Report: Bush-era surveillance went beyond wiretaps

"The government was reeling, dealing with a wide range of national security initiatives," the official said. "This wasn't done out of any effort to aggrandize the president's powers, it was done to protect the country from an attack -- which everyone at the time thought was going to happen -- at the same time without blowing the technology advantages we had."

The warrantless wiretapping was disclosed in 2005 as the result of articles in the New York Times. Under that program, the NSA circumvented federal laws to intercept, without warrants, international communications suspected of involving terrorists.

Tracing the development of the surveillance activities, the report said the program began in October 2001, weeks before Yoo's first memo justifying its use on Nov. 2.

The report depicted White House efforts that appeared designed to ensure approval. All but three Justice Department officials were unaware of the spying effort in its early years, even though the department's stamp of approval was used to authorize the programs, the report said.

Instead, the White House communicated directly and almost exclusively with Yoo, who produced legal work about the surveillance program "that at a minimum was factually flawed," the report said.

"Deficiencies in the legal memoranda became apparent once additional Department of Justice attorneys . . . sought a greater understanding of the PSP's operation," the report said.

At that point, disputes broke out between the Justice Department and White House, leading to the 2004 showdown at Ashcroft's sickbed.

The report focuses much of its attention on Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003.

Yoo has become a lightning rod for criticism because of legal opinions he issued on a range of national security matters, later repudiated as unprofessional and possibly illegal.

Some of those opinions, including some on harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, were withdrawn by Republican appointees who followed Yoo at the Justice Department. Yoo would not comment Friday on the report.

Only two other Justice Department officials were "read in" to the NSA program in its early years, the report said -- Ashcroft and intelligence policy lawyer James Baker.

Ashcroft gave his legal authorization for the first 2 1/2 years based on a "misimpression" of what kind of activities the NSA was conducting, the inspectors general found.

In 2004, with the Justice Department balking at approving further extensions of the program, Bush signed a new authorization based on a legal certification by Gonzales, still the White House counsel.

Later, the report said, as attorney general, Gonzales gave "inaccurate" and "misleading" congressional testimony when he said the department had not expressed legal concerns about the program in 2004.

"The White House gamed the system," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, "by ensuring that the only people read into the program . . . would twist the law and arrive at the legal conclusions that the White House wanted."

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josh.meyer@latimes.com