Report: Spy court judge quits in protest
Bush's secret surveillance program said to be a concern

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge has resigned from a special court set up to oversee government surveillance to protest President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program on people with suspected terrorist ties, The Washington Post reported.

The action by U.S. District Judge James Robertson stemmed from deep concern that the surveillance program that Bush authorized was legally questionable and may have tainted the work of the court that Robertson resigned from, the newspaper said in Wednesday's editions.

The Post quoted two associates of the judge.

Robertson was one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees government applications for secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage.

Bush's Eavesdropping, Abramoff's Deception, Delay's Bribes, Fake News and Secrecy: It's a Cultural Thing

President Bush Ordered Eavesdropping on US Citizens Without Court Orders

Quoting colleagues of Robertson, the Post said the judge had indicated he was concerned that information gained from the warrantless surveillance under Bush's program subsequently could have been used to obtain warrants under the FISA program.

The Post said Robertson, without providing an explanation, stepped down from the FISA court in a letter late Monday to Chief Justice John Roberts. He did not resign his parallel position as a federal district judge.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said early Wednesday she had no information to offer on the matter.

Robertson was appointed a federal judge by President Clinton in 1994. Chief Justice William Rehnquist later appointed Robertson to the FISA court as well.

Robertson has been critical of the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most memorably in a decision that sidetracked the president's system of military tribunals to put some detainees on trial.

Robertson's resignation was reported hours after Vice President Dick Cheney strongly defended the surveillance program and called for "strong and robust" presidential powers.

Cheney -- a former member of congress, defense secretary and White House chief of staff under President Ford -- said executive authority has been eroding since the Watergate and Vietnam eras.

"I believe in a strong, robust executive authority and I think that the world we live in demands it," Cheney said.

"I would argue that the actions that we've taken there are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president. ... You know, it's not an accident that we haven't been hit in four years," the vice president said, speaking with reporters Tuesday on Air Force Two en route from Pakistan to Oman.

Republicans said Congress must investigate whether Bush was within the law to allow the super-secret National Security Agency to eavesdrop -- without warrants -- on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al Qaeda.

"I believe the Congress -- as a coequal branch of government _ must immediately and expeditiously review the use of this practice," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine.

Snowe joined three other members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel, in calling for a joint inquiry by the Senate judiciary and intelligence committees.

Bush and his top advisers have suggested senior congressional leaders vetted the program in more than a dozen highly classified briefings. Several Democrats agreed said they were told of the program, but did not know the full details and had concerns.

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, on Monday released a letter he wrote to Cheney in July 2003 that, given the program's secrecy, he was "unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, pushed back on Tuesday. Roberts said that if Rockefeller had concerns about the program, he could have used the tools he has to wield influence, such as requesting committee or legislative action.

"Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools," Roberts said.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Electronic Privacy and FISA

LA Times, AP, Fox News failed to challenge Bush claim that timeliness necessitated secret wiretapping program

LINK

Summary: The Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, and Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, all reported the White House claim, made repeatedly at President Bush's press conference, that timeliness was the rational for the secret surveillance program, but did not report that current law allows for the government to get a warrant after the fact.

Following the recent revelation that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct domestic surveillance without warrants, the media has widely reported the White House's claim that timeliness was the rationale for this secret program. But in their coverage of President Bush's December 19 press conference -- during which he repeatedly put forward this defense -- the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, and Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume all neglected to inform their readers and viewers that the current law governing such surveillance allows for the administration to obtain a warrant after the fact in cases in which "an emergency situation exists."

A December 16 New York Times article revealed that Bush had granted the NSA the power to eavesdrop on international phone and email communications that originate from or are received within the United States without court approval. During the December 19 press conference, the president defended this decision by arguing that "we must be able to act fast ... so we can prevent new [terrorist] attacks" and that the NSA program "enables us to move faster and quicker." Other administration officials have echoed this defense. For example, in a December 19 interview on CNN, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales stated, "I'm told by the operational folks at the National Security Agency that we do not have the speed and the agility in all cases, in every circumstance, to deal with this new kind of threat."

