WASHINGTON, May 12 (UPI) -- Gen. Michael Hayden, the president's nominee to be the next director of the CIA, continued his Capitol Hill charm offensive Friday, meeting with key lawmakers.
The stakes have been raised for his nomination following revelations that in addition to secretly and without warrants eavesdropping on phone calls to and from the United States from suspected al-Qaida figures, the National Security Agency has been amassing vast tracts of data about huge numbers of phone calls made within the country.
Hayden ran the National Security Agency for several years before being promoted to his current post as deputy director for national intelligence.
One visit he paid Friday was to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the powerful Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
"Gen. Hayden and I had an excellent meeting," she said later in a statement. "He is a fine public servant, and I am pleased he was nominated for this critical position. While I will reserve final judgment until after the hearing process has been completed, I believe he is highly qualified for the position for which he has been nominated.
Collins said revelations about the new program, which doesn't listen to the content of calls, but analyzes patterns and connections between numbers, came up during the meeting.
"Our intelligence agencies must aggressively and vigorously pursue terrorists who want to do us harm. And they must be provided the tools to do so, including the use of surveillance programs. But the administration must be more forthright with Congress about these programs so we can exercise our oversight responsibilities. These surveillance programs should also be subject to the confines of law to ensure oversight and judicial review."
The White House, while not specifically acknowledging the newly disclosed program, insists its anti-terror surveillance programs were within the law and that key congressional authorities were informed of them.
