Bush Assails Democrats Over Patriot ActBy Jim VandeHei

President Bush accused Democrats yesterday of blocking a full reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act for political reasons, as the

White House stepped up an aggressive campaign to defend the president’s terrorism-fighting authority.

“For partisan reasons, in

my mind, people have not stepped up,” Bush told reporters, with 19 federal prosecutors by his side. “The enemy has not gone away;

they’re still there, and I expect Congress to understand that we’re still at war and they’ve got to give us the tools necessary to win

this war.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, speaking to reporters earlier in the day, said Senate Democrats are simply doing

the bidding of liberal special interest groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the broad surveillance power

authorized by the act. Democrats are trying to “appease” the ACLU “because they want to weaken and undermine the Patriot Act,” McClellan

said. …

Adopting campaign-style tactics, Bush and his aides plan to accuse Democrats of jeopardizing national security to

further their political agenda, a tack that worked well for the White House in the 2002 and 2004 elections. But the political environment

is different now, with Bush less popular and Democrats better organized in opposition.

Secret Surveillance May Have Occurred Before Authorization By

Dafna Linzer

Even before the White House formally authorized a secret program to spy on U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants,

such eavesdropping was occurring and some of the information was being shared with the FBI, declassified correspondence and interviews

with congressional and intelligence officials indicate.