NSA SURVEILLANCE NSA SURVEILLANCE Opinion: Congress in the dark | Specter: My bill would provide light ACLU, NSA to head to court VP pressured panel, Specter says Senators won't grill phone companies FCC: NSA probe impossible Pre-9/11 records help flag suspicious calling More ABOUT THE NSA ABOUT THE NSA As a nod to the secrecy of the National Security Agency, people have jokingly said that its acronym — NSA — stands for "no such agency," or even "never say anything." The agency, headquartered at Fort Meade in Maryland, is the largest government spy outfit in the world. Number of employees 30,000 Who they are Mathematicians, linguists, engineers, physicists, computer scientists, engineers and other specialists and staff Budget Classified What it does Cryptology, the science of making and cracking codes. Making codes is referred to as "information assurance" in NSA language. This is the art of scrambling signals to prevent people from tapping into telephone signals and other communications. For example, one of the NSA missions is to assure President Bush talks on a secure telephone line. Cracking codes is referred to as "signals intelligence" at the NSA. This is the science of tapping into telephone conversations and other communications. It includes analysis of codes and the use of people who have a deep understanding not only of foreign languages but also cultures. This helps those people offer understanding of subtle layers, such as sarcasm, in foreign languages. History President Truman created the NSA in 1952 to bring military and civilian efforts under one roof. The agency was first headquartered in Washington, D.C., but moved a few miles away to Fort Meade in 1957 after fears of an atomic bomb swept the capital. Other actions by the National Security Agency, or by U.S. military cryptologists who would eventually become part of the agency: • During World War II, uncovered Japanese plans to attack U.S. forces on Midway Island, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. This allowed U.S. forces to defeat the Japanese there in 1942. • Helped U.S. Army Gen. Walton Walker avoid enemy fire at the Pusan Perimeter in Korea in 1950. • Offered evidence of Soviet-supported arms buildup in Cuba before and during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Interesting facts • Produces 40,000 pounds a day in shredded documents. • Has its own restricted exit off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. At the end of the ramp is a security booth and a guard who turns away motorists not employed by or officially visiting the NSA. • Yearly electric bill: $21 million Sources: National Security Agency, National Cryptologic Museum and International Spy Museum USA TODAY WATCHDOG USA TODAY WATCHDOG Do you have firsthand knowledge of additional facts involving this story? Do you have a tip or information you would like to share with us? E-mail us at watchdog@usatoday.com. NSA secret database report triggers fierce debate in Washington WASHINGTON  A massive government database containing the phone records of tens of millions of Americans — reported by USA TODAY on Thursday — marks the modern intersection of two powerful emerging forces: terrorism and technology. And the firestorm sparked by disclosure of the National Security Agency project mirrors a debate that dates to the nation's founding, and before, over balancing the interests of the government with the rights of individuals. "It's an issue of our times — a huge issue," said Clayton Northouse, editor of Protecting What Matters: Technology, Security, and Liberty since 9/11, published last month. VIDEO: Bush defends program | Sen. Leahy reacts "In the lead-up to 9/11, a lot of the terrorists left a lot of information trails that could have potentially been tracked down. ... But then we bump up against the need to protect civil liberties in this new environment. How can we maintain people's privacy while maintaining the usefulness of the information?" The White House moved quickly to try to shape the debate. President Bush appeared before TV cameras midday Thursday to say the administration has always acted within the law and protected Americans' privacy while doing everything possible to prevent terrorist attacks. "Al-Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans," Bush said before heading to Mississippi to give a speech on Hurricane Katrina relief. He didn't provide any specifics about the program, however, and walked away without responding to questions from reporters. On Capitol Hill, Democrats expressed outrage over the secret project, and some leading Republicans — House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania among them — expressed concern. "Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?" Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, railed at a morning hearing. "These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything." Specter said he would call executives from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth — the companies that supplied to the NSA their records on cellphone and land-line calls made from millions of homes, businesses and government offices — "to find out exactly what is going on." The confirmation hearings scheduled to open next week on the nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the NSA, to head the CIA also are likely to become a forum for exploring questions about what the program entailed and how it was approved. Bush has argued that he has far-reaching authority to approve NSA activities under his constitutional role as commander in chief. In the past, he also has cited a congressional resolution, passed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against those responsible for the attacks. "If all they're doing is have a computer program anonymously select people who are making phone calls to known terrorists or something like that, I don't see a problem," said Robert Turner, director of the University of Virginia's Center for National Security Law. "That's not comparable to going into our bedrooms or even listening to our conversations," Turner said. "Stopping terrorist attacks is the greatest of our national interests." No warrants Among the controversies over the database, however, is that it was built without court warrants or the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a panel of federal judges established to issue secret warrants, according to people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. Some critics questioned whether the administration's warrantless programs violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which bars "unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires warrants for searches, as well as the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that established the secret court. Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School and author of The National Security Constitution, called the scope of the database "quite shocking." "If they had gone to Congress and said, 'We want to do this without probable cause, without warrants and without judicial review,' it never would have been approved," said Koh, a former law clerk for the late Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun. "I don't think any FISA court would have approved this kind of scale of activity." As a general rule, telecommunications companies require law enforcement agencies to present a court order before they will turn over a customer's phone records. Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, phone companies are prohibited from giving out information about their customers' calling habits. Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned why the phone companies would cooperate with the NSA. "Why are the telephone companies not protecting their customers?" he said. "They have a social responsibility to people who do business with them to protect our privacy as long as there isn't some suspicion that we're a terrorist or a criminal or something." One major telecommunications company, Qwest, did refuse to participate in the NSA program because of concerns about its expansiveness and the lack of judicial oversight, USA TODAY reported. Some Republicans defended the program and called the outcry against it overblown. "This is nuts," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. "We are in a war, and we have got to collect intelligence on the enemy." Finding where to draw the line Since 9/11, Americans have debated and disagreed over how to balance security with liberty. As time has passed, the instinct to protect civil liberties has grown. Four months after the attacks, in January 2002, Americans split 47%-49% in the USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll when asked whether the government should take steps to prevent terrorism even if it meant violating basic civil liberties. Nearly four years later, in December 2005, however, when the question was repeated, Americans by more than two to one — 65%-31% — said the government shouldn't take steps against terrorism that would violate basic civil liberties. A year after the 9/11 attacks, in September 2002, 55% of Americans said the Bush administration had been "about right" in restricting people's liberties in order to fight terrorism; just 15% said the administration had gone too far. This year, the public is almost evenly divided on that question. In a January 2006 survey, 40% said the administration had been about right, but 38% said it had gone too far. Even the friendly crowd gathered Thursday outside the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, hoping for a glimpse of Bush, was divided on whether the NSA program was acceptable. "If you've got anything to hide, stay off the phone," Carol Cuevas, 57, a banker from Gautier, Miss., advised with a laugh. Nearby, Gladys Skinner, 42, a laundress from Gulfport, wasn't so sure. She liked Bush but had qualms about the program. "It's invading people's privacy," she said. "How can we be sure they're not listening?" Actually, the program doesn't involve monitoring the content of telephone conversations, USA TODAY reported. The NSA is expert at using computers to review vast quantities of digital data — such as phone numbers — to identify patterns of activity. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of the program, USA TODAY reported. But the telephone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information. A boost for Bush? In terms of the likely political fallout from this controversy, some Republicans argued that the debate could turn to Bush's advantage by focusing on his efforts to fight terrorism — still the area in which he gets his strongest ratings, though his standing on this and other issues has eroded. Last month, 48% approved of Bush's handling of terrorism; 50% disapproved. "At first it sounds like, well, people's privacy is being violated, but the more people learn about it, the more it plays to the president's benefit," said GOP strategist Charlie Black, a regular adviser to the Bush White House. "If you think about it, going back to 9/11, every time the Democrats have disagreed with the president on a significant security issue, they have lost politically — every single time," Black said. In 2004, Democrat John Kerry sought to tap unease over the Iraq war in his challenge to Bush's re-election. But surveys of voters as they left polling places in 2004 found that the president's stance on terrorism was the strongest single factor behind his re-election. Democratic strategist Peter Fenn said that issue may be losing its edge for Bush. Fenn was assigned to examine the NSA in 1975 as a staffer on the so-called Church Committee, a Senate panel that investigated intelligence agency abuses in the wake of the Watergate scandal. "On balance, voters have given the president a lot of latitude when it comes to fighting terror and personal freedoms," Fenn said. "They have given him the benefit of the doubt. But when our telephone companies are turning over every telephone record without responding to any kind of warrant, I think people are concerned about executive power run amok." He predicted the issue also would divide and disenchant some conservatives worried about the expansion of government power. Bush's support among conservatives has dipped significantly in recent months. What Congress knew Bush said "appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat," had been briefed about the NSA program. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., acknowledged receiving some briefings. Pelosi said, however, that she hadn't been told all of the information included in the USA TODAY story. And all but a handful of lawmakers learned of the program for the first time in the news account. "Unfortunately, a lot of this goes on clandestinely, and ... it takes a journalist to discover its existence," Northouse said. "Congress doesn't know what's going on and is dependent on the news media to tell them what's going on in DOD (Department of Defense) or the CIA, just because there's no formal mechanisms for oversight." The Pentagon has built several large databases of information, part of its intelligence-gathering within the borders of the USA that has dramatically expanded since 9/11. A Pentagon data-mining program called Total Information Awareness (TIA) provoked an enormous controversy when it was disclosed in 2003. The project scanned information in e-mails and commercial databases of health, financial and travel companies in the USA and overseas in an effort to spot patterns linked to terrorism. The leader of the program was John Poindexter, a Reagan national security adviser implicated in the Iran-contra scandal. After protests from both liberal and conservative lawmakers and advocacy groups, Congress voted to prohibit the use of TIA technology against Americans without congressional approval. The objections to the telephone database Thursday also crossed party and ideological lines. "This is an outrageous invasion of privacy and a frightening expansion of government power," said Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman and conservative Republican who served as one of the House managers of President Clinton's impeachment. Ralph Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way, used similar language in calling the program "an unconscionable infringement on the rights and freedoms that are the birthright of every American." He added, "We can destroy the terrorists without shredding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Boehner, the House Republican leader, said he is "concerned" about the program. "I'm not sure why it was necessary for us to keep and have that kind of information." On the other hand, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., argued that there was nothing to worry about. "I don't think this action is nearly as troublesome as being made out here," he said, "because they are not tapping our phones." Contributing: Leslie Cauley, David Jackson, Kathy Kiely, Andrea Stone, wire reports Enlarge By Ron Edmonds, AP Bush said Americans' privacy was 'fiercely protected' under the program.