Transcript for December 18

MR. RUSSERT:  Well, the courts very, very seldom turn down a request. He could have gone to a court to make sure that constitutional rights were protected for all American citizens.

SEC'Y RICE:  Tim, the circumstances of FISA relate to rather more stable targets, people who are principally acting on behalf of governments. These are stateless networks of people who communicate and communicate in much more fluid ways and where the urgency of detecting where the importance of not letting it happen is far greater than I think anything that would have been envisioned in 1978, before we saw the twin towers and the Pentagon go down.

MR. RUSSERT:  Arlen Specter, a Republican, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said this on Friday.

(Videotape, December 16, 2005):

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, (R-PA):  It's inexcusable to have spying on people in the United States without court surveillance in violation of our law beyond any question.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Senator Specter then said, "I want to know precisely what they did, how the N.S.A. utilized their technical equipment; whose conversations they overheard; how many conversation they overheard; what they did with the material; what purported justification there was..."

Is Senator Specter entitled to that information?

SEC'Y RICE:  Well, I will have to leave it to the president to work with his advisers to determine how to answer the questions that are going to be asked. And I'm sure questions will be asked and answered. But let me just repeat, we got into very deep trouble on September 11 because we had a gap, a gulf really, between the territory of the United States and what was going on on the territory of the United States from which the attack came and the foreign territory where attacks were being planned and operationalized. The ability of the United States to not let the territory of the United States be treated as safe haven for communications, where people with terrorist links can communicate freely to people outside the country is something that the president felt he had to address.

MR. RUSSERT:  You were the national security adviser when the president made this decision. Were you aware of it?

SEC'Y RICE:  Yes.

MR. RUSSERT:  Will you go before Congress to testify if called?

SEC'Y RICE:  Tim, I was aware of it, and I'm not going to talk about my role as national security adviser, which, of course, is not a constitutionally confirmed role, and I'm sure that there will be issues there. But my concerns were the president's concerns at the time, that he'd be able to use his authorities to detect and thereby protect the country from a terrorist attack. We have to remember that the president looks every morning at many, many, many pieces of intelligent about coming attacks. Frankly, almost none of them are specific enough to act on. And so it is the president's obligation within the law and within his constitutional authority to get the information that he needs to detect an attack and to act against it before thousands of people die.

MR. RUSSERT:  Senator Feingold, the Democrat from Wisconsin said, "I think [President Bush] probably did [break the law], and I think almost every senator of both parties thinks he probably did ... The President doesn't get to decide to make up the laws and to start wiretapping people just because he thinks it's a good idea. ...I think he may have broken the law."

And what Democrats and Republicans in Congress are asking, Madame Secretary, is what is the authority that you keep citing?  What law, what statute?  Where in the Constitution does it say the president can eavesdrop, wiretap American citizens without a court order?

SEC'Y RICE:  Tim, the president has authorities under FISA, which we are using and using actively. He also has constitutional authorities that derive from his role as commander in chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority.

Now, I am not a lawyer. And I am certain that the attorney general will address a lot of these questions but the fact is that the president has an obligation. He took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That means both to protect and defend Americans physically from the kind of attack that we experienced on September 11, and to protect their civil rights and civil liberties and he is doing both. But I want to remind people that we are in a different kind of war. We're in a war where if we allow people to commit the crime, then thousands die. And so the ability to detect, the ability to disrupt-- this is a war where intelligence is the long pole in the tent. Because we can do everything we can to protect our ports, to make our borders more secure, to try and disrupt terrorists abroad, but if, in fact, people operate within the country as they were doing on September 11, then we're not going to be able to protect the country.

MR. RUSSERT:  You expect this to go to the Supreme Court?

SEC'Y RICE:  I don't know, Tim, this is not my call.

MR. RUSSERT:  Because Republicans, as well as Democrats, are quite upset.

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