Congressional Panels to Get NSA Briefings

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., arrives for a closed-door briefing on the National Security Agency phone surveillance, Wednesday, May 17, 2006 on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) (Dennis Cook - AP)

WASHINGTON -- National Intelligence Director John Negroponte declassified a list of 30 congressional briefings the Bush administration says have been held since the National Security Agency began its no-warrant surveillance program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Half of the briefings took place between Oct. 25, 2001, and the public disclosure of the program this past December, according to a document provided to The Associated Press on Wednesday. The remaining 15 occurred over the past five months and included an expanded group of lawmakers who were told of the program's operational details.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has pushed for the list's disclosure because the administration repeatedly has said that the appropriate lawmakers were briefed. Just who was included in those sessions was previously unknown.

The administration has agreed to brief the full House and Senate intelligence committees on the NSA's surveillance activities, reversing course after five months.

Sessions scheduled for Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill were to be led by the NSA's director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander. They were certain to focus on efforts to monitor domestic calls when one party is overseas and suspected of terrorism, as well as the agency's efforts to collect records on the telephone calls of ordinary Americans.

The private briefings would give senators new information ahead of the confirmation hearings for Gen. Michael Hayden, the president's nominee for CIA director. He was to appear Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said it became apparent that his entire committee needed to understand the NSA program before holding a full hearing on Hayden, the NSA head from 1999 until 2005.

"There was no way we could fulfill our collective constitutional responsibilities without that knowledge," Roberts said.

Previously, only select members of the House and Senate committees were briefed in detail on the program. Democrats have pressed the White House to provide the information to the full committees since December, saying that to do otherwise was a violation of the 1947 National Security Act.

"The White House, for the first time, is showing signs that they are serious about oversight of this program," said West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate committee's top Democrat.

The House committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of California, said, "It's a shame that it took an endangered nomination to make this happen."