What this argument appears to ignore, however, is that the court created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to provide authorization for international wiretaps is specifically designed to respond quickly to the type of requests in question. The so-called FISA court regularly authorizes these warrants within hours and even minutes. Moreover, in the case of "emergency" situations in which the attorney general deems it necessary to undertake surveillance immediately, the statute itself allows the government to obtain a warrant up to 72 hours after starting the necessary surveillance.

Nonetheless, a December 20 Los Angeles Times article on Bush's press conference quoted his defense of the program without noting any of these details regarding the nature of the FISA process:

His most forceful defense of the surveillance program focused on the argument that it was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.

"To save American lives, we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations so we can prevent new attacks," he said, suggesting that courts could not act quickly enough.

The December 19 Associated Press article on the press conference also ignored FISA's 72-hour provision in simply reporting Bush's claim that speed was the rationale behind the secret NSA program:

Bush said the electronic eavesdropping program, conducted by the National Security Agency, lets the government move faster than the standard practice of seeking a court-authorized warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent," the president said.

Further, on the December 19 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle reported that the president had "suggested" at the press conference that the FISA requirements are "too slow." But Angle did not inform viewers that FISA warrants can be obtained retroactively or that the FISA court normally delivers such authorizations in a quick manner:

ANGLE: Though the president authorized the National Security Agency to intercept phone calls and e-mails -- but only those linked to Al Qaeda -- even if one end of the conversation in the United States, some argue that requires a warrant from what is known as the FISA court, which operates in secret. The president suggested that would have been too slow.

BUSH [video clip]: The people responsible for helping us protect and defend came forth with the current program, because it enables us to move faster and quicker.

ANGLE: But congressional critics argue the president has taken the law in his own hands, that he doesn't have the authority to order electronic intercepts of anyone in the U.S. without getting a search warrant.

By contrast, numerous other news outlets cited the apparent contradiction between the Bush administration's argument and the facts regarding FISA. A December 20 New York Times article clearly explained that FISA allows the NSA "to tap international communications of people in the United States and then go to a secret court up to 72 hours later for retroactive permission." A December 20 USA Today article reported that administration officials had "struggled to explain why the administration could not have relied on FISA provisions that allow surveillance to be conducted and a warrant obtained after the fact in emergencies." And a December 20 Washington Post article reported that Bush had failed to explain "why the current system is not quick enough":

Bush's remarks left many critics unassuaged and many questions unanswered. The president offered no details about how many people are under surveillance, what standard must be met to intercept communications or what terrorist plots have been disrupted as a result of the program.

Nor did he explain why the current system is not quick enough to meet the needs of the fight against terrorism. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the NSA in urgent situations can already eavesdrop on international telephone calls for 72 hours without a warrant, as long as it goes to a secret intelligence court by the end of that period for retroactive permission.

J.K.

Posted to the web on Tuesday December 20, 2005 at 4:12 PM EST

The FBI must respond to privacy activists' request for information about the Carnivore email surveillance system.

LINK

In a hearing late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the FBI to promptly respond to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center last month.

The ruling gives the FBI ten working days to tell EPIC when it can see Carnivore records under an "expedited" Freedom of Information Act procedure.

The judge scheduled an emergency same-day hearing after the suit was filed.

Carnivore was recently revealed to be a method used by the FBI to tap electronic mail communications during criminal investigations. The FBI has been reluctant to reveal Carnivore details, partly on the grounds that such exposure would let programmers create their own, malicious Carnivore clones.

In an application for a temporary restraining order (available as a file download at EPIC's website), EPIC charged that the Department of Justice and the FBI failed to expedite the FOIA request it submitted to the agencies last month.

The judge's order was a moot point by the time it came -- the FBI and Justice Department made a last-minute concession to grant EPIC's request. At the opening of the hearing, EPIC's general counsel David Sobel told the judge he had just received the affirmative answer in a fax from the FBI and Justice Department.

"I am basically very pleased with the outcome," said Sobel. "It in effect means that the federal court is now supervising the FBI's handling of this material and its compliance with our FOIA request."

