Senator calls spy program 'most extensive' in history

WASHINGTON -- A senator who has been briefed on President Bush's domestic spying said yesterday that it is the ''the most extensive and aggressive" National Security Agency program in history, offering a new assessment of the scope of the secretive policy.

Shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush authorized the NSA to wiretap Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a warrant, despite a law requiring warrants. Bush claims that his wartime powers give him the authority to override the law, an assertion disputed by most legal scholars. Since the program was disclosed in December, the White House has insisted that it is ''limited and targeted" only at Americans who are connected to Al Qaeda.

Yesterday, during a rare open hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller IV of West Virginia described the domestic surveillance program as the largest undertaking in the NSA's 54-year history. Rockefeller, the committee's ranking Democrat, is one of four members of Congress who regularly received briefings about the program. He also accused the Bush administration of ''selectively" declassifying information about the program, but offered no details.

''The intelligence community has become a public relations arm of the White House in recent weeks," he said. ''The selective declassification of intelligence information -- which has undoubtedly occurred in recent weeks -- in support of the administration's defense of the NSA program hearkens back to the troubling runup to the war in Iraq."

He made his comments during a hearing officially devoted to the intelligence community's annual review of global threats. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte stressed that the purpose of the spying program, which he believes was legal, was to protect the country from terrorists ''in the most agile and effective way possible."

Chairman Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, criticized those who questioned the program despite the ongoing threat of a terrorist attack, saying ''you really don't have any civil liberties if you're dead." Rockefeller, however, countered that the issue is the rule of law. ''I am strongly for the goal [of detecting Al Qaeda plots], but I want it to be done under the law," he said.