CIA Director Michael Hayden told senators on Wednesday that the requirement of court orders to carry out electronic surveillance inside the United States was ill-suited for tracking al Qaeda and other militant groups.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the intelligence official who crafted President George W. Bush's domestic spying program also said international phone calls targeted by warrantless surveillance are the most valuable to protecting national security.
"Why should our laws make it more difficult to target al Qaeda communications that are most important to us - those entering or leaving this country," said Hayden, an Air Force general who set up the administration's eavesdropping program in 2001 as director of the National Security Agency.
Congress is debating how to accommodate the legally questionable NSA eavesdropping program by changing the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA requires individual court warrants for all intelligence-related eavesdropping in the United States.
But the NSA program, which began shortly after the September 11 attacks and was disclosed in December by The New York Times, allows the government to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and emails of US citizens without first obtaining a warrant, if in pursuit of al Qaeda.
The CIA director backed compromise legislation between the White House and Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania that would allow a secret FISA court to review the NSA program to determine its legality.
Critics say the proposal would allow FISA judges to move away from individual warrants, a keystone of US civil liberties protections, by granting blanket approval to entire eavesdropping programs. Hayden said the compromise proposal would provide effective new criteria for government surveillance efforts.
"The FISA regime from 1978 onward focused on specific court orders, against individual targets ... that was well suited to stable, foreign entities," Hayden said.
"It is not as well suited to detect and prevent attacks against the homeland," he added. He also urged lawmakers to provide protection for private sector telecommunications companies that participate in government eavesdropping.
Specter and other lawmakers have questioned the legality of the eavesdropping programme, saying it appears to violate FISA and may overstep Bush's constitutional authorities as commander in chief. Bush has defended the programme, saying he had the power in war time to protect the nation.
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