The White House has finally consented to a 'full briefing' on the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program to the full House and Senate intelligence committees.
Information about the controversial warrantless wiretaps, which were authorized by President Bush, have only been disclosed to a handful of senators and congressmen.
The decision to disclose additional information now is almost certainly due to upcoming confirmation hearings of General Michael Hayden who Bush has nominated to be the next Director of the CIA. Hayden's hearings are scheduled to begin Thursday. Hayden was the NSA director when Bush authorized the warrantless wiretapping program.
The call for disclosure was led by Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Roberts released a statement saying, 'It became apparent that in order to have a fully informed confirmation hearing, all members of my committee needed to know the full width and breadth of the president's program.'
'This issue will be central to the committee's deliberations on General Hayden's nomination, and there was no way we could fulfill our collective constitutional responsibilities without that knowledge,' Roberts added.
The domestic wiretapping issue has been controversial because it was never expressly authorized by Congress and may be in violation of the FISA Act. The FISA Act requires the president to obtain a warrant from the secret FISA court before wiretapping Americans. The Bush administration has ignored that requirement.
The administration has also come under fire this past week for collecting the data from the telephone accounts of tens of millions of ordinary Americans. The information as to what phone numbers people called was turned over to the NSA by AT&T and other telecommunications companies shortly after the September 11th attacks according to 'USA Today.'
The new White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told CBS's 'The Early Show,' 'We neither confirm nor deny it.'
The Bush administration is hoping that by disclosing some information about the domestic wiretapping program now, they will not have to make additional disclosures during Hayden's confirmation hearings. They are also counting on this belated disclosure to boost Hayden's chances which many experts believed have been hurt by his role in the controversial domestic wiretapping programs.
