Records on Spy Program Turned Over to Lawmakers

Reyes and other lawmakers said they would continue to push for other documents that the administration has refused to turn over, including the original order that created the NSA program in October 2001.

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush authorized the NSA to monitor telephone calls between the United States and overseas without warrants if one of the parties was believed to be linked to al-Qaeda or related groups. The program's existence was disclosed in media reports in December 2005.

Many lawmakers and civil liberties advocates called the program illegal, and a federal judge in Michigan ruled last August that it was unconstitutional and should be stopped. In oral arguments in an appeal of that case yesterday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, government lawyers said the lawsuit should be thrown out because of the new FISA orders.

Administration officials said previously that the NSA program could not be accommodated under FISA and that Bush had the power to authorize it on his own.

The administration abruptly changed course last month, however, by obtaining approval for the spying from an unidentified judge on the FISA court. But the outlines of the new effort remain unclear because the government has refused to release details.

One key question is whether the new approach resembles traditional criminal procedures -- which require the government to obtain a separate warrant for each individual it wants to monitor -- or whether it allows eavesdropping on a more broadly defined group of people. Several sources who have been briefed on the program have described it as a hybrid of the two.

Specter said on the Senate floor yesterday that earlier briefings by Justice "fell short" because the details of the new program were left unclear. "In order to meet the traditional safeguards for establishment of probable cause, there would have to be individual warrants," he said.

Staff writer Dafna Linzer contributed to this report.