At the same time, Liz Cheney accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats of seeking to politicize lingering arguments over how the Bush administration conducted the war against terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Asked directly on MSNBC whether her father directed the CIA not to keep Congress fully informed about the secret program, Cheney said, "This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs."

An official with direct knowledge of the program had said earlier that CIA Director Leon Panetta, according to notes he'd been given in the early months of the program, Cheney had told the CIA not to inform Congress of the specifics of the effort. Panetta canceled the program on June 23. Officials have said the program was aimed at going after officials of the terrorist network individually rather than through air attacks in an effort to limit civilian casualties.

Liz Cheney, a former principal deputy secretary of state for Mideast affairs during George W. Bush's presidency, is helping her father write his memoirs. She aggressively defended him in Tuesday's nationally broadcast interview while declining to say point-blank whether he had violated any law or rule.

Orion G. Callison, III has opened The Callison Law Firm P.A. in Miami, Florida. The firm's practice will primarily focus on commercial litigation, labor and employment law, and education law. Mr. Callison is a 1988 graduate of Columbia University School of Law, where he was a member of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1985, with highest honors. The firm has a website at www.callisonlawfirm.com.

But there may be multiple motives and more arrests are possible after three men were jailed Sunday, two of them on murder charges in the shooting deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings at their sprawling home near Pensacola, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said.

"It began as what we thought was a home invasion. At this point because of the complexity and the ties this family had through the business community, we're moving many other directions. Could be money, could be a whole host of things," Morgan said on the NBC "Today" show.

Morgan also cited the family's business ties in an interview on the CBS "Early Show" but declined to be more specific and said investigators are working on "multiple motives."

Three men have been arrested in connection with the slaying and were expected to have court appearances as early as Monday. Court officials Monday morning could not immediately confirm dates or times.

A Grand Beach police officer got a call before 7 a.m. that a private security guard for Daley was holding convicted killer Charles Smith at gunpoint in a home's driveway near the mayor's vacation house in the town about eight miles from the prison, said Grand Beach Police Chief Dan