Oversightless Warrantless Domestic Surveillance. The NPR reporter covering the House Judiciary committee hearing on NSA warrantless domestic surveillance just reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicated pretty clearly in his testimony today that the program the president has described as the "terrorist surveillance program" is not the only such domestic surveillance program going on. Specifically, Gonzales said, it is not the program that caused such consternation inside the Justice Department. And he wouldn't rule out that Bush had authorized warrantless surveillance of purely domestic communications. Link:

... The attorney general acknowledged that there had been disagreement about the monitoring inside the administration. But he took issue with published reports that detailed some of those disputes.

"They did not relate to the program the president disclosed," he said. "They related to something else and I can't get into that."

More from the NY Times. "A department spokeswoman, Tasia Scolinos, said, 'The attorney general's comments today should not be interpreted to suggest the existence or nonexistence of a domestic program or whether any such program would be lawful under the existing legal analysis.'" The NYT says that is the Justice Department backing away from the AG's testimony. I don't think so. That is the language agencies characteristically use to not deny something.

So what are the other programs? And is Congress really going to put up with being stonewalled on that point, as Judiciary committee chairman James Sensenbrenner accused the administration of doing? If you can believe it, the administration's rationale for subverting the Constitutional system of government and not telling Congress is they are afraid it would leak. Ahem.

Posted by Laura at April 6, 2006 03:16 PM