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Maiveaux: Alberto gonzales says that there were no

major disagreements when it came

to the terrorists surveillance

program and that the

disagreements he's referring to

are other intelligence

activities.

So, a couple of points in this

letter to try to clarify and

essentially defend what he is

saying.

The first one says, a number of

these intelligence activities

were authorized in one order.

Saying that there are other

intelligence activities that he

could be referring to.

Secondly, gonzales says he was

being very specific.

He was referring to that secret

wiretapping, eavesdropping

program that terrorist

surveillance program.

The key line in this letter

says, one particular aspect of

these activities and nothing

more was publicly acknowledged

by the president and I described

in december of 2005.

That is what gonzales says was

the terrorist surveillance

program.

So, what other program are they

talking about?

Again, they say it's classified.

It's top secret.

The third line in the letter

that is key.

This is the only aspect of the

nsa activities that can be

discussed publicly.

So what they're saying is

everything else is secret, but

what he was talking about

specifically was the program

that terrorist surveillance

program.

Blitzer>> The warrantless wiretap

program.

Malveaux>> Right.

Blitzer>> Because there are other

aspects that were authorized in

the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Authorized by congress, extended

by the president every 45 days

or so.

That has never been publicly

discussed, even though "the new

york times" had a very long

article about it over the

weekend, other details of this

classified program that the

administration has never

publicly discussed.

Malveaux>> Right.

And, wolf, as you know, we

reported earlier in the week,

it's called data mining and

essentially the controversy is

not over the eavesdropping, but

what do you do with all the

information, the emails, all the

phone records, those type of

things?

What can the government do

legally with all of the data

that it collects?

That's what they're talking

about.

It's not what they specifically

say in the letter because they

say it's classified.

And the big question here is

whether or not senator specter

and some of the others are going

to be satisfied with this

explanation and whether or not

they're going to go forward with

those perjury charges.

Blitzer>> We'll be speaking with

senator specter.

That's coming up.