US cyber spies want more rights to snoop on foreigners

The heads of the US' two major spy agencies on Wednesday told Congress it's impractical to seek warrants before tracking the global phone and Internet activities of groups such as al-Qaida and terrorist sympathisers.

At a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, CIA director Michael Hayden (who until recently headed the National Security Agency) and NSA director Keith Alexander urged adoption of a proposal that would grant spy agencies more power and current practices more legitimacy. The proposed law amounts to a rewrite of the 1978 wiretapping law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).

Under Fisa, investigators must file a detailed application and obtain permission from a secret court before eavesdropping on foreign communications in which at least one end is located inside the US.

But obtaining individual warrants "is less well-suited to provide the agility to detect and prevent attacks against the homeland" than it was during the Cold War era, Hayden said, particularly when investigators are in "hot pursuit" of communications involving al-Qaida and its associates.

The bill in question was announced recently by Pennyslvania Republican senator Arlen Specter after extensive negotiations with the White House. It proposes a number of key changes that have been criticised by civil liberties groups. Among other things, it would reduce the amount of information authorities have to supply in warrant applications to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It would also allow for blanket approval of current and future electronic surveillance programmes — a departure from the existing requirement that individual warrants be obtained for each wiretapping target.

It also makes it optional for the government to obtain court review of the existing NSA terrorist surveillance programme. However, Specter and the Bush administration have given repeated assurances the President will submit the programme he has publicly confirmed for review, if the bill passes in the precise form he wishes.

The intelligence officials argued on Wednesday that requirements in the existing statute interfere with their efforts to intercept communications within US borders.

For instance, because of the nature of the global communications infrastructure, a large amount of phone and Internet traffic happens to be routed through the US, which means tapping into overseas conversations theoretically requires a court order, Alexander said.

Specter's proposal would give the NSA broader latitude to monitor foreigners suspected of terrorist involvement, regardless of where they are located.

The intelligence officials dismissed concerns about the potential for sweeping up Americans in the process. Hayden admitted the NSA "routinely" deals with information "to, from or about US persons" while doing foreign surveillance but "knows how to do this while protecting US privacy".

But the officials refused, when pressed by committee Democrats, to disclose publicly how many Americans have been monitored, saying only that their targets are "predominantly" foreign and that any "inadvertent" intercepts of Americans' communications are immediately destroyed.

The hearing came largely at the request of the committee's eight Democrats, who criticised the Specter-White House agreement in a joint letter last week. They wrote: "Many types of surveillance that now require a warrant will no longer require one if your bill is enacted."

The few Democrats present on Wednesday continued to assail the Bush administration's authorisation of the wiretapping programme without the Fisa court's prior approval.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the committee's Democratic co-chairman, said of the proposal: "Whether or not Fisa is in need of fine-tuning is a legitimate consideration but Fisa's possible imperfections provide no excuse for the administration's flouting of existing law."

He and other Democrats said they were unconvinced Fisa needs updating, noting it has already undergone six amendments at the Bush administration's request in the nearly five years since the 11 September attacks.

The proposal has also drawn pointed criticism from civil liberties groups, which have called the so-called compromise with the Bush administration a "sham" and a "capitulation".

NSA director Alexander said: "We must retain a means to compel communications companies to provide properly authorised assistance to the government, and we must insulate those companies from liability when they do so."

Members of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee are also contemplating competing proposals — one aimed at "modernising" Fisa and the other designed primarily to preserve existing law. A legislative hearing on a Fisa modernisation bill similar to Specter's proposal is scheduled for Thursday.