US spy court judges to be briefed on domestic surveillance program: report

Judges of a secret court that oversees U.S. government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases will be given a chance to have their concerns addressed about the legality of President George W. Bush's domestic spying program.

Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), told her fellow judges by e-mail on Monday she was arranging a classified briefing for them, preferably early next month, The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing several intelligence and government sources.

Kollar-Kotelly, who also sat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, expected top-ranking officials from the National Security Agency, which operated the secret eavesdropping program, and the Justice Department to outline the classified program to the members, according to the report.

Several members of the court said they wanted to know why the administration thought it was legal to secretly listen in on telephone calls and read e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization.

Some of the judges said they were particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program might have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court.

Most of the judges learned about the program after it was disclosed last week by the New York Times.

Federal Judge James Robertson, one of the court's 10 judges, submitted his resignation on Monday, reportedly in protest of the president's action.

The president's suggestion that he had the power to bypass the court could prompt its members to propose it be disbanded, one judge said on condition of anonymity.

The highly classified FISA court was set up in the 1970s to authorize secret surveillance of espionage and terrorism suspects within the United States.

Source: Xinhua