Prometheus 6

Officials: Boehner disclosed ruling on classified case
Lawmaker says remarks on spying did not reveal anything secret
By CAROL D. LEONNIG and ELLEN NAKASHIMA
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information.

Blow to administration

The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision.

The decision was both a political and practical blow to the administration, which had long held that all of the National Security Agency's enhanced surveillance efforts since 2001 were legal. The administration for years had declined to subject those efforts to the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and after it finally did so in January the court ruled that the administration's legal judgment was at least partly wrong.