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Bush defends eavesdropping amid calls for testimony
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-02 10:08
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush defended domestic
eavesdropping by the National Security Agency on Sunday after a newspaper report
about a Justice Department official's resistance to the program prompted new
calls for a Senate inquiry.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that
James Comey, a deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, was concerned
about the legality of the NSA program and refused to extend it in 2004. White
House aides then turned to Ashcroft while the attorney general was hospitalized
for gallbladder surgery, the Times said.
"This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States
of America," Bush said after visiting wounded troops at Brooke Army Medical
Center in San Antonio.
The NSA program "listens to a few numbers called from the outside of the
United States and of known al Qaeda or affiliate people," he said.
"If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why," Bush said.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy later said that while the president focused
on calls being made from abroad, the eavesdropping program was also conducted on
communications originating from inside the United States.
"We're at war," Bush said. "I've got to use the resources at my disposal,
within the law, to protect the American people. And that's what we're doing."
Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Judiciary
Committee, said he would ask committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, a
Pennsylvania Republican, to seek testimony from Comey, Ashcroft, Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
"Today's revelations really heighten concerns about this," Schumer said on
"Fox News Sunday."
LEGAL WRANGLE
The New York Times reported two weeks ago that Bush authorized the NSA to
monitor, without court approval, the international telephone calls and e-mails
of U.S. citizens suspected of links to foreign terrorists.
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