President Bush today confirmed the existence of a National Security Agency program in which the communications of suspected terrorists in the U.S. are monitored, and gave additional details about the program.

In his weekly radio address, Bush said he authorized the program to conduct surveillance of the international communications of people in the U.S. with ties to terrorist organizations. “Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks,” however, he said.

“This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country,” he said.

Bush then goes on to undermine his argument that disclosure of this program damages national security, by providing additional details about the program.

“The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation’s top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups,” he said.

“The NSA’s activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA’s top legal officials, including NSA’s general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it. Intelligence officials involved in this activity also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization,” Bush said.

Under the special collection program, NSA can collect international communications of the targeted people without obtaining an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court; however, it still needs authorization from the court to collect entirely domestic communications. The proceedings of the court are secret.

Previously the NSA required an order from the court to monitor such communications, unless they originated overseas, and typically the intelligence collection was done by the FBI, rather than NSA.

Bush has been reorganizing much of the intelligence community to address inefficiencies in collection and analysis of intelligence, creating a new Director of National Intelligence as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which he signed one year ago today.

Bush did not take questions from the press after the radio address.