The FBI has argued that Carnivore is a "well-focused" system that has been used in only a small number of cases.

The EPIC action, submitted to U.S. District Judge James Robertson, follows recent FOIA requests on Carnivore by both EPIC and the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU also sent a letter to Congress last month, urging lawmakers to amend outdated electronic privacy laws.

The ACLU proposed incorporating law enforcement tools like Carnivore into any revision, since the ability to intercept and analyze email on a wide scale poses a threat to personal privacy.

The FBI maintains that while Carnivore is designed to specifically target individual email transmissions, the agency does not read the unrelated email that is caught in Carnivore's electronic net.

Carnivore monitors email traffic through Internet service providers and intercepts the electronic mail of criminal suspects. By catching unrelated email before it processes the information, EPIC and other privacy advocates worry about the civil liberty implications for customers of ISPs where Carnivore has been installed.

Attorney General Janet Reno said late last month that Carnivore would be reviewed by a group of experts. But EPIC wanted a full public review of the system, seeking all Carnivore records from the FBI, including the underlying source code and information about any limitations restricting the agency's use of the system.

Reuters contributed to this report.

How Carnivore Worked
by Jeff Tyson

LINK

You may have heard about Carnivore, a controversial program developed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to give the agency access to the online/e-mail activities of suspected criminals. For many, it is eerily reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984." Although Carnivore was abandoned by the FBI in favor of commercially available eavesdropping software by January 2005, the program that once promised to renew the FBI's specific influence in the world of computer-communications monitoring is nonetheless intriguing in its structure and application.

What exactly was Carnivore? Where did it come from? How did it work? What was its purpose? In this article, you will learn the answers to these questions and more!

Carnivorous Evolution
Carnivore was the third generation of online-detection software used by the FBI. While information about the first version has never been disclosed, many believe that it was actually a readily available commercial program called Etherpeek.

In 1997, the FBI deployed the second generation program, Omnivore. According to information released by the FBI, Omnivore was designed to look through e-mail traffic travelling over a specific Internet service provider (ISP) and capture the e-mail from a targeted source, saving it to a tape-backup drive or printing it in real-time. Omnivore was retired in late 1999 in favor of a more comprehensive system, the DragonWare Suite, which allowed the FBI to reconstruct e-mail messages, downloaded files or even Web pages.

DragonWare contained three parts:

Carnivore - A Windows NT/2000-based system that captures the information
Packeteer - No official information released, but presumably an application for reassembling packets into cohesive messages or Web pages
Coolminer - No official information released, but presumably an application for extrapolating and analyzing data found in the messages

As you can see, officials never released much information about the DragonWare Suite, nothing about Packeteer and Coolminer and very little detailed information about Carnivore. But we do know that Carnivore was basically a packet sniffer, a technology that is quite common and has been around for a while.

Packet Sniffing
Computer network administrators have used packet sniffers for years to monitor their networks and perform diagnostic tests or troubleshoot problems. Essentially, a packet sniffer is a program that can see all of the information passing over the network it is connected to. As data streams back and forth on the network, the program looks at, or "sniffs," each packet.

Normally, a computer only looks at packets addressed to it and ignores the rest of the traffic on the network. When a packet sniffer is set up on a computer, the sniffer's network interface is set to promiscuous mode. This means that it is looking at everything that comes through. The amount of traffic largely depends on the location of the computer in the network. A client system out on an isolated branch of the network sees only a small segment of the network traffic, while the main domain server sees almost all of it.

A packet sniffer can usually be set up in one of two ways:

Unfiltered - Captures all of the packets
Filtered - Captures only those packets containing specific data elements
Packets that contain targeted data are copied as they pass through. The program stores the copies in memory or on a hard drive, depending on the program's configuration. These copies can then be analyzed carefully for specific information or patterns.

