Bush faces storm over phone spying

Republican Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vowed to hold hearings and demand testimony from telephone company executives to determine if constitutional freedoms had been violated.

"The danger is privacy is being invaded. It's a program of big, big brother," he said.

Coming on the heels of recent revelations that Mr Bush had allowed eavesdropping on telephone calls to foreign destinations without court warrants, Mr Bush sought to head off possible political damage with a hastily arranged appearance before reporters.

Bush did not deny or confirm the existence of the world's largest database, which the USA Today newspaper said was set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But he asserted that the US intelligence community was not "mining or trolling" through the private lives of Americans, simply attempting "to intercept the communications of people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organisations".

"After September 11, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack," Mr Bush said at the White House.

"If al-Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they're saying," he said.

Mr Bush sought to reassure the public that "the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected" under the anti-terrorism programs.

Democrats though seized on the report as further proof that the Bush administration was flouting civil liberties under a veil of secrecy.

"We are on our way to a major constitutional confrontation on Fourth Amendment guarantees on unreasonable search and seizure," Californian Senator Dianne Feinstein said.