Effort to confirm CIA nominee hits snag

WASHINGTON — A report on extensive government collection of Americans' phone data roiled Congress on Thursday, with many Republicans rallying to the president's defense while one key GOP chairman and many Democrats called for hearings, new restrictions and the possible subpoenaing of telephone executives.

The report in USA Today heaped fuel on a smoldering debate over privacy rights versus anti-terrorism tactics. It also threatened to complicate White House efforts to win Senate confirmation of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA director.

"I believe we are on our way to a major constitutional confrontation on Fourth Amendment guarantees of unreasonable search and seizure," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the intelligence and judiciary committees. "I think this is also going to present a growing impediment to the confirmation of General Hayden, and that is very regretted."

Several of her colleagues predicted Hayden will be confirmed, but activists in both parties said the politics of aggressive surveillance are uncertain. Republicans, however, first must address a division in their own ranks.

"The first move by the committee will be to ask the [phone] companies to come in," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told colleagues Thursday. "I am prepared to consider subpoenas" if telephone executives do not appear voluntarily.

Specter, who is Congress' most outspoken GOP critic of warrantless wiretaps of Americans, also said he would like to bring Attorney General Alberto Gonzales back before his panel for questions on surveillance "if it would do any good."

"I am determined to get to the bottom of all this," Specter said.

USA Today disclosed the Bush administration has secretly been collecting the telephone records of most American households and businesses without court authority, assembling the records in vast databases and attempting to sift them for clues about terrorist threats.

More than 200 million U.S. telephone accounts and more than a trillion telephone calls made since late 2001 are included in the database, but it does not include the contents of the conversations.

Specter and others have said administration officials, including Gonzales, have given insufficient explanations of why anti-terrorism wiretaps can't be carried out through warrants granted by a secret court. Specter appeared to be on a collision course with Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who defended President Bush's surveillance policies.

"We'll discuss whether or not hearings are necessary," Frist said. But Specter spokesman Bill Reynolds said the chairman ultimately decides which hearings are held.

The USA Today report carried an extra punch on Capitol Hill because it coincided with two related matters: the Hayden confirmation effort and Wednesday night's news that the Justice Department has closed an inquiry into its own lawyers' role in the warrantless wiretaps because investigators could not obtain the security clearances they needed from the administration.

Reps. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and John Conyers, D-Mich. — the House's top Democrats on the intelligence and judiciary committees, respectively — filed a bill that would make clear "that any attempt to listen in on Americans or collect telephone or e-mail records must be conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978." The FISA law established a secret court to hear warrant requests for wiretaps of Americans.

Separately, about 50 House Democrats signed a letter to Bush on Thursday calling on him to appoint a special counsel to investigate NSA eavesdropping practices.

But Senate intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said that Congress is adequately briefed and that "calls for further oversight are unnecessary."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said at Thursday's Judiciary Committee hearing, where Feinstein and others spoke, "We need to be conscious of what's at stake: the security and safety of the American people."

Some liberal activists have cautioned Democrats to move carefully, warning there are more promising targets because many Americans appear to back Bush's claim that warrantless wiretaps are vital in fighting terrorism.

"This issue is a liability for the administration, but given their choices of talking about spying or Iraq or gas prices, they'll take spying, where the American public is split," said Jennifer Palmieri, spokeswoman for the liberal Center for American Progress.

While Frist and others were defending Bush and Hayden, Hayden dashed into a meeting with Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Asked about the USA Today story, Hayden replied: "All I would want to say is that everything that NSA does is lawful and very carefully done, and that the appropriate members of the Congress, House and Senate, are briefed on all NSA activities."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "We're full steam ahead on his nomination."