When you connect to the Internet, you are joining a network maintained by your ISP. The ISP's network communicates with other networks maintained by other ISPs to form the foundation of the Internet. A packet sniffer located at one of the servers of your ISP would potentially be able to monitor all of your online activities, such as:

Which Web sites you visit
What you look at on the site
Whom you send e-mail to
What's in the e-mail you send
What you download from a site
What streaming events you use, such as audio, video and Internet telephony
Who visits your site (if you have a Web site)
In fact, many ISPs use packet sniffers as diagnostic tools. Also, a lot of ISPs maintain copies of data, such as e-mail, as part of their back-up systems. Carnivore and its sister programs were a controversial step forward for the FBI, but they were not new technology.

The Process
Now that you know a bit about what Carnivore was, let's take a look at how it worked:

The FBI has a reasonable suspicion that someone is engaged in criminal activities and requests a court order to view the suspect's online activity.

A court grants the request for a full content-wiretap of e-mail traffic only and issues an order.
A term used in telephone surveillance, "content-wiretap" means that everything in the packet can be captured and used. The other type of wiretap is a trap-and-trace, which means that the FBI can only capture the destination information, such as the e-mail account of a message being sent out or the Web-site address that the suspect is visiting. A reverse form of trap-and-trace, called pen-register, tracks where e-mail to the suspect is coming from or where visits to a suspect's Web site originate.

The FBI contacts the suspect's ISP and requests a copy of the back-up files of the suspect's activity.

The ISP does not maintain customer-activity data as part of its back-up.

The FBI sets up a Carnivore computer at the ISP to monitor the suspect's activity. The computer consists of:
A Pentium III Windows NT/2000 system with 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM
A commercial communications software application
A custom C++ application that works in conjunction with the commercial program above to provide the packet sniffing and filtering
A type of physical lockout system that requires a special passcode to access the computer (This keeps anyone but the FBI from physically accessing the Carnivore system.)
A network isolation device that makes the Carnivore system invisible to anything else on the network (This prevents anyone from hacking into the system from another computer.)
A 2-gigabyte (GB) Iomega Jaz drive for storing the captured data (The Jaz drive uses 2-GB removable cartridges that can be swapped out as easily as a floppy disk.)

The FBI configures the Carnivore software with the IP address of the suspect so that Carnivore will only capture packets from this particular location. It ignores all other packets.

Carnivore copies all of the packets from the suspect's system without impeding the flow of the network traffic.

Once the copies are made, they go through a filter that only keeps the e-mail packets. The program determines what the packets contain based on the protocol of the packet. For example, all e-mail packets use the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

The e-mail packets are saved to the Jaz cartridge.

Once every day or two, an FBI agent visits the ISP and swaps out the Jaz cartridge. The agent takes the retrieved cartridge and puts it in a container that is dated and sealed. If the seal is broken, the person breaking it must sign, date and reseal it -- otherwise, the cartridge can be considered "compromised."

The surveillance cannot continue for more than a month without an extension from the court. Once complete, the FBI removes the system from the ISP.

The captured data is processed using Packeteer and Coolminer.

If the results provide enough evidence, the FBI can use them as part of a case against the suspect.

The example above shows how the system identified which packets to store.

Prey of the Carnivore
The FBI planned to use Carnivore for specific reasons. Particularly, the agency would request a court order to use Carnivore when a person was suspected of:

Terrorism
Child pornography/exploitation
Espionage
Information warfare
Fraud

There are some key issues that caused a great deal of concern from various sources:
Privacy - Many folks viewed Carnivore as a severe violation of privacy.
While the potential for abuse is certainly there, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) provides legal protection of privacy for all types of electronic communication. Any type of electronics surveillance requires a court order and must show probable cause that the suspect is engaged in criminal activities. Therefore, use of Carnivore in any way that did not adhere to ECPA was illegal and could be considered unconstitutional.

Regulation - There was a widespread belief that Carnivore was a huge system that could allow the U.S. government to seize control of the Internet and regulate its use.
To do this would have required an amazing infrastructure -- the FBI would have needed to place Carnivore systems at every ISP, including private, commercial and educational. While it is theoretically possible to do so for all of the ISPs operating in the United States, there is still no way to regulate those operating outside of U.S. jurisdiction. Any such move would have also faced serious opposition from every direction.

