On Sunday, after addressing wounded troops at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, President Bush again defended his secret domestic surveillance program, saying that it is “vital and necessary” to protect the U.S. from further terrorist attacks.

“The NSA program is one that listens to a few numbers, called from the outside of the United States and of known al Qaeda or affiliate people. In other words, the enemy is calling somebody and we want to know who they’re calling and why,” he said.

“There’s an enemy out there. They read newspapers, they listen to what you write, they listen to what you put on the air, and they react.”

The data collected by NSA from the surveillance program is regularly shared with the military and other government agencies.

Last week the Department of Justice launched an investigation into who leaked the existence of the program to the New York Times.

And on Friday John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, and author of Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon: Impact of a Constitutional Crisis and Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, denounced Bush’s program as illegal, comparing it to Nixon’s bugging of people he suspected of leaking Vietnam War plans to the press during the Watergate scandal. Dean, who was deeply involved in the Watergate scandal, later cooperated with the prosecution in exchange for a reduced sentence. I would expect he would know if such a program was illegal.

There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons. . . .

Indeed, here, Bush may have outdone Nixon: Nixon’s illegal surveillance was limited; Bush’s, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in scope. First reports indicated that NSA was only monitoring foreign calls, originating either in the USA or abroad, and that no more than 500 calls were being covered at any given time. But later reports have suggested that NSA is “data mining” literally millions of calls – and has been given access by the telecommunications companies to “switching” stations through which foreign communications traffic flows.

In sum, this is big-time, Big Brother electronic surveillance. — John Dean

Congress is set to begin hearings on whether Bush should be impeached for misleading the public on the reasons for engaging in war with Iraq, and some members of Congress also want to investigate the legality of the NSA surveillance program. For instance, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is expected to grill Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito on the legality of the program during his confirmation hearings next week.