Bush: Wiretap probe OK if no secrets spilled

President Bush acknowledged Wednesday that congressional hearings into his domestic spying program were inevitable, but he said they would be "good for democracy" as long as they did not "tell the enemy what we're doing."

Even as he delivered a lengthy defense of the program, Bush stepped back from the seemingly strong opposition he expressed last month to a public investigation of his decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on communications between people in the United States, including U.S. citizens, and those in other countries in suspected terrorism cases.

He said Wednesday that in approving the program, he had to balance civil liberties against the need to find out, "on a limited basis," what potential terrorists were plotting.

Critics have questioned whether it was legal to order a government agency to listen in on the conversations of people in the United States and read their e-mail without court approval.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled hearings on the issue for early February. The Senate Intelligence Committee also plans to hold hearings that will be closed to the public, The Associated Press reported.

The president's comments came in response to a question asked at a citizens' forum in Louisville as Bush sought to take his case for the Iraq war directly to an audience beyond Washington.

The subject of the spying program, which was revealed by The New York Times last month, arose when Bush was asked whether the Justice Department, which has begun investigating the leaks, would "follow through and, if necessary, go after the media ... to shut these leaks up."

The president did not directly answer that question, but he used it to launch one of his longest public explanations of the program.

Bush was addressing an audience of about 400 people chosen by civic groups, business organizations and a university. He spoke for about 20 minutes on the war in Iraq, then fielded questions for almost an hour on a variety of topics.