U.S. spy chief calls warrantless wiretapping discussion a threat
WASHINGTON — The nation's top spy told Congress on Thursday that the public debate over the Bush administration's controversial warrantless wiretapping program would lead to American deaths by revealing sensitive surveillance methods to potential terrorists.
J. Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, testified that congressional examination of laws that govern the program, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, ran counter to established precedents. Under these, he said, "intelligence business is conducted in secret."
"It's conducted in secret for a reason," McConnell told the House Intelligence Committee. "You compromise sources and methods, and what this debate has allowed those who wish us harm to do is to understand significantly more about how we were targeting their communications."
Asked by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park) if he thought that congressional questioning of the administration's intelligence program would lead to the killing of Americans, McConnell said, "Yes, ma'am, I do."
Eshoo called his assessment "a stretch."
It was not the first time the Bush administration and its allies had charged that Democratic opposition to White House policies would compromise national security.
In January, Republican lawmakers and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the Iraq war commander, suggested that a Democratic-backed resolution condemning President Bush's plan to increase troop levels would undermine U.S. troop morale.
The accusation enraged Democratic leaders, who accused the administration of unfairly attempting to stifle debate over the war. The issue largely disappeared after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates publicly asserted that Democratic pressure was actually having a beneficial effect by intensifying pressure on Iraqi leaders to reach a political compromise.
McConnell's remarks came as Congress again was considering modifications to the surveillance law. The Democratic leadership rushed through temporary revisions of the law last month after McConnell warned that a secret court's ruling had made some parts of Bush's surveillance program illegal.
But those revisions expire after six months, and Democrats charge that McConnell strong-armed them into approving changes that threaten privacy protections for U.S. citizens.
