Congress-President Compromise on NSA Monitoring, Unwise

Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe
But Judge Orders Justice Department to Turn Over Documents

By Charles Babington and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 17, 2006; A06

The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and other officials testify about the program's legality. The actions underscored a dramatic and possibly permanent drop in momentum for a congressional inquiry, which had seemed likely two months ago.

Senate Democrats said the Republican-led Congress was abdicating its obligations to oversee a controversial program in which the National Security Agency has monitored perhaps thousands of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents and foreign parties without obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters.

"It is more than apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent days, in recent weeks, to prevent the committee from doing its job," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee, said after the panel voted along party lines not to consider his motion for an investigation.

There was one setback, however, to the administration's efforts to keep tight wraps on the NSA operation. Yesterday, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to turn over its internal documents and legal opinions about the program within 20 days -- or explain its reasons for refusing.

Before yesterday's closed-door meeting of the intelligence panel began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the NSA program does not require "congressional authorization" but that the administration is "open to ideas regarding legislation." Committee sources said such comments -- characterized as meaningful by Republicans but empty by Democrats -- apparently persuaded GOP moderates to back away from earlier calls for a congressional investigation into the program.

After the meeting, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters: "The administration is now committed to legislation and has agreed to brief more intelligence committee members on the nature of the surveillance program. The details of this agreement will take some time to work out."

Bad choice Mr. President. I do not believe that you should do anything that would weaken the Presidency. Allowing Congress to pass anything other than a resolution endorsing the policy would lessen the sovereignty of the Executive Branch. I do not believe in such "legislation for comity" as this would be. It is clear that the Presidency has the authority to conduct this kind of monitoring, and it is wrong to, in effect, tie the hands of later administrations in pursuing our enemies. Now if the legislation is merely to clarify what is protected under the Fourth Amendment, I might accept that as reasonable, but any presumed authority of Congress to authorize the current actions of the President would be an affront to the independence of the Presidency and a violation of the Constitution.

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