In a sign that political opposition to surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency may be growing, a wide range of top Democrats took aim at the program throughout the day and called for immediate hearings to investigate the president's eavesdropping and data-mining efforts. "We need to know what our government is doing in its activities that spy upon Americans," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "The Republican-controlled Congress has failed in its oversight responsibilities to the American people."

Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vowed to force executives from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth to show up at a hearing and answer questions about what data they quietly handed over to the NSA without court approval. USA Today reported on Thursday that those three companies had voluntarily opened their databases to the NSA, while Qwest refused. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, wrote his colleagues on the Senate Commerce Committee asking for a parallel set of hearings--in closed session, if necessary--that would require those three chief executives to explain "the role of the phone companies in this program."

During a hastily arranged press conference at the White House this morning, Bush defended the data-mining as perfectly legal and necessary to thwart terrorism. "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans," Bush said. "Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we've been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil."

It wasn't immediately clear how many other GOP members would break ranks and support more hearings. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, warned his colleagues not to rush to judgment on the latest revelations, which said that the three phone companies had divulged records of the calling histories of hundreds of millions of Americans--but not the actual content of the conversations.

One hearing in the House of Representatives, for instance, was supposed to focus on the privacy of Social Security numbers. But Democrats used it as a platform to criticize the president, while the panel's Republican members remained silent. "We've entered a time where consumers' rights and privacy are for sale, and as it turns out, the government may be the best customer," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat. According to Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, the news represented "another telecom merger between NSA and AT&T." "We've got a new slogan for the AT&T and NSA: Reach out and tap someone," Markey said, drawing laughter from fellow Democrats and their aides. Markey added, more seriously, that the nation has reached "a point of privacy crisis."