WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush addressed Thursday a newspaper report that the National Security Agency was collecting records of tens of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls. Bush neither confrimed or denied the report that AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. began turning over records to the NSA shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as USA Today reported based on anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.
"Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their knwon affiliates," Bush said. "We're not mining or trolling through the private lives of innocent Americans."
Bush said any domestic intelligence-gathering measures he's approved are "lawful," and he says "appropriate" members of Congress have been briefed.
