WASHINGTON, Jan. 18: The Bush administration will now allow a secret court to supervise its contentious domestic spying programme that permits authorities to put US citizens under surveillance without warrants.

The move – announced by Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee – is interpreted in Washington as a concession to human rights activists and lawmakers who want the administration to stop spying on US citizens without permission from a court.

The administration had earlier insisted that the programme, introduced secretly after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, would continue without any changes.

Now the secret court that administers the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will also oversee eavesdropping on telephone calls and emails to and from the US.

Such communications will be monitored if “there is probable cause to believe” that one of the targets is a member of Al Qaeda or an associated terrorist group, Mr Gonzales said.

Under the previous approach, such intercepts were authorised by intelligence officers without the involvement of any court or judge — prompting objections from privacy advocates and many Democrats that the programme was illegal.

The Bush administration had been attempting to get congressional authority for the National Security Agency’s warrant-less eavesdropping, but the chances of that happening in a Democratic Congress are considered slim. And legal challenges to the programme are working their way through the courts.

On Jan 10, the secret tribunal, known as the FISA court after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that created it, issued orders dealing with secret surveillance.

US officials refused to divulge details of the orders but a senior Justice Department official told reporters that the court did not grant blanket approval to the programme, indicating that officials would continue to have to establish probable cause of individual links to terrorism, at least in some cases. The surveillance orders are good for 90 days and can be renewed.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the new procedures culminated a nearly two-year process begun in spring 2005, and that the shift was not in response to court action or legislation.