The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee 
on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. 
By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her 
apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first 
Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation 
into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications 
of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over 
the program's legal basis and political liabilities. Many Republicans have strongly backed President Bush's power to 
use every tool at his disposal to fight terrorism, but 4 of the 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced 
concerns about the program at a hearing where Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified on Monday.

A growing number of Republicans have called in recent days for Congress to consider amending federal wiretap law 
to address the constitutional issues raised by the N.S.A. operation.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for one, said he considered some of the administration's legal justifications 
for the program "dangerous" in their implications, and he told Mr. Gonzales that he wanted to work on new legislation 
that would help those tracking terrorism "know what they can and can't do."

But the administration has said repeatedly since the program was disclosed in December that it considers further legislation unnecessary, believing that the president already has the legal authority to authorize the operation.

Vice President Dick Cheney reasserted that position Tuesday in an interview on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

Members of Congress "have the right and the responsibility to suggest whatever they want to suggest" about changing 
wiretap law, Mr. Cheney said. But "we have all the legal authority we need" already, he said, and a public debate over 
changes in the law could alert Al Qaeda to tactics used by American intelligence officials.

"It's important for us, if we're going to proceed legislatively, to keep in mind there's a price to be paid for that, 
and it might well in fact do irreparable damage to our capacity to collect information," Mr. Cheney said.

The administration, backed by Republican leaders in both houses, has also resisted calls for inquiries by either 
Congress or an independent investigator.

As for the politics, some Republicans say they are concerned that prolonged public scrutiny of the surveillance program 
could prove a distraction in this year's midterm Congressional elections, and the administration has worked to contain 
any damage by aggressively defending the legality of the operation. It has also limited its Congressional briefings on the 
program's operational details to the so-called Gang of Eight — each party's leaders in the Senate and the House and 
on the two intelligence committees — and has agreed to full committee briefings only on the legal justifications for the 
operation, without discussing in detail how the N.S.A. conducts it.

Ms. Wilson said in the interview Tuesday that she considered the limited Congressional briefings to be "increasingly untenable" because they left most lawmakers knowing little about the program. She said the House Intelligence Committee needed to conduct a "painstaking" review, including not only classified briefings but also access to internal documents and staff interviews with N.S.A. aides and intelligence officials.

Ms. Wilson, a former Air Force officer who is the only female veteran currently in Congress, has butted up against the administration previously over controversial policy issues, including Medicare and troop strength in Iraq. She said she realized that publicizing her concerns over the surveillance program could harm her relations with the administration. "The president has his duty to do, but I have mine too, and I feel strongly about that," she said.

Asked whether the White House was concerned about support for the program among Republicans, Dana Perino, a presidential spokeswoman, said: "The terrorist surveillance program is critical to the safety and protection of all Americans, and we will continue to work with Congress. The attorney general testified at length yesterday, and he will return to Capitol Hill twice more before the week ends."

Aides to Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who as chairman of the full House Intelligence Committee is one of the eight lawmakers briefed on the operations of the program, said he could not be reached for comment on whether he would be open to a full inquiry.

Mr. Hoekstra has been a strong defender of the program and has expressed no intention thus far to initiate a full review. In two recent letters to the Congressional Research Service, he criticized reports by the agency that raised questions about the legal foundations of the N.S.A. program and the limited briefings given to Congress. He said in one letter that it was "unwise at best and reckless at worst" for the agency to prepare a report on classified matters that it knew little about.

But two leading Democratic members of the intelligence committees, Representative Jane Harman and Senator Dianne Feinstein, both of California, wrote a letter of their own Tuesday defending the nonpartisan research service's reports on the surveillance program and other issues, saying its work had been "very helpful" in view of what they deemed the minimal information provided by the administration.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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