U.S. Lawmakers Signal Plans to Monitor Spying

After two weeks of confusing debate in Congress over President Bush’s domestic spying operation, lawmakers appear determined to exercise oversight over the program. Just what form the congressional supervision eventually will take, however, is far from settled.

The House and Senate Intelligence committees, whose loyal Republican chairmen have long resisted taking action critical of the administration, have been prodded to agree to hold closed hearings on the president’s decision to order warrantless electronic surveillance inside the United States.

However, the Senate Intelligence Committee put off a decision this week on whether to launch a formal inquiry into the program, postponing a vote until March 7. Several House Intelligence Committee members said they expected the panel to take up the issue, but that no meetings to debate or investigate the program had been scheduled.

Meanwhile, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the secret federal surveillance court established to issue the warrants, are pressing ahead with proposed legislation to impose some form of judicial and congressional review on the National Security Agency, which conducts the surveillance.

The issue may cool while Congress spends the next week on its Presidents Day break. But after weeks of refusing to brief Congress on the program or discuss legislation to authorize it, the Bush administration has given way on both fronts. Briefings for members of the intelligence committees began last week. This week, the White House agreed to discuss legislation that would formally authorize the program.

The critical push for oversight has come from moderate Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill, including Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), a former National Security Council staffer who has become a leading voice among centrists on national security issues.

Wilson heads the intelligence subcommittee that oversees the NSA. Her call last week for a full congressional inquiry spurred the White House decision to change course and brief all members of the intelligence committees about the classified program.

Another force is Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing he led on Feb. 6 to receive testimony from Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales persuaded many Republicans, including Wilson, that the president’s legal rationale for the program was “weak.”

Specter has scheduled additional hearings for Congress’ return.

The first, on Feb. 28, is to feature a panel of legal experts. Specter intends to call former administration officials, including former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and former Deputy Atty. Gen. James B. Comey, to testify in early March.

Although Gonzales agreed during his testimony that Ashcroft and Comey should be allowed to testify before the committee, a letter from the Justice Department to Specter this week suggested the department opposed the request. The Justice Department letter said that Ashcroft and Comey would be unable to discuss confidential information and that Gonzales already had explained the legal justification for the program.

“We do not believe that Messrs. Ashcroft and Comey would be in a position to provide any new information to the committee,” said the letter, signed by Assistant Atty. Gen. William E. Moschella.

Specter is considering legislation that would grant the secret surveillance courts established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to waive their warrant process for the NSA program for as much as 45 days at a time.

Another Republican, Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), is pushing legislation to exempt the specific effort Bush has described -- surveillance of communications between terrorism suspects and persons on U.S. soil -- from the FISA warrant process. He would also create new House and Senate subcommittees to oversee and approve the program.

DeWine’s proposal got a nod from the White House on Thursday, the first time administration officials said they would discuss passing new legislation to authorize the program.

The White House has said that the president’s inherent powers during wartime give him the right to bypass the process of obtaining warrants to conduct surveillance inside the United States. Critics have said that warrantless wiretapping violates the 1978 FISA law, which forbids NSA surveillance inside the United States without a court order.

The Senate has moved faster than the House in asking and addressing questions raised by the NSA program.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is on a congressional trip overseas and was not available to comment for this article, a spokeswoman said.

But Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), the top Democrat on the committee, said she believed Hoekstra was prepared to proceed in an “orderly process” to examine the program and consider whether legal adjustments were needed.