White House Won't Confirm or Deny It Tried to Stop 'USA Today' Story

Editor and Publisher
May. 11, 2006

NEW YORK At a press briefing this afternoon aboard Air Force On en route to Mississippi, a White House spokeswoman refused to confirm or deny that the president had tried to halt today's USA Today bombshell report on the National Security Agency collecting records of tens of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls.

The spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said she would not comment when a reporter posed that question, and declined again on a followup.

A USA Today spokesman told E&P he would check to see if the White House approached the newspaper before publication.

President Bush this morning did not take issue with the USA Today story, but did not deny it either. Earlier, the White House did try to halt the groundbreaking New York Times article on NSA domestic spying.

Some of the questioning on Air Force One went this way today.

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Q If you're fiercely protecting Americans' rights to privacy, why would you need a database of tens of millions of American phone call records?

MS. PERINO: Well, not confirming or denying or acknowledging the substance of the story this morning in USA Today, what the President said today, all intelligence activities of the United States are limited and targeted and focused solely on al Qaeda and al Qaeda's affiliates. They are the enemy.

The government has no interest in knowing what innocent Americans are talking about on their domestic phone calls. So if you are calling to make reservations at a restaurant, and if you are calling your daughter at college, or if you are calling to plan your wedding, the government has no interest in knowing about those calls. The government is interested in finding out if al Qaeda is planning an attack in America -- you can bet that we want to make sure that we get ahead of that to prevent that and to save lives.

Q Was there any effort to get USA Today to not run the story?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on that.

Q Is the reason why you're not confirming or denying for national security reasons? Or why?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to go beyond -- we don't comment on intelligence matters of the United States. If you look at the statement by the National Security Agency spokesperson, he reiterates the same. We don't comment on the intelligence operations or sources or methods. And that's for the protection of the American people. We have classified intelligence programs -- again, not confirming or denying any of these -- for a reason.

And the President talked again today in his statement about how the leaking of classified information in general can be harmful to national security.