U.S. SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything. Are we just going to collect their phone information for the heck of it? (END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. (END VIDEO CLIP) WALLACE: That was President Bush and Senator Pat Leahy talking about the news this week that the NSA is collecting records on trillions of American phone calls. And we're back now with Brit, Mara, Bill and Juan. Well, the newspaper USA Today created quite a stir this week with the report that the NSA has built up this enormous database of phone call records. No eavesdropping, no content, no names, but records of phone calls, what numbers called other numbers, when and for how long. Juan, how troubled should we be about this? WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, one way to look at it is what we know from polls. The Washington Post did an overnight poll. Basically about 60 percent of the American people said, you know, you have to do what you have to do to fight terrorists, and this is part of a war on terrorism. Now, Newsweek has a poll out that indicates about 53 percent of Americans, in a sort of, you know, longer-term poll with greater numbers of people, say that the government has now gone too far. But I think that there are red flags being raised. The most immediate is for General Hayden and his confirmation as the new head of CIA. I think lots of people are going to question his credibility. Clearly, the extent of these programs has not been fully divulged to the American people and certainly not to the Congress of the United States. And here we are going forward with Hayden, who's been the mastermind, and so the questions are going to, I think, press against Hayden, although it looks as if he still is safe to get confirmed. WALLACE: Brit, before you weigh in, I want to play a tape of Hayden, because there has been this question raised about how forthcoming the president and General Hayden have been about the whole program and the nature of it, obviously not the specifics. Here is what General Hayden had to say early this year about the program. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL HAYDEN, CIA DIRECTOR-DESIGNATE: This isn't a drift net out there where we're soaking up everyone's communications. We are going after very specific communications that our professional judgment tells us we have reason to believe are those associated with people who want to kill Americans. (END VIDEO CLIP) WALLACE: Brit, clearly, General Hayden was talking there about the eavesdropping, not this phone database. But on the other hand, there clearly is more of a drift net than he let on there. HUME: Well, it's not for eavesdropping. I mean, you know, we have to be clear about the meaning of words here. They matter. I must say, Chris, that I don't think that this -- I mean, there's a better example than this story and the reaction to it of the remarkable unseriousness of the atmosphere in Washington these days. Senator Leahy saying that these phone records were being collected for the heck of it -- does he really mean that? Does he really think that? We know why these records are being gathered. We know that it's because if you intercept an Al Qaida or capture an Al Qaida cell phone, or you know what an Al Qaida-connected terrorist's telephone that they're using is, you run that number against this massive database to see who might be telephoned in the United States and who, in turn, or what, in turn, calls were made from that number. I don't know of a better way to do that. There's no evidence that names are being gathered except perhaps in cases where they really find something. I must say to you, Chris, if the NSA wants to scan my telephone calls to see if anybody called me from Al Qaida, that's perfectly all right with me, and I suspect it would be with almost every American. This is probably a very good idea. The sensation over -- USA today publishes a story, huge front-page headlines, opens up to massive body of gray type inside. You have to go to page 5 in a sidebar to find out that well, no, they're not gathering names and addresses. Yes, it's true, names and addresses are easily gotten. But you can see what they're doing here. It's not much of a... WALLACE: Wait a minute, let's let everybody else in. LIASSON: The idea of data mining -- and the thing that was curious to me about the story is that the New York Times did report this about the same time that they reported the other NSA... WALLACE: Not in as much detail. When you read the Times story, they say this was... LIASSON: There were several articles... WALLACE: ... an extension. LIASSON: There were several articles, and I remember reading them and saying hmm, data mining, I wonder what that is. It was different. They talked about the phone companies. I mean, this -- the USA Today did not break this story, but they certainly gave it the kind of prominence. And hey, it's to their credit that USA Today had such impact that everybody reacted to it. HUME: Oh, please. LIASSON: But the fact is that -- well, I mean, they got a bigger reaction than the New York Times did when they reported the same story. Look, I think that you saw this with the NSA story, warrantless wiretapping, and this, that it seems like this is not going to be a political issue that the Democrats can use against the Bush administration. However, there certainly are questions. Congress wants to know exactly what it is. Data mining, apparently, from experts who have been interviewed, has been going on since World War II. It's looking through massive amounts of traffic, phone traffic or Internet traffic, to see if there are patterns that emerge that you can use to help you track something. You know, the content -- getting a warrant to actually listen in on a phone call is something different. KRISTOL: Yes, maybe the Bush administration should have gone to Congress and gotten authorization for this at the beginning. I think that's kind of a close call. There's some advantage, on the other hand, to having some secrecy, though this program seems to be one that would be less important to keep secret than other kinds of government efforts in the war on terror. I think this will come out fine. Congress will have hearings. The administration will defend itself. It was very good that the president came out and quickly defended himself on Thursday. I do think the Bolten White House is being more effective at just dealing with the news every day. We saw that with the -- they got the tax cuts through Wednesday, and not a trivial legislative -- the extension of the tax cuts, not a trivial legislative accomplishment. They're going to get Judge Brett Kavanaugh through as an appellate court judge. They defended this program pretty effectively, quickly. They're taking the lead on immigration. And I actually think things are turning up for the president, hard as it is to believe. WALLACE: Let me ask you, though, because we've got a little over a minute left and I want to ask you all to turn -- General Hayden, architect of this program, in his former job as head of the National Security Agency, up now for confirmation as CIA director. I'd like a quick whip around. Do you think he's going to get through? WILLIAMS: Yes, I think he'll get through, but the question remains -- and this is what I was going to say to Brit earlier -- why not have an American debate about this, if you think it's so right and legitimate and in keeping with our values in a democratic society? If you believe that a statute could be passed, why not? Why have secret programs, secret prisons, secret torture? HUME: Well, because, Juan -- and this is another case of -- wonderful example of it -- because, Juan, believe it or not, we're at war, and... WILLIAMS: And therefore, we should stop being a democracy, Mr. Hume? HUME: Oh, please. WILLIAMS: You're the tough guy and you're going to tell everybody what's right for us in the country? Come on. HUME: No. What I will say about this is that you have different expectations and a different atmosphere when we're at war. And I think that since the administration believes we're at war and is deadly serious about it and thinks it's the top priority. I think that in the press and in the political opposition, there's a very different attitude. The war is kind of a figurative thing, not a real thing, and that accounts for the excitement over stuff like this. WALLACE: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. So much for the whip-around. Thank you, panel. That's it for today. See you next week. For more visit the FOX News Sunday web page.
