Gonzales Says Congress Authorized Spying

"WASHINGTON - Responding to a congressional uproar, the Bush administration said Monday that a secret domestic surveillance program had yielded intelligence results that would not have been available otherwise in the war on terror. With Democrats and Republicans alike questioning whether President Bush had the legal authority to approve the program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argued that Congress had essentially given Bush broad powers to order the domestic surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority," said Gonzales. He called the monitoring "probably the most classified program that exists in the United States government."

At a White House briefing and in a round of television appearances, Gonzales provided a more detailed legal rationale for Bush's decision authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails of people within the United States without seeking warrants from courts. He said Bush's authorization requires that at least one of the parties be outside the country and linked to al-Qaida or an affiliated organization.

But he refused to say how many Americans had been targeted and insisted the eavesdropping was "very limited, targeted" electronic surveillance. "This is not a situation of domestic spying," he said.

Gonzales defended Bush's decision not to seek warrants from the secretive Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, saying that "we don't have the speed and the agility that we need in all circumstances to deal with this new kind of enemy."
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