http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4538286.stm
Last Updated: Sunday, 18 December 2005, 00:19 GMT
Bush admits he authorised spying
Radio address
President George W Bush has admitted he authorised secret
monitoring of communications within the United States in the wake of the 2001
terror attacks.
The monitoring was of "people with known links to al-Qaeda
and related terrorist organisations", he said.
He said the programme was reviewed every 45 days, and he made
clear he did not plan to halt the eavesdropping.
He also rebuked senators who blocked the renewal of his major
anti-terror law, the Patriot Act, on Friday.
By preventing the extension of the act, due to expire on 31
December, they had, he said, acted irresponsibly and were endangering the lives
of US citizens.
The president, who was visibly angry, also suggested that a
New York Times report which had revealed the monitoring on Friday had been
irresponsible.
America's enemies had "learned information they should not
have", he said in his weekly radio address, which was delivered live from the
White House after a pre-recorded version was scrapped.
'Big Brother'
Senators from both Mr Bush's Republican party and the
opposition Democrats expressed concerns about the monitoring programme on
Friday.
Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee , said there was no doubt it was "inappropriate", adding
that Senate hearings would be held early next year as "a very, very high
priority".
"This is Big Brother run amok," was the reaction of
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy.
Senator Russell Feingold, another Democrat, called it a
"shocking revelation" that "ought to send a chill down the spine of every
senator and every American".
But in his address on Saturday, Mr Bush said the programme
was "critical to saving American lives".
The president said some of the 11 September hijackers inside
the US had communicated with associates outside before the attacks - but the US
had not known that until it was too late.
"The American people expect me to do everything in my power,
under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and our civil liberties," he
said.
Monitoring was, he said, a "vital tool in our war against the
terrorists".
He said Congressional leaders had been briefed on the
programme, which he has already renewed more than 30 times.
'Illegal leak'
Mr Bush harshly criticised the leak that had made the
programme public.
"Revealing classified information is illegal. It alerts our
enemies," he said.
The New York Times reported on Friday that Mr Bush had signed
a secret presidential order following the attacks on 11 September 2001,
allowing the National Security Agency to track the international telephone
calls and e-mails of hundreds of people without referral to the courts.
Previously, surveillance on American soil was generally
limited to foreign embassies.
American law usually requires a secret court, known as a
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to give permission before intelligence
officers can conduct surveillance on US soil.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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