Free speech - Some people think that Carnivore monitored all of the content flowing through an ISP, looking for certain keywords such as "bomb" or "assassination."
Any packet sniffer can be set to look for certain patterns of characters or data. Without probable cause, though, the FBI had no justification to monitor your online activity and would have been in severe violation of ECPA and your constitutional right to free speech if it did so.

Echelon - This is a secret network rumored to be under development by the National Security Agency (NSA), supposedly designed to detect and capture packets crossing international borders that contain certain keywords, such as "bomb" or "assassination."
There is no solid evidence to support the existence of Echelon. Many people confused this rumored system with the Carnivore system.

All of these concerns made the implementation of Carnivore an uphill battle for the FBI. The FBI refused to disclose the source code and certain other pieces of technical information about Carnivore, which only added to people's concerns. But, as long as it was used within the constraints and guidelines of ECPA, Carnivore had the potential to be a useful weapon in the war on crime.

Lots More Information
Related HowStuffWorks Articles

How Web Servers and the Internet Work
How Routers Work
How E-mail Works
How Encryption Works
How Internet Infrastructure Works
How Removable Storage Works
How PCs Work
How Wiretapping Works
How Workplace Surveillance Works
How Lock Picking Works
How a U.S. Spy Plane Works

More Great Links

FBI cuts Carnivore Internet probe - January 19, 2005
Slashdot.org: Answers from Carnivore Reviewer Henry H. Perrit, Jr.
Sniff'em: A Windows-based packet sniffer
Infosyssec.org: Information Security Portal

01/19/2005 Archived Entry: "FBI cuts Carnivore Internet probe"
Posted by steve @ 02:58 AM EST [Link]

LINK

REMEMBER WHEN CARNIVORE TERRIFIED EVERYONE?: If you're old enough to remember the mid- to late-1990s, stretch your memory back that far and ponder what comes to mind when you combine the words "FBI" and "Carnivore". Oooooooo! Scary!

Well, it was. Back in the late 1990s we were confronted with a new FBI technology which essentially monitored internet traffic via a machine hooked into an ISP's system. Although the FBI said it wasn't going to do anything hinky with the data collected, plenty of Americans were worried that it was going to be deployed willy nilly, particularly with the freedom hating Clinton administration in power which never missed an opportunity to incinerate a farm full of people or give new powers to law enforcement.

So what happened with Carnivore? Well, not much apparently.

The FBI has effectively abandoned its custom-built Internet surveillance technology, once known as Carnivore, designed to read e-mails and other online communications among suspected criminals, terrorists and spies, according to bureau oversight reports submitted to Congress.

Instead, the FBI said it has switched to unspecified commercial software to eavesdrop on computer traffic during such investigations and has increasingly asked Internet providers to conduct wiretaps on targeted customers on the government's behalf, reimbursing companies for their costs.

The FBI performed only eight Internet wiretaps in fiscal 2003 and five in fiscal 2002; none used the software initially called Carnivore and later renamed the DCS-1000, according to FBI documents submitted to Senate and House oversight committees. The FBI, which once said Carnivore was "far better" than commercial products, said previously it had used the technology about 25 times between 1998 and 2000.

I'm not sure whether this is a positive or negative development.

Carnivore Download

Carnivore Documents and FOIA
Wikipedia on Carnivore

Gonzales: Speed an issue in secretive wiretaps

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Since 2001, the National Security Agency has been given the power to conduct wiretaps within the United States without first getting a court-issued warrant. President Bush has been criticized for ordering the practice, which he says is necessary for the war on terror.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spoke Monday with CNN's Soledad O'Brien about the president's decision to allow the surveillance strategy.

O'BRIEN: Did you advise the president that it was within his rights to go ahead and approve these wiretaps without a court order, sir?

GONZALES: There were many people, many lawyers within the administration who advised the president that he had an inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution to engage in these kind of signals, intelligence of our enemy.

We also believe that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following the attacks of September 11 [2001], constituted additional authorization for the president to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

O'BRIEN: So you're saying that the Congress's vote to go ahead and use force was essentially an OK as well to wiretap people in the United States?

