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WASHINGTON - A federal judge in Utah who sits on a secretive court that reviews and approves counterterrorism wiretaps and surveillance said the judges need answers on the Bush administration's surveillance of U.S. citizens.

U.S. District Judge Dee Benson, who in May 2004 was appointed to the court created in 1978 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, said that he needs to know more about the president's decision to secretly allow the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and other communications from U.S. citizens. The concern is that secret wiretap material may have been used to obtain warrants from the court without the judges' knowledge of its origins, possibly calling into question the credibility of some information presented to the court. "In looking at FISA warrants, my main job is to decide whether the statute has been complied with and, if there is a probable cause, determine it's based on certain facts," Benson said Thursday. "It may be important for me to know where those facts came from and, if the facts came from a source whose reliability is in question, then I'd want to know that."

On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of the 11 judges on the intelligence court, resigned his post, reportedly in protest over the Bush administration's surveillance program.

Benson said there would be no reason for the judges to explore the practice of the president authorizing secret wiretaps, but it makes sense for them to understand how information presented to the court is being gathered.

"On the policy question and the legality of what they're doing, I don't have an opinion on that because I don't know what they're doing," he said.

In an unusual step, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, told fellow judges in an e-mail that she was arranging a briefing on the secret program, according to The Washington Post.

Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and former Justice Department official, said such a briefing is "very peculiar."

"They're not Congress and I've never seen anything like this where the judges will be given some kind of a special briefing," he said.

However, Saltzburg said, there is a legitimate concern that information obtained through the secret eavesdropping may later be used to get a warrant, "and if that's so, the judges might feel the government wasn't honest with them."

This week, Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor overseas communications by U.S. citizens without a warrant from the foreign intelligence court if the target is believed to have terrorist ties.

They argued Congress gave the president the authority to approve the surveillance when it authorized the use of force after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and said the war against terrorism requires the ability to rapidly adapt and track targets with suspected terrorist ties without the burden of having to go to court.

But Benson said there is emergency authority, granted under the Patriot Act, giving the government permission to conduct surveillance without a warrant, as long as an application is filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court within 72 hours.

Saltzburg said that, while he believes the authorization to use force did not permit the president to go around the court, the argument that the power was necessary in a time of war is the best case for the administration to make. He said it will ultimately be up to Congress to find some method to police the president's authority.

"Congress is going to press him hard for why FISA wasn't adequate to handle this stuff and what it is that was missing and I suspect that Congress is going to want to have some standard in the law" to address the perceived shortcomings, Saltzburg said.

At the same time, there is dissent in Congress about renewing some portions of the Patriot Act, which expanded the use and authority of the foreign intelligence court.

The House and Senate, unable to strike a deal, granted a one-month extension of the law Thursday.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop is co-sponsoring a bill that would rescind some of the surveillance methods Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judges can approve.

According to Justice Department figures, there has been a sharp increase in the number of warrants sought since the 2001 terrorist attacks. In 2004, a record 1,758 FISA applications were presented to the court, up from 932 in 2001.

Benson and the other judges work on a rotating schedule, spending a week at a time in the secure courtroom in Washington about five times a year, reviewing the government requests for wiretaps and surveillance warrants. Benson said that, on average, he reviews 30 to 50 applications for different types of surveillance during each stint.

It is rare that the FISA warrants become public. However, in a Florida case earlier this month, a Palestinian computer science professor at the University of South Florida, Sami Al-Arian, was acquitted of conspiring with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Much of the evidence against al-Arian, including 20,000 hours of recorded phone conversations, was gathered under a FISA warrant. In the conversations, according to reports, he was heard raising money for the Palestinian terrorist organization and praising attacks against Israel.

Benson, 57, was born in Sandy and earned an undergraduate degree and law degree from Brigham Young University. He went to work for Sen. Orrin Hatch and spent two years as his chief of staff.

He was an associate deputy U.S. Attorney General and later the U.S. Attorney for Utah before being nominated as a district judge in 1991. He is the chief judge for the U.S. District Court and was chosen by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist for the FISA court in 2004. His term expires in 2011.

Number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court applications that were approved for surveillance.

1989: 546

1990: 595

1991: 593

1992: 484

1993: 509

1994: 576

1995: 697

1996: 839

1997: 748

1998: 796

1999: 880

2000: 1,012

2001: 934

2002: 1,228

2003: 1,724

2004: 1,754

Source: Justice Department reports to Congress obtained by the Federation for American Scientists.

A secret court

* Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created in 1978 to review and approve warrants for searches, wiretaps and access to certain records. The Patriot Act expanded some of the court's powers and expanded the court from seven to 11 judges. The judges, selected by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, work from Washington on weeklong rotations.