Spy Agency Reportedly Monitored People in U.S.

WASHINGTON — After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on people in the United States without the court approval usually required for domestic spying, the New York Times reported Thursday on its website.

For several years after the presidential order was signed in 2002, the intelligence agency monitored calls and e-mails of hundreds of people in the country to search for evidence of terrorist activity, the Times said.

It said the previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represented a major shift in U.S. intelligence gathering. The NSA, based at Ft. Meade, Md., is authorized to monitor communications on foreign soil.

A White House spokesman had no immediate comment.

The newspaper said almost a dozen current and former officials agreed to discuss the program on the condition of anonymity.