WASHINGTON, May 17 (UPI) -- Details of a U.S. counter-terror warrantless electronic surveillance program are to be briefed to the full Senate and House intelligence panels.
The decision by Bush administration officials to brief the full select intelligence committees, instead of just special subcommittees of the panels and Senate and House leaders, comes on the eve of a confirmation hearing for the president's nominee to be the new CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden.
The Senate committee will be briefed Wednesday. Congressional officials said that the briefing would mean all members would be in the same position to ask Hayden questions about the controversial wiretapping program, which was revealed in a leak to the New York Times last year. But they added it would also mean that members would probably not be able to ask questions about the highly classified program in the open portion of the hearing.
"You have to have confidence that members (of the committees) will be discreet," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Wenesday.
The warrantless surveillance program, initiated under the direction of President Bush in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks, has not been publicly described in detail. Officials have said it monitors calls into and out of the United States, where they involve people believed to be members, affiliates or supporters of al-Qaida or other global terror groups. They say the surveillance does not require a court warrant since it involves international calls, and is conducted under the president's inherent war-time authority.
Civil libertarians -- including members of both parties -- have attacked the program as a violation of the law and an infringement of constitutional protections of privacy and due process.
The reversal by the administration -- which long resisted pressure to broaden the briefing it gave lawmakers, citing the possibility of leaks -- also comes amid new pressure on Capitol Hill brought on by reports that the National Security Agency has obtained telephone number calling records of millions of domestic telephone subscribers.
