Chicago Tribune:

By Maura Reynolds and Greg Miller
Tribune Newspapers
Published December 16, 2005, 9:34 PM CST

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress demanded Friday that President Bush and his administration explain his decision to permit the country's most secretive intelligence agency to spy on American citizens in the United States after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks without first obtaining warrants.

Democrats and some Republicans denounced the administration's action, describing it as another example of Bush's use of the threat of terrorism to assume new legal and intelligence powers and limit civil liberties.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call congressional hearings. Warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens is "wrong, and it can't be condoned at all," he said.

In 2002, according to former officials familiar with the policy, Bush signed an executive order granting new surveillance powers to the National Security Agency, which is responsible for international eavesdropping and whose very existence was long denied by the government.

The president said Friday he could not talk about the matter.