Bush defends domestic spying programme

US President George Bush said today he approved domestic spying on suspected terrorists without court orders because it was “a necessary part of my job to protect” Americans from attack.

The president said he would continue the programme “for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens”, and added it included safeguards to protect civil liberties.

Bush bristled at a year-end news conference when asked whether there are any limits on presidential power in wartime.

“I just described limits on this particular programme, and that’s what’s important for the American people to understand,” Bush said.

Raising his voice, Bush challenged Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton – without naming them – to allow a final vote on legislation renewing the anti-terror Patriot Act.

“I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to explain why these cities are safer” without the extension, he said.

Reid represents Nevada; Clinton is a New York senator, and both helped block passage of the legislation in the Senate last week.

“In a war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment,” he said.

The legislation has cleared the House of Representatives but Senate Democrats have blocked final passage and its prospects are uncertain in the final days of the congressional session.

The president stood at a podium in the East Room of the White House, hours after a prime-time nationwide speech from the Oval Office in which he said he would prosecute the war in Iraq to a successful conclusion.

In opening news conference remarks, Bush said the spying, conducted by the National Security Agency without court oversight, was an essential element in the war on terror.

“It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important programme in a time of war. The fact that we’re discussing this programme is discussing the enemy,” he said.

The existence of the programme was disclosed last week, triggering an outpouring of criticism in Congress, but an unflinching defence from Bush and senior officials of his administration.

The president spoke not long after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Congress had given Bush authority to spy on suspected terrorists in this country in legislation passed after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Bush and other officials have said the programme involved monitoring phone calls and e-mails of individuals in the United States believed to be plotting with terrorists overseas.

Normally, no wiretapping is permitted in the United States without a court warrant. But Bush said he approved the action without such orders “because it enables us to move faster and quicker. We’ve got to be fast on our feet.

“It is legal to do so. I swore to uphold the laws. Legal authority is derived from the constitution,” he added.

Despite the weighty issues Bush addressed, the president bantered with reporters at times.

“So many questions, so little time,” said one reporter, and the president had a ready quip. “Ask a short question,” he said.

But the session was dominated by national security issues – specifically the newly disclosed spying programme by the NSA.

Bush emphasised that only international calls were monitored without court order – those originating in the United States or those placed from overseas to individuals living in the United States.

He stressed that calls placed and received within the United States would be monitored as has long been the case, after an order is granted by a secret court under the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

One of the principal provisions of the Patriot Act permitted the government to gain warrants in cases involving investigations into suspected terrorists in the United States – an expansion of powers previously limited to intelligence cases.