President George W. Bush and his top officials insisted at the weekend that the president has authority under the US constitution to order clandestine spying operations on US soil, a dramatic claim that could set up a confrontation with Congress and the courts over the scope of executive power.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said on Sunday that the president had ?constitutional authorities that derive from his role as commander-in-chief and his need to protect the country?. Her comments came in response to revelations on Friday that shortly after the September 11 2001 attacks, Mr Bush had ordered the National Security Agency, which is responsible for international eavesdropping, to tap telephone conversations inside the US of those suspected of connections with terrorist activities.
Mr Bush used his weekly Saturday radio address ? which the White House requested be televised live from the Oval Office ? to mount a robust defence of the programme and accuse those who leaked its existence of threatening national security.
?This is a highly classified programme that is crucial to our national security,? he said.
He said that ?the unauthorised disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk? by alerting terrorists that their conversations inside the US might be monitored.
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US law has generally forbidden the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency from spying inside US territory. Such activities are supposed to be carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then only with court authority to set up wire taps or other spying operations.
Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat who has led opposition to renewal of the Patriot Act, said at the weekend that Mr Bush might have broken the law.
?This is not how our democratic system of government works,? he said.
?The president does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow.?
The revelation of the secret programme played a role in the Senate?s blocking on Friday of the reauthorisation of the Patriot Act, which was passed after the September 11 attacks to give investigators new powers to pursue terrorist suspects inside the US.
Four years after the attacks, many senators believe the act gave the administration too much power to spy on US citizens without proper proper judicial oversight.
Many of the key provisions of the act are set to expire at the end of this month if the Senate and the administration fail to reach a compromise either to reauthorise or temporarily extend the act.
Ms Rice, speaking on NBC News, said on Sunday that such a programme was needed because September 11 exposed ?a seam? between US domestic and foreign intelligence operations that was exploited by terrorist groups.
That?s a seam you cannot allow to exist,? she said.
She added that established procedures requiring court approval were simply not quick and flexible enough to respond to the urgency of the terrorist threat, and to allow the administration to eavesdrop on highly mobile targets in order to disrupt potential plots.
Mr Bush, who was set to deliver a more lengthy televised address to the nation Sunday night, said that the actions were ?fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities?.
The spying operations were reviewed every 45 days by the Justice Department, and by NSA?s own lawyers and inspector-general to guard against abuses, he said.
?I have reauthorised the programme more that 30 times since the September 11 attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaeda and related groups,? Mr Bush said.
Before such operations were ordered, ?the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks?. Senior members of Congress had also been regularly briefed on the programme.
