In August 17 reports on a federal district court ruling against the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program, Denver's KMGH 7News and KUSA 9News uncritically reported Bush administration claims that the program is “need[ed]” and “important” in the war against terrorism without noting that a number of law enforcement and intelligence officials reportedly have questioned the program's effectiveness. On 7News at 10 p.m., co-anchor Mike Landess said of the warrantless surveillance program: “The ACLU had challenged that policy, which the Justice Department says it needs to protect Americans from another terrorist attack.” Similarly, after reporting that federal district judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the government “has to stop listening to phone conversations unless it has a warrant,” 9News at 5 p.m. co-anchor Bob Kendrick reported, “The Bush administration has said that wiretapping is important in fighting the war on terror.”

But despite repeating the Bush administration's claims about the program's importance, neither station noted that the effectiveness of the program has been called into question since its public disclosure in a December 16, 2005, New York Times article. As Media Matters for America has noted, a January 17 New York Times article reported that “current and former officials” have stated that “virtually all” of the leads generated by the National Security Agency (NSA) program “led to dead ends or innocent Americans.”

The Times further reported, “More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret eavesdropping program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.”

Similarly, a February 5 Washington Post article reported that unnamed “current and former government officials” told the paper that "[i]ntelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat." As the Post reported:

Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause.

The Bush administration refuses to say -- in public or in closed session of Congress -- how many Americans in the past four years have had their conversations recorded or their e-mails read by intelligence analysts without court authority. Two knowledgeable sources placed that number in the thousands; one of them, more specific, said about 5,000.

From the August 17 broadcast of KMGH's 7News at 10 p.m.:

MIKE LANDESS: Covering America on 7 News at 10: The Bush administration is scrambling tonight to come up with a plan B. A federal court in Detroit has found its policy of warrantless wiretaps unconstitutional. The ACLU had challenged that policy, which the Justice Department says it needs to protect Americans from another terrorist attack. The administration is defending that program and says it will immediately file an appeal.

From the August 17 broadcast of KUSA's 9News at 5 p.m.

BOB KENDRICK: A U.S. District judge says the U.S. Justice Department has to stop listening to phone conversations unless it has a warrant. The judge agrees with the ACLU that the National Security Agency's wiretapping program is unconstitutional. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of journalists who said that the program prevented them from doing their job. The White House says it couldn't disagree more with the ruling. The Bush administration has said that wiretapping is important in fighting the war on terror.