Bush says domestic spying to continue Eavesdropping on citizens who are suspected of terrorist links is legal, he asserts

WASHINGTON - President Bush vowed Monday to continue the eavesdropping on Americans suspected of terrorist ties and said he assumed the government already is investigating who may have alerted reporters about the controversial spying program.

In a news conference at the White House, the president defended his repeated authorization of the wiretapping, without asking any court for search warrants, on international telephone calls and e-mails between suspected al-Qaida members and their associates. He said the spying by the National Security Agency is legal and has worked to thwart terrorist attacks against the U.S.

He refused, however, to give any details.

"Do I have the legal authority to do this? The answer is, absolutely," Bush said. "I've reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill our American citizens."

Later in the day, critics continued to imply that Bush had acted outside the law.

"We will not tolerate a president who believes that he is the sole decision-maker when it comes to the policies that this country should have in the war against terror and the policies we should have to protect the rights of completely innocent Americans," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said at a Capitol Hill news conference. "He is the president, not a king."

Bush said the terrorist threat continues, and he expressed frustration that the Senate has failed to renew the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terror law with some provisions that otherwise expire at the end of the month. Opponents say the law may trample on civil liberties.

The president said he has not ordered any investigation to determine who, if anyone, leaked information on the spying program to the New York Times, but he presumes one is under way.

"My personal opinion is it was a shameful act, for someone to disclose this very important program in time of war," he said. "The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

The Justice Department would not comment on whether it is investigating.

The year-ender news conference was the latest in a series of Bush appearances, including Sunday night's televised address from the Oval Office, aimed at stanching criticism of the war in Iraq and Bush's slide in popularity polls.

It came shortly after U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters the administration believes the spying program was authorized by the Constitution and by Congress in its resolution authorizing the terror war shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed more than 3,000 people.

Gonzales said the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged the president's powers in wartime, particularly when it decided last year that Congress had authorized the detention of a U.S. citizen captured on the battlefield as an "enemy combatant." The high court likely would uphold the administration's spying as well, even though Congress did not specifically authorize it, he said.

"We believe that the court would apply the same reasoning to recognize the authorization by Congress to engage in this kind of electronic surveillance," Gonzales said.

Failing that, he said, the Constitution itself gives the president, as commander-in-chief, broad wartime powers. Bush also made that point, saying that while he is mindful of privacy concerns, it is his responsibility to do whatever is necessary to protect the American people in time of war.

He also said the White House briefed congressional leaders about the spying more than a dozen times.

But lawmakers said they were shocked at the decision to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which a special court, acting in secret, can approve electronic surveillance — either before or after telephones have been tapped. The FISA courts have rejected administration requests for wiretapping only a few times since the law was passed in 1978, officials have said.

Several Republican and Democratic senators agreed with Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that legislative hearings should be held on the issue early next year.

"Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?" asked Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. " ... Notifying some members of Congress, if he did, that he's taken the law into his own hands — that is not a check on the executive branch, nor is the fact that he gets opinions from six lawyers in the executive branch, all under his control, that he can do this. That's not a check. A check is what is in the law."

Levin and other senators demanded that the eavesdropping be conducted only under FISA.

Bush told reporters the administration monitors the spying to make sure it complies with the Constitution and that the program without search warrants was needed to move swiftly against would-be attackers.

patty.reinert@chron.com