by Maxim Kniazkov
US President George W. Bush has moved to quell a firestorm over his government's secret collection of telephone records of tens of millions of private citizens, insisting they were all needed to "target Al-Qaeda."
But the latest controversy has already spawned a major lawsuit against Verizon, one of the telephone companies involved, and members of Congress expressed unease over what they see as gradual erosion of privacy rights.
The lawsuit, filed in New York on Friday, seeks from Verizon five billion dollars in damages, alleging the company has broken the law by agreeing to provide the National Security Agency with telephone records of its clients.
The plaintiffs argue phone companies should not cooperate with the NSA, which specializes in electronic espionage, without a proper court warrant based on well-grounded "suspicion of terrorist activity or other criminal activity."
But in his weekly radio address on Saturday, Bush rushed to assure the public the secret program did not target innocent private citizens.
"It is important for Americans to understand that our activities strictly target Al-Qaeda and its known affiliates," he said.
But he gave no answer to questions raised on Capitol Hill as to why a program with a purported narrow target would need such a massive database.
The existence of the program was first disclosed Thursday by USA Today newspaper, which said the database compiled by the NSA following the September 11, 2001 attacks contained phone records of tens of millions of Americans provided by AT and T, Verizon and BellSouth.
Officials would not provide any details on how the records were used.
But former government security experts and media reports indicated its genesis lay in US phone numbers found on Al-Qaeda suspects captured overseas.
These numbers, the experts said, immediately become the focus of the NSA's attention, with the circle of surveillance growing exponentially as calls are made to or from the numbers in question.
Specially designed computer programs watch for patterns in these contacts and analyze them to make sure no terrorist cell is operating within the United States.
Bush said the intelligence activities he had authorized were "lawful" and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle had been adequately briefed.
"The privacy of all Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities," he insisted. "The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval."
The new controversy follows charges the president may have broken the law when he authorized the NSA in the wake of 9/11 to conduct wiretaps of international phone calls made by Americans suspected of terrorist ties without a requisite court warrant.
But if the wiretaps put the White House on the spot, the new revelations could mean a world of legal and financial trouble for the phone companies.
The lawsuit in New York was filed under the 1986 Stored Communications Act, which expressly forbids the companies from turning over client records to the government without a warrant.
The statute also gives consumers the right to sue for violations of the act and allows claims of at least 1,000 dollars for each violation.
"If you've got 50 million people, that's potentially 50 billion dollars," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and a former White House adviser on privacy issues.
The controversy could also complicated the confirmation process for Air Force General Michael Hayden nominated on Monday to be the next CIA director.
Republican Chuck Hagel, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Hayden, who headed the NSA when the surveillance programs were put in place, had to answer many questions.
"He knows that hes not going to be confirmed without answering those questions," Hagel warned.
Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse.
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