Privacy Digest

Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement - New York Times: "Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency's domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.

But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.

During a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration would no longer sidestep the court when seeking warrants.

'Sir, the president's authority under Article II is in the Constitution,' Mr. McConnell said. 'So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president's call.'

The administration had earlier argued that both the president's inherent executive powers under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the September 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda, provided him with the power to conduct surveillance without warrants.

Mr. McConnell emphasized that all domestic electronic surveillance was now being conducted with court-approved warrants, and said that there were no plans 'that we are formulating or thinking about currently' to resume domestic wiretapping without warrants.

'But I'd just highlight,' he said, 'Article II is Article II, so in a different circumstance, I can't speak for the president what he might decide.'"

(Read Original Article - Via New York Times.)