A Possible Clue On NSA Spying

Did President Bush mention the government’s secret warrantless surveillance
program to the president of Pakistan more than four years ago? A brief passage
of a 2002 book seems to raise that possibility.

In “Bush at War,” Bob Woodward recounts a meeting between Bush and Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf at the Waldorf Towers in New York in early November
2001.

Bush started by talking about plans for a quick victory in Afghanistan but
then turned to another topic, according to the passage on Page 303:

“He had become fascinated with the ability of the National Security Agency to
intercept phone calls and other communications worldwide,” Woodward wrote,
referring to Bush. “If they got the key phone calls, future terrorism might be
stopped, certainly curtailed. Bush summarized his strategy: ‘Listen to every
phone call and close them down and protect the innocents.’ ”

By this time, Bush had already issued his order allowing the NSA to intercept
communications between the United States and overseas locations without
warrants. The program was never divulged publicly, however, until press reports
last December.

Of course, Bush could have been referring merely to the NSA’s traditional
surveillance programs, which have long involved intercepting large amounts of
communications overseas.

Woodward, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post, said this month
that he does not know what Bush may have had in mind during his conversation
with Musharraf. Woodward noted that he has not referred to the NSA’s warrantless
spying program in his books or reporting.

Dan Eggen