Al Gore accused of hypocrisy

2006-01-18 14:24

Washington - The White House accused former vice-president Al Gore of hypocrisy for his assertion that President George W Bush broke the law by eavesdropping on Americans without court approval.

White House secretary Scott McClellan said: "If Al Gore is going to be the voice of the Democrats on national security matters, we welcome it."

Gore called for an independent investigation of the administration programme that he said broke the law by listening in - without warrants - on Americans suspected of talking with terrorists abroad.

Gore called the programme, authorised by Bush, "a threat to the very structure of our government" and charged that the administration acted without congressional authority and made a "direct assault" on a federal court set up to authorise requests to eavesdrop on Americans.

Clinton-Gore administration

The reports said the National Security Agency, which did the listening after the September 11 2001 attack, sent a stream and a flood of names, telephone numbers and email addresses to the FBI, tying up agents who checked thousands of tips a month.

Meanwhile, two civil liberties groups - the American Civil Liberties Union and the Centre for Constitutional Rights - filed federal lawsuits on Tuesday seeking to block the eavesdropping programme, which they called unconstitutional electronic surveillance of American citizens.

McClellan said the Clinton-Gore administration had engaged in physical searches without warrants, and he cited an FBI search of the home of CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames without permission from a judge.

He said Clinton's deputy attorney-general, Jamie Gorelick, had testified before congress that the president had the inherent authority to engage in physical searches without warrants.

Conflict of interest

McClellan said: "I think his hypocrisy knows no bounds."

Gore said attorney-general Alberto Gonzales should name a special counsel to investigate the programme, saying Gonzales had an "obvious conflict of interest" as a member of the Bush cabinet as well as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Gonzales, who had agreed to testify publicly at a senate hearing on the programme, defended the surveillance.

Gonzales said: "This programme has been reviewed carefully by lawyers at the department of justice and other agencies.

"We firmly believe that this programme is perfectly lawful. The president has the legal authority to authoriSe these kinds of programmes."

- AP