Even as he shed new light on the classified operations, McConnell asserted that the current debate in Congress about whether to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will cost American lives because of all the information it revealed to terrorists.

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"Part of this is a classified world. The fact that we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die," he said.

McConnell was in El Paso, Texas, last week for a conference on border security hosted by House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. The spy chief joined Reyes for an interview with his local paper.

At the end of the interview, McConnell cautioned reporter Chris Roberts that he should consider whether enemies of the U.S. could gain from the information he just shared in the interview, Roberts said. McConnell left it to the paper to decide what to publish.

McConnell appeared days after Congress passed a temporary law to expand the government's ability to monitor suspects in national security investigations _ terrorists, spies and others _ without first seeking court approval in certain cases. The highly contentious measure expires in six months.

After Sept. 11, Bush authorized the terrorist surveillance program to monitor conversations between people in the United States and others overseas when terrorism is suspected. Until January, no warrants were required. But as the Democratic Congress took over, the Bush administration decided to bring the program under the oversight of the FISA court.

McConnell said the court initially ruled that the program was appropriate and legitimate. But when the ruling had to be renewed in the spring, another judge saw the operations differently. This judge, who McConnell did not identify, decided that the government needed a warrant to monitor a conversation between foreigners when the signal traveled on a wire in the U.S. communications network.

McConnell said the government got a temporary stay on the ruling, but it expired at the end of May. "After the 31st of May, we were in extremis because now we have significantly less capability," he said.

At the same time, the intelligence community was wrapping up years of work on a National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the homeland _ an analysis that is considered its most comprehensive judgment. It found the threat was increasing, McConnell noted.

Because he sees FISA as a major tool to keep terrorists out of the country, McConnell said he pressed Congress to change the law.

McConnell's interview raised concerns at the Justice Department, where senior officials questioned whether the intelligence chief had overstepped in discussing the secret FISA court.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse referred questions to McConnell's office, where his spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment.

In a phone interview, Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra said he never felt at liberty to discuss some of the information that McConnell did, including the FISA court rulings, but the executive branch gets to decide what is classified. "What I think it tells you is how important they believe it is to get this FISA thing done right," said Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

He said McConnell is hurt by the personal attacks on him during the FISA recent debate. Among them, Democrats have alleged that he negotiated in bad faith and was too beholden to the White House.

In addition, Hoekstra said he thinks McConnell wanted to push back on accusations that the legislation gave the attorney general unprecedented new powers. "I think they felt they had to become more public," he said.

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