Report: Wiretaps began before Bush's order

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Newly declassified documents show the U.S. National Security Agency expanded its domestic anti-terror wiretapping before President George Bush ordered it.

One month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote to Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, then head of the NSA, to express her concerns. The letter suggested that the security agency moved immediately after the attacks to identify terror suspects at home by loosening restrictions on domestic eavesdropping, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The letter was declassified at Pelosi's request.

Similar objections were expressed by Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., in a secret letter to Vice President Dick Cheney nearly two years later.

In 2002, Bush signed an executive order authorizing the security agency to eavesdrop without warrants on the international communications inside the United States who the agency believed were connected to al-Qaida. The disclosure of the spying program last month provoked an outcry in Washington, and Congressional hearings are planned.