Attorney general grilled over domestic spying changes

The Bush administration's top lawyer took heat from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about the federal government's domestic electronic eavesdropping program and the Pentagon's use of an anti-terrorism law to collect financial records of U.S. citizens.

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it would change how the National Security Agency's spying initiative operates by getting permission from a secret court that fields requests for surveillance warrants on U.S. soil.

It also was revealed over the weekend that the CIA and Defense Department have been utilizing a special subpoena power built into the USA PATRIOT Act to scour bank and credit-card records in espionage and international terrorism investigations.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales remained guarded throughout the hearing and refused to answer a number of questions asked by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and others.

Specter said he wanted to know "why it took so long" for the administration to agree to let the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court review electronic spying requests. The Justice Department said it had been negotiating a review process with the court since summer 2005.

The NSA initiative was implemented shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but was not publicly disclosed until December 2005.

There are "far too many unanswered questions to say this issue has been resolved," added Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He worried aloud that the administration could "turn [court review] off at will, particularly if you got a decision that you didn't want."

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said he was pleased that the administration decided to "return to the law" after more than five years of what he described as illegal wiretapping. The turnabout was a "stunning" and "long overdue change in direction," Feingold said.

On the issue of collecting bank and credit-card data, Specter said "there's a very basic, distinct role" of the FBI, which pursues domestic matters, and for the CIA, whose role is international. "I'm at a loss to see what the CIA is doing on domestic investigations," Specter said, noting that the Defense Department "has no authority to investigate American citizens."

"There is not a constitutional issue here," Gonzales insisted. He said Congress authorized law enforcement agencies to collect business records but not for criminal investigations or domestic terrorism cases. The files can only be used in espionage and overseas incidents, he said.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office, said in a statement that the hearing was the "first real test to see if the new Congress will conduct meaningful oversight on the administration."

Government lawyers are slated to appear before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in two weeks to challenge a lawsuit filed by the ACLU over the NSA program. The ACLU said a ruling remains important because the president still believes in his "inherent authority to engage in wiretapping without the oversight of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court."

Absent more details about what the secret FISA court has authorized, there is no way to determine whether the NSA's current activities are lawful, the ACLU said. "The legality of this unprecedented surveillance program should not be decided by a secret court in one-sided proceedings," ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson said.