]
Related government documents and news:
Press release, December 17, 2005: “All nine Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior Member of the House Judiciary Committee today introduced legislation to strengthen accountability and oversight of National Security Letters (NSLs), which are requests for personal data and records issued directly by government agencies without the approval of a judge.”
statements made by Vice President Cheney, December 20, 2005: “I would argue that the actions that we’ve taken there are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president.”
Dec. 20, 2005 Press Briefing by Scott McClellan: “…Well, the NSA authorization that has been talked about over the past couple of days is vital to our efforts to prevent attacks…And remember, there are important safeguards and oversight measures that are in place for this program…Every 45 days or so it is carefully reviewed; it must have the approval of top legal officials from the Attorney General to the White House Counsel. The activities that are conducted under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Department of Justice and by the National Security Agency legal officials, including the General Counsel and the Inspector General. There is intense oversight of it, as General Hayden, the Deputy Director of National Intelligence, talked about. And the decisions that are made under this authorization, which is very limited, again, are made by career intelligence officials at NSA.”
December 19, 2005: Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, comments on the National Security Agency (NSA) program for intercepting communications within the United States. “The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program. The limited members who were told of the program were prohibited by the Administration from sharing any information about it with our colleagues, including other members of the Intelligence Committees…Additionally, Senator Rockefeller released his correspondence to the White House on July 17, 2003 the day he first learned of the program — expressing serious concerns about the nature of the program as well as Congress’ inability to provide oversight given the limited nature of the briefings.”
Washington Post: White House Elaborates on Authority for Eavesdropping
LA Times: Legal Test Was Seen as Hurdle to Spying – Some say the court’s tougher standard of ‘probable cause’ led to the surveillance order.
Washington Post: Bush Addresses Uproar Over Spying – ‘This Is a Different Era, a Different War,’ He Says as Some Lawmakers Seek Probe
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.