NSA spying inquiry may be expanded

By ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Congressional officials said Saturday that they wanted to investigate the disclosure that the National Security Agency (NSA) had gained access to some of the country's main telephone arteries to glean data on possible terrorists.

"As far as congressional investigations are concerned, these new revelations can only multiply and intensify the growing list of questions and concerns about the warrantless surveillance of Americans," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Members of the Judiciary Committee have indicated they intend to conduct hearings on the president's legal authority to order domestic eavesdropping on terrorism suspects without a warrant.

But congressional officials said Saturday they probably would expand the review to include the disclosure that the security agency, using its access to giant phone "switches," also traced and analyzed phone and Internet traffic in much larger volumes than what the Bush administration acknowledged previously.

"We want to look at the entire program, an in-depth review, and this new data-mining issue is certainly a part of the whole picture," said a Republican congressional aide, who asked not to be identified.

President Bush and his aides have said his executive order allowing warrantless eavesdropping was limited to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to al-Qaida. What has not been acknowledged is that NSA technicians combed large amounts of phone and Internet traffic seeking patterns pointing to terrorism suspects.

Current and former government officials said the NSA gained the cooperation of some of the biggest telecommunications companies in the country to obtain access to large volumes of international telephone and Internet traffic flowing in and out of the United States. The companies were not identified.

The current and former government officials who discussed the program were granted anonymity because it remains classified.

The NSA has traced and analyzed the traffic flow — looking at who is calling whom, where calls originate and end, and other patterns — to gather clues on possible terrorist activities.

In cases in which security-agency supervisors think they can show a link to al-Qaida, Bush has authorized the agency to eavesdrop on the calls without a warrant within the United States, so long as one end of the phone or e-mail conversation takes place outside the country.

The White House declined to comment Saturday on the NSA program or the use of data mining.

Defenders of the program within the federal government said the NSA's broad analytical searches and data mining, combined with eavesdropping, are an essential part of detecting and preventing terrorist attacks.

They said the president is within his legal authority to order such programs, because of his inherent constitutional power and because of congressional authorization in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that permits him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to fight terrorism.

But civil-rights and privacy advocates voiced concerns.

"To the extent that the NSA is collecting information on people who are suspected of no wrongdoing whatsoever, it presents some very critical privacy concerns," said Marcia Hofmann, who leads the government-oversight section at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Lisa Graves, senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "We're seeing an administration that's engaging in a lot of legal hairsplitting to justify behavior that's not authorized by the law."

Material from Reuters is included in this report.