WASHINGTON, May 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wants to interview top members of Congress from both parties about the leak to The New York Times concerning the National Security Agency's (NSA) domestic surveillance program, CNN reported Thursday.

    The CNN report, citing sources, said it was not clear if lawmakers had been interviewed yet.

    The New York Times in December reported the existence of the domestic surveillance program, by which the NSA monitors phone calls between the United States and overseas without a court warrant so long as one party is a terror suspect.

    The program was authorized by President George W. Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and only a few members of the House and Senate were briefed on the program before it became public.

    After the disclosure by The New York Times, Bush acknowledged that he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop, without court warrants, on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the United States.

    Earlier this week, the USA Today newspaper reported that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the NSA has also been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of ordinary Americans, most of whom aren't suspected of any crime, using data provided by three major telecommunication companies.

    A law, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without warrants issued by a secret court. Enditem