More on spying

The monitoring is not as simple as Bush, his aides and administration officials have explained, Pelosi said. She said Congress must have a full set of facts in hearings to determine "how far down the road" the administration went.
For example, Pelosi did not know if a reporter covering the war in Iraq would be caught in the surveillance net.
A Senate hearing on the program is set for Feb. 6. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has written Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the former White House counsel, about subjects he wants to see addressed:
_Why did the White House not ask Congress for changes to a 1978 foreign surveillance law?
_Why didn't the administration go to an established intelligence court to get approval for the monitoring?
_Will the White House consider doing that now?
Gonzales has agreed to answer questions about the legal basis of the program, but not its operations.
Pelosi tried to walk carefully between making a case for national security and protecting civil liberties.
She rejected recent comments by Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican Party, that Pelosi and Democratic Party leader Howard Dean would want the NSA to hang up when terrorists dial their sleeper cells.
"It is a disservice to a very serious debate about security and liberty for him to resort to that kind of a statement," Pelosi said.