Congress Weighs Options for Domestic Spy Program

Lawmakers pressed ahead Wednesday with proposals that would authorize President Bush’s domestic spying program, as Senate Intelligence Committee members debated whether to launch an investigation into the controversial surveillance activities.

The Senate Intelligence Committee meets today and is expected to vote on a Democratic proposal to investigate the eavesdropping by the National Security Agency. As authorized by Bush more than four years ago, agents do not need a judicial warrant to intercept international communications by people in the U.S. with suspected links to terrorists.

Approval by eight of the committee’s 15 members is needed to initiate a probe, and the committee’s seven Democrats all support it. Most Republicans are opposed but two -- Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska -- have said they have not made up their minds.

The program operated in secret until December; after its existence became known, lawmakers questioned its legality and pushed for details about its operation.

Administration officials last week briefed members of the Senate and House intelligence committees on the program for the first time. But Snowe and others have said those sessions were inadequate.

“She has not decided at this point in time about how she will vote, but Sen. Snowe does not believe that the briefing ... was sufficient,” said spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier. “She believes there should be more information and more details provided to the committee.”

Snowe attended a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday that was designed as a session for Republican senators to air concerns about the program.

Hagel has not met or talked to administration officials about his vote, according to his spokesman, Mike Buttry. Hagel has said he would support an Intelligence Committee probe as long as it was not “punitive” in intent.

Meanwhile, Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) worked on competing proposals to legalize the program. DeWine favors exempting it from federal court oversight altogether and Specter urges periodic exemptions.

“We’re moving ahead,” Specter told reporters Wednesday. “I’m intending to do this.”

Under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the NSA was prohibited from spying inside the United States unless it received a warrant from a secret surveillance court staffed by federal judges. The court’s rules are more lenient than those of criminal courts and its guidelines permit authorities to seek warrants retroactively.

The administration has said Bush’s authority to allow the spying to proceed without warrants derived from his inherent powers as commander in chief and was implicit in the congressional resolution that approved military action against Al Qaeda shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have said they found the administration’s legal rationale unconvincing, spurring discussions on whether and how to authorize the program through some form of legislation.

DeWine’s proposal would exempt the program from the surveillance act’s warrant process. It also would create two subcommittees of the Senate and House intelligence committees that would be extensively briefed on the program and exercise oversight of it. The subcommittees would each have six members -- three Democrats and three Republicans.

Specter, who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee supervised the first congressional hearing on the controversy last week, did not provide details of his proposal.

But according to Republican sources, it would require the surveillance court to decide every 45 days whether to waive the warrant process for the NSA or other programs. Also, the two top members of the congressional intelligence committees would receive briefings on the scope and effectiveness of the programs every 45 days.

The GOP sources requested anonymity when discussing legislative details.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, has said he thought his panel should take the lead role in any legislation involving the spying program.

But Specter argued against waiting for the committee to act, saying that introducing legislation would propel the debate.

“If you wait around here, you never go forward at all,” Specter said.

Several lawmakers said discussing such legislative proposals was premature until Congress had more information about how the NSA program works and who it targets.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said its members had been told a fraction of what they needed to know before they could decide whether the program should be exempted from the surveillance act, or the law amended in some other way.

“Treatment should follow the diagnosis,” Harman said in an interview. “We have to be fully and currently briefed. Then we need to find out if FISA can cover the surveillance. And then we either have to change the program or change the law.”