It was one of the more outrageous moments in the story of the Bush administration's illegal domestic wiretapping.

Similarly, on May 24, 2006, lawyers for the communications service provider AT&T filed a legal brief regarding their cooperation with domestic wiretapping by the NSA.

Jones supports military tribunal for terrorists while opposing domestic wiretapping and a national I.D. card.

Already they are talking about investigations into the administration's domestic wiretapping and terrorist detainee programs and the vice president's consultations with energy officials, among other things.

"That was the price for my ending the lawsuit," said Mr. Halperin, who became a civil liberties advocate and today is a leading opponent of the Bush administration's domestic wiretapping.

Democrats and a growing number of Republicans say the eavesdropping violates the surveillance act, which when it was passed in 1978 created a special intelligence court to oversee domestic wiretapping.

Asked whether his administration was going to "go after the media" for revealing operations like the domestic wiretapping, Mr. Bush instead defended his decision to authorize the surveillance.

Currently, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has not been the worst offender, is tinkering dangerously with the laws covering domestic wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

The administration uses that message daily to try to justify its illegal actions, such as torturing detainees and domestic wiretapping without a court order.

Republicans were unable to win final approval of a bill to regulate domestic wiretapping, which Democrats feared would become a political weapon more potent than the bill governing terrorism suspects.