JEFFERSON CITY - Claire McCaskill continues to avoid addressing whether she supports a federal ruling against terrorist surveillance despite contradictory statements designed to mislead Missourians about her opposition to the anti-terrorist program.

While Sen. Jim Talent has said the federal court ruling in Michigan, if allowed to stand, “would harm the security of the United States and the American people,” McCaskill has failed to address the issue just weeks after a terrorist plot to blow up intercontinental flights was foiled in part because of such surveillance.

A Kansas City Star report on January 25 found that “McCaskill said President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program broke the law.” And this past weekend, McCaskill told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “that she supports the National Security Agency program using warrantless wiretaps but that the law needs to be changed to explicitly allow it and provide for some oversight.” But on August 21, McCaskill told The Associated Press that recent terrorist arrests in Britain require a “new commitment to worldwide intelligence.”

“Claire McCaskill has clearly said it is illegal to listen in on the telephone conversations of terrorists who want to kill Americans but in recent weeks she has become increasingly evasive about where she stands on the federal ruling against terrorist surveillance. Either she supports the federal ruling or she doesn’t,” said Paul Sloca, communications director for the Missouri Republican Party. “Claire McCaskill is desperate to hide her opposition to terrorist surveillance and her silence on the federal ruling confirms that opposition.”