100 Americans, thousands overseas monitored.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back
on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a
secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush
administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.

During an interview with the El Paso Times last week, McConnell made
comments that raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of
previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

McConnell said it takes 200 hours to assemble a FISA warrant on a
single telephone number. "We're going backwards," he said. "We
couldn't keep up."

_ Offering never-disclosed figures, McConnell also revealed that
fewer than 100 people inside the United States are monitored under FISA warrants. However, he said, thousands of people overseas are monitored.

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.

"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.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/22/ap4045204.html

Spy Chief Reveals Classified Details
By KATHERINE SHRADER 08.22.07, 4:04 PM ET