Another Set of Eyes

Today's Washingon Post editorial:

THE BUSH administration would like the debate over its warrantless wiretapping program to divide neatly along partisan, and potentially electorally useful, lines. But some Republican legislators aren't with the program. Their responsible pressure has nudged the administration from its customary highhandedness. The resulting congressional briefings are a good first step, but a framework for real oversight of the surveillance program remains necessary.

When Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, Republican senators -- Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio), Sam Brownback (Kan.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) -- expressed discomfort with the administration's end run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Then Rep. Heather A. Wilson

(R-N.M.), who chairs a House intelligence subcommittee that oversees the National Security Agency, called for a full congressional investigation into the eavesdropping. She'd been trying in vain to get information from the administration about the program since it was revealed in December. After her public statement, the administration wisely, if belatedly, agreed to brief House and Senate intelligence panels not just with a rehash of its unconvincing legal arguments but with actual details about the surveillance.

This is a promising reversal but not enough. Lawmakers beyond the "Gang of Eight" congressional leaders and intelligence committee chairs need to know what the surveillance program entails. But it is even more important to try to put in place a mechanism -- beyond the executive branch monitoring itself -- to make certain the surveillance stays within constitutional boundaries.

The administration is not exactly embracing the notion of congressional involvement here -- but it is also not slamming the door as firmly as it has in some confrontations. Questioned by PBS's Jim Lehrer on Tuesday, Vice President Cheney said a legislative fix was both unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. "We believe firmly . . . that we have all the legal authority we need," Mr. Cheney said, adding, "I don't think it would necessarily be in the interests of the country" to have new legislation. Still, he said of Congress, "if you've got suggestions, we're happy to listen to them."

Lawmakers don't seem to be deterred by the administration's coolness to a legislative solution -- and they shouldn't be. Mr. Specter is drafting legislation that would call on the court that oversees the administration of FISA to determine the constitutionality of the surveillance program. Ms. Wilson and other lawmakers have raised the possibility of rewriting the FISA statute to accommodate new technological realities.

Mr. Brownback urged the administration to recognize the importance of having "another set of eyes also looking at this surveillance technique." The administration ought to take his advice.