Bob Egelko, December 12, 2007, San Francisco Chronicle

The Bush administration's top intelligence official, responding to a court order, reported Tuesday that his office had located only one document showing lobbying contacts with telecommunications companies about a pending surveillance bill - notes of a phone conversation that were too sensitive to release.

The records were sought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents customers in a lawsuit filed against AT&T in federal court in San Francisco. The suit accuses the company of illegally giving a federal agency access to phone calls, e-mails and customer databases for the government's program of monitoring communications between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists.

President Bush, who ordered the surveillance six years ago without congressional or court approval, has demanded that Congress protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits for their alleged collaboration with the program. He says companies should not be exposed to potentially ruinous damage awards for cooperating in an effort to enhance national security.

Lawmakers are scheduled to vote this month on Bush's proposal, which would scuttle the AT&T lawsuit and dozens of others pending before U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco.

Arguing that the public should learn about company lobbying before the vote, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request Aug. 31, seeking records of contacts between the office of National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell, telecommunications companies and members of Congress.

When McConnell's office said it couldn't review the records before the end of the year, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered a response by Dec. 10.

On Tuesday, the office produced hundreds of pages of documents on exchanges with Congress, some of them blacked out, but said it had found just one record of a contact with a telecommunications company.

"This document is a telephone message slip that contains the handwritten personal notes and mental impressions of an (office) employee," John Hackett, information management director for McConnell's office, said in a legal filing.

He said the document was being withheld because it is not an official record and because it is legally exempt from disclosure for a variety of reasons, including the need to protect classified information and personal privacy.

Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the government will have to give Illston a fuller description of the document and the reasons for nondisclosure, probably after the congressional vote.

"We certainly had hoped to see more and we're surprised that they didn't locate more," Hofmann said. "It certainly raises questions about whether the search was comprehensive enough."