Today the DOJ issued a statement descibing the "confusion" over the term Terrorist Surveillance Program that is responsible for the "impression" that Gonzales was refering to the TSP when in fact he was talking about another NSA program which TPMmuckraker (always on top of this issue) has titled Program X. Program X is the nasty part that Comey was going to resign over and the subject of the infamous hospital visit to Ashcroft.
Unfortunately for Gonzales, when the White House introduced the term Terrorist Surveillance Program they applied it to the full range of NSA wiretapping activities, when they criticized Democrats for objecting to the program as illegal.
First lets look at what the DOJ said today as reported at TPMmuckraker:
Confusion is inevitable when complicated classified activities are discussed in a public forum, where the greatest care must be used not to compromise sensitive intelligence operations. The Administration first used the term "Terrorist Surveillance Program" in early 2006 to refer publicly to a particular intelligence activity that the President publicly acknowledged and described in December 2005 -- that is, the NSA’s targeting for interception international communications coming into or going out of the United States where the NSA has reasonable grounds to believe that a party to the communication is an agent or member of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization. That is the only intelligence activity that the Attorney General meant when he used the phrase "Terrorist Surveillance Program."
Now let's look at some history. The etymology of the term "Terrorist Surveillance Program" is reported at Think Progress.
Apparently, the term was first used on NewsMax on Jan 1, 2006, instead of the then current terms in the media like "Warrantless Wiretapping" or "Illegal Spying On Americans" which sounded so ummm nasty.
The White House formally adopted the term later on January 22 in a press release.
Setting the Record Straight: Democrats Continue to Attack Terrorist Surveillance Program
The NSA's terrorist surveillance program is targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States. It is a limited, hot pursuit effort by our intelligence community to detect and prevent attacks. Senate Democrats continue to engage in misleading and outlandish charges about this vital tool that helps us do exactly what the 9/11 Commission said we needed to do - connect the dots. It defies common sense for Democrats to now claim the administration is acting outside its authority while their own party leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times - only after there was a leak and subsequent media coverage did they start criticizing the program. Such irresponsible accusations will not keep us from acting to stay a step ahead of a deadly enemy that is determined to strike America again.
Scott McClellan, White House Press Secretary
Note that the Democrats were briefed on the TSP "more than a dozen times." Which seems to suggest that the entire NSA wiretapping activity that they were briefed on was the TSP. Gonzales is trying to parse is that only the limited part is the TSP, and the other much less limited part is not the TSP, but rather Program X. But, why then criticise the Democrats for objecting to the TSP if the Democrats weren't actually objecting to the TSP, but rather to Program X, the illegal part. By saying that the Democrats objected to the TSP the White House conflates Program X and TSP?
Now, however, when they want to draw a distinction between the legal part, TSP, and the illegal part, Program X, so they are claiming they are different.
You can't have it both ways.