Hayden runs into senator seeking answers

Parties divided
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said the NSA was using the data to analyze calling patterns in order to detect and track suspected terrorist activity, according to information provided to him by the White House.

“Telephone customers’ names, addresses and other personal information have not been handed over to NSA as part of this program,” Allard said.

Several lawmakers expressed incredulity about the program, with some Republicans questioning its rationale and several Democrats railing about a lack of congressional oversight.

“I’m not sure why it would be necessary to keep and have that kind of information,” said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who wanted more details.

House Democrats called for a special counsel to investigate the NSA’s activities.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel in pursuit of what had transpired. “We’re really flying blind on the subject and that’s not a good way to approach the Fourth Amendment,” Specter said of domestic surveillance in general.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., an intelligence committee member, said the reports also raise questions about Hayden’s credibility. “He is the architect of the program. He comes to the intelligence committee, says how concerned he is about privacy,” Wyden said. “This is not what the public thought this program was all about.”

The NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping program that had been acknowledged earlier by Bush. The president said last year he authorized the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans when terrorism is suspected.

Hayden would have overseen that program and any efforts to collect phone records of millions of Americans as NSA head from March 1999 to April 2005, when he became the top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began turning over to the government records of tens of millions of their customers’ phone calls shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The companies said Thursday they were protecting customers’ privacy but also had an obligation to assist government agencies in ensuring the nation’s security.

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