Warrantless Wiretaps Not Used, Official Says - New York Times: WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 — The National Security Agency has not conducted wiretapping without warrants on the telephones of any Americans since at least February, the nation’s top intelligence officer told Congress on Tuesday.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told the House Judiciary Committee that since he took office that month, the government has conducted electronic surveillance only after seeking court-approved warrants.

In January, the Bush administration announced that it had agreed to allow a secret intelligence court to oversee the N.S.A.’s eavesdropping program, and that it would comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 30-year-old law that regulates the government’s domestic spying activities. The administration’s decision appeared to end the basis for the warrantless wiretapping program secretly begun by President Bush just after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. McConnell’s testimony Tuesday was the first time he has publicly said that the warrantless wiretapping of Americans has actually been ended. It came just as the Democratic-controlled Congress is preparing for yet another legislative battle over how to update the nation’s foremost surveillance law, a subject that President Bush is scheduled to discuss Wednesday when he visits N.S.A. headquarters at Fort Meade, Md.

In a rush just before the August recess, Congress passed a law, effective for only six months, that the administration had argued was needed because its ability to conduct effective surveillance was slipping. That measure allowed the government to eavesdrop, without court-approved warrants, on international communications between an American and someone overseas, as long as the foreigner is the target of the surveillance.

Democratic leaders in Congress have vowed to try this fall to revamp the temporary measure, which critics say gives too much power to President Bush and the intelligence court.

Mr. McConnell argued on Tuesday that the expanded surveillance powers granted under the temporary measure should be made permanent.

He also pushed for a provision that would grant legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that secretly cooperated with the N.S.A. on the warrantless program. Those companies, now facing lawsuits, have never been officially identified.

Democratic Congressional aides say they believe that a deal is likely to provide protection for the companies.

Democratic leaders have now largely accepted the idea of warrantless surveillance of international calls as long as the target is foreign, but they have been arguing that a special court should play a stronger role in reviewing the surveillance after it has been conducted, to make certain that Americans are not being caught up in the program.

Representative John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reflected the lingering anger among many liberal Democrats about the way the temporary measure was handled in August.

“The right to privacy is too important to be sacrificed in a last- minute rush before a Congressional recess, which is what happened,” he said. “The need for national consensus in our efforts to track down terrorists and foil their plots is too important to ignore the constructive concerns of the Congress and the courts.”

By contrast, Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican member on the panel, argued to make the August measure permanent. “We are at war with sophisticated foreign terrorists who are continuing to plot deadly attacks,” he said. “It is essential that our intelligence community has the necessary tools to detect and disrupt such attacks.”

Mr. McConnell, who played a prominent role in negotiations with Congress over the surveillance law in August, on Tuesday repeated many of the same arguments he used then to explain the need for the expanded powers.

(Read Original Article - Via New York Times.)