GONZALES: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Soledad, provides that you must get a court order to engage in electronic surveillance ... except as otherwise authorized by Congress. We believe that other authorization by Congress exists in the authorization to use military force that was passed by the Congress in the days following the attacks of September 11, yes.

O'BRIEN: You mentioned that FISA, or the Federal Intelligence Security Act, and the other option, getting a warrant. Why not go either of those two routes? If you want the secret court, go the first way. And if you want to get a warrant, get a warrant?

GONZALES: Well, of course, as I've indicated, we're only required to get a court order to engage in this kind of surveillance if we're not otherwise authorized by Congress. We think that we were given permission under the authority to use military force. But in terms of why not use the authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, we continue to use those authorities, they're very important in the war on terror.

But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978 and there have been tremendous changes in technology since then. And what the folks at the NSA tell me is that we do not have the speed and the agility in all cases to deal with this new kind of threat under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and that's why we believe and the president believes that these authorities are necessary in order to effectively defend this country against another attack by al Qaeda.

O'BRIEN: So two points then. You think that the Foreign Intelligence Service Act does not go far enough? It's not fast enough, a secret court? Is that what you're saying?

GONZALES: I'm told by the operational folks at the National Security Agency that we do not have the speed and the agility in all cases, in every circumstance, to deal with this new kind of threat. And as I've said before, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a very important tool. We continue to utilize it when we can to deal with this new kind of threat and this new kind of war.

O'BRIEN: I'm sure you recognize that there are plenty of congressmen and women and senators who say, they had no intention when they authorized the use of force to go ahead and authorize any kind of wiretapping by the president without going through the courts or going through this other act, as you mentioned. What would you say to them?

GONZALES: Well, what I would say to them is that, the authority by the Congress was the authority to use all necessary and appropriate force. And a very important aspect of engaging in war against the enemy is to engage in signal intelligence. Signal intelligence means that we have to know what our enemy is doing.

We can't go into a war blindly. We've engaged in signal intelligence beginning with the Civil War and through all the conflicts since then. This is a very important aspect of engaging in the war. We do believe that that would constitute the authority by the Congress to engage in this kind of surveillance.

O'BRIEN: Less of a question, though, of whether or not signal intelligence is necessary and more of a question of whether the president has the authority to work around the courts and sort of, as some would see it, unilaterally make the decision without getting any kind of court approval.

Back in 1972, as I'm well aware you know, the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon could not do the same thing, go ahead and wiretap by virtue of the fact that he's the president. How is this case different than that?

GONZALES: Well, one key difference is that the statute itself, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act statute, requires that we can do so without a court order, engage in this kind of electronic surveillance, if otherwise approved by Congress and through another statute. And we believe that Congress has done so in this particular case.

We also, quite frankly, Soledad, I mean, we continue to believe that the president has the inherent authority, under the Constitution's commander in chief, to engage in this kind of conduct. But that's a secondary argument. We believe the Congress has authorized this kind of conduct.

And we understand the concern that have been raised by certain members of Congress. As the president indicated on Saturday, we have reached certain key members of Congress from the beginning of this program about what we're doing and the justifications for what we're doing.

And we didn't brief other members of Congress because of the importance of keeping this program classified as much as possible. We will, in the days to come, sit down with members of Congress and try to provide information to reassure them that the president of the United States is utilizing these tools in a lawful manner, in a way that ensures that the civil liberties of all Americans are protected.

O'BRIEN: So you'd be fine with a hearing, as some of the Democratic leadership is calling for, to investigate this more fully?

GONZALES: Well, we, obviously, want to provide information to the Congress about what we're doing to reassure them, what we're doing is lawful. But we want to also do so in a way that doesn't compromise this program. The president did acknowledge the existence of the program, but many operational aspects of the program remain highly classified.

This still remains a very valuable tool. It would be harmful to the United States if we lost this tool entirely. And so as we communicate with the Congress, we need to do so in a way that does not jeopardize or compromise this very valuable tool in the war against terrorism.