The Elephant in the Living Room summarized the specific constitutional and legal issues involved in the President's secret authorization of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. In the spirit of a fair and balanced presentation, President Bush's responses to those issues must be acknowledged. The President's remarks in various forums since the Elephant article was published have been excerpted and distilled by the media, so rather than rely on potentially incomplete or distorted snippets, the President's remarks about the NSA's secret domestic spy program have been taken from the transcript of his January 26, 2006, press conference and reproduced below. After reading this report, you decide if the President has adequately addressed the constitutional and legal issues cited in the Elephant.

BUSH: We're going to stay on the offense in the war against terror. We'll hunt down the enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. We'll continue our terrorist surveillance program against Al Qaeda. Congress must reauthorize the Patriot Act so that our law enforcement and intelligence and homeland security officers have the tools they need to root out the terrorists, terrorists who could be planning and plotting within our borders. And we will do all this and at the same time protect the civil liberties of our people.

The terrorist surveillance program is necessary to protect America from attack. I asked the very questions you asked when we first got going. Let me tell you exactly how this happened. Right after September the 11th, I said to the people, "What can we do? Can we do more?" -- the people being the operators, a guy like Mike Hayden -- "Can we do more to protect the people? There's going to be a lot of investigation and a lot of discussion about connecting dots. And we have a responsibility to protect the people, so let's make sure we connect the dots."

Secondly, I said, "Before we do anything, I want to make sure it's legal." And so we had our lawyers look at it. And as part of the debate, the discussion with the American people as to the legality of the program, there's no doubt in my mind it is legal.

And thirdly, "Will there be safeguards to safeguard the civil liberties of the American people?" There's no doubt in my mind there are safeguards in place to make sure the program focuses on calls coming from outside the United States in, with an Al Qaeda -- with a belief that there's an Al Qaeda person making the call to somebody here in the States, or vice versa, but not domestic calls.

And so, as I stand here right now, I can tell the American people the program's legal, it's designed to protect civil liberties and it's necessary.

Now, my concern has always been that, in an attempt to try to pass a law on something that's already legal, we'll show the enemy what we're doing.

And we briefed Congress -- members of Congress. We'll continue to do that. But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy. And so, of course, we'll listen to ideas. But I want to make sure that people understand that if the attempt to write law makes this program -- is likely to expose the nature of the program, I'll resist it.

And I think the American people understand that.

Why tell the enemy what we're doing if the program is necessary to protect us from the enemy? And it is.  And it's legal. And we'll continue to brief Congress. And we review it a lot. And we review it not only at the Justice Department but with a good legal staff inside NSA.

QUESTION: Your explanation on the monitoring program seems to say that when the nation is at war, the president, by definition, can order measures that might not be acceptable or even perhaps legal in peacetime. And this seems to sound like something President Nixon once said, which was, "When the president does it, then that means that it's not illegal in areas involving national security." So how do the two differ?

BUSH: Well, I said yesterday that other presidents have used the same authority I've had to use technology to protect the American people. Other presidents, most presidents most presidents believe that during their -- during a time of war that we can use our authorities under the Constitution to make decisions necessary to protect us.

Secondly, in this case, there is an act passed by Congress in 2001 which said that I must have the power to conduct this war using the incidents of war. In other words, we believe there's a constitutional power granted to presidents as well as, this case, a statutory power. And I'm intending to use that power.
Congress says, "Go ahead and conduct the war. We're not going to tell you how to do it."

And part of winning this war on terror is to understand the nature of the enemy and to find out where they are so we can protect the American people.

There'll be a legal debate about whether or not that I have the authority to do this. I'm absolutely convinced I do. Our attorney general's been out describing why. And I'm going to continue using my authority. And that's what the American people expect.

QUESTION: Mr. President, though -- this is a direct follow-up to that -- the FISA law was implemented in 1978 in part because of revelations that the National Security Agency was spying domestically. What is wrong with that law that you feel you have to circumvent it and, as you just admitted, expand presidential powers?

BUSH: You said that I have to "circumvent" it. Wait a minute, that's a -- it's like saying, "You know, you're breaking the law." I'm not.

See, that's what you got to understand: I am upholding my duty and at the same time doing so under the law and with the Constitution behind me. That's just very important for you to understand.

Secondly, the FISA law was written in 1978. We're having the discussion in 2006. It's a different world.
And FISA's still an important tool. It's an important tool, and we still use that tool. But, also -- and I looked. I said, "Look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law?" And people said, "It doesn't work in order to be able do the job we expect to us do." And so, that's why I made the decision I made.

And, you know, "circumventing" is a loaded word. And I refuse to accept it, because I believe what I'm doing is legally right.