The package was reached after agreement that most of the expanded wiretap authorities would expire at the end of 2003, a so-called sunset provision, unless Congress explicitly renewed them.

The department's witness at the hearing, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Kris, said the administration was seeking broader wiretap authority strictly for reasons of national security.

The bill gives the Immigration and Naturalization Service broader wiretap authority while investigating suspected alien smugglers.

The system has been used dozens of times in criminal and national security cases under federal wiretap authority.

The internal security division of the Department of Justice apparently did not ask a court for wiretap authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The strange-bedfellows alliance of civil liberties groups and Republicans sympathetic to right-wing groups had killed both the wiretap authority and the taggants proposal.

When it comes right down to it, they want something called roving wiretap authority.

Senior Administration officials criticized the legislation for failing to incorporate provisions proposed by the President like the expansion of the wiretap authority of Federal agents.

The White House measure would have expanded the wiretap authority of Federal agents and would have permitted them to consult with military officials in certain cases.

That legislation passed, and then the Administration asked for broader wiretap authority in the counterterrorism bill.