Congress ponders surveillance proposals

AP
Friday Aug 3, 2007

Congress struggled Thursday over giving the government more power to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, bogged down by concerns about the man who would oversee the plan: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats and Republicans alike said they wanted to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 before leaving Washington at week’s end for a monthlong break.

Gonzales “is clearly one of the concerns that has been expressed by the Democratic leaders,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters.

“But at the end of the day, there has to be a way for our intelligence and counterintelligence agencies to collect data from known terrorists. And we shouldn’t let personalities get in the way of protecting the American people.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said that lawmakers scoff when “they say Gonzales should do the reviews, because nobody believes he has any independence.”

The law generally requires court review of government surveillance of suspected terrorists in the United States.

It does not, however, specifically address the government’s ability to intercept messages thought to come from suspects who are overseas, opening what the White House considers a significant gap in protecting against attacks by foreigners who are making targets of the U.S.

Democrats, who control Congress, would allow the messages from foreign targets to be intercepted, but only after a review by the special FISA court to make sure that the surveillance does not focus on communications that might be sent to and from Americans.