Specter seeks attorney general's testimony at hearings on domestic spying program

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify publicly on the legality of warantless eavesdropping on telephone conversations between suspected terrorists and people in the United States.

A prominent conservative on the committee said he is troubled by the legal arguments the Bush administration has presented for establishing the National Security Agency program.

President Bush has pointed to the congressional resolution that authorized him to use force against Iraq as allowing him to order the program.

But GOP Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said, "There was no discussion in anything that I was around that gave the president a broad surveillance authority with that resolution."

Hearings in February

The committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said senators will examine that issue and other legal questions in hearings scheduled for early February. Gonzales' testimony is being sought because he is the principal spokesman for the administration's position, Specter said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey to testify at the hearings. Ashcroft and Comey headed the Justice Department when the surveillance program was started and were asked by the White House to sign off on it.

Slightly more than half of Americans, 56 percent, want the administration to obtain court approval before tapping into conversations inside the United States even if suspected terrorists are involved, according to an AP-Ipsos poll conducted last week. About four out of 10 agreed with the White House that court approval isn't necessary.

Brownback, on ABC's "This Week," said the Senate Intelligence Committee also will hold hearings -- closed to the public -- on the NSA program.

"I think this is something that bears looking into and us to be able to establish a policy within constitutional frameworks of what a president can or cannot do," said Brownback, considered a presidential hopeful for 2008.

Questions legal basis

He said he was "troubled by what the basis for the grounds that the administration says that they did these on, the legal basis, and I think we need to look at that far more broadly and understand it a great deal."

The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee said the hearings would provide the type of oversight that has been lacking.

"No matter who is in power, there should be real oversight," said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Leahy also dismissed Bush's argument that the prewar resolution allowed him to institute the secret program.

"We made it very clear what the president could do ... also made it very clear what the president could not do. And he cannot do illegal spying on Americans," Leahy said.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., another Judiciary Committee member, said he agreed with those who believe wartime "is not a blank check to a president to override the rights and liberties that are in the Constitution of the United States."

Kennedy added, "I don't believe that this president understands that."

After a story reporting the existence of the program appeared in The New York Times in December, Bush acknowledged that he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on conversations involving suspected terrorists in the months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He contended that his constitutional powers and the prewar resolution gave him that legal authority.

The NSA program bypassed the special court that Congress established in 1978 to approve or reject secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage.

The administration informed top members of Congress of the NSA program and, according to the president, administration officials regularly review its authorization.

Still, many members of Congress -- Republicans as well as Democrats -- have questioned whether the NSA program is outside the law.