[JURIST] US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell [official profile] has confirmed that telecommunications companies have provided vital cooperation to the warrantless domestic wiretapping program [JURIST news archive], the New York Times reported Friday. In an interview [transcript] with the El Paso Times last week, McConnell called for Congress to grant immunity from prosecution to the companies that helped in the program, which allowed the US government to monitor the international communications of Americans suspected of terror links without first obtaining a warrant:

The issue was that under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities. So that was part of the request. ... Some wanted to limit us to terrorism. My argument was, wait a minute, why would I want to limit it to terrorism. It may be that terrorists are achieving weapons of mass destruction, the only way I would know that is if I'm doing foreign intelligence by who might be providing a weapon of mass destruction.