Hayden sure to face questions on wiretap

WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Gen. Michael Hayden is sure to be questioned about eavesdropping in his role at the National Security Agency when a Senate committee questions him next week.

As director of the program -- which intercepted overseas e-mail and phone calls of people allegedly linked to al-Qaida -- Hayden designed the system, persuaded wary security officers to accept it and sold the White House on its limits, The New York Times reported.

Criticism of the surveillance program, which some lawmakers say is illegal, flared again this week with the disclosure the agency had collected the phone records of millions of Americans in an effort to track terror suspects.

Vice President Dick Cheney and his longtime legal adviser, David Addington, argued that the U.S. Constitution permitted spy agencies to take sweeping measures to defend the country, the Times reported.

Lawyers and officials at the largest American intelligence agency, which had been battered by eavesdropping scandals in the 1970s, have been careful to avoid accusations of spying on Americans.

"(Hayden) was a stickler for staying within the framework laid out and making sure it was legal, and I think he believed that it was," a former intelligence official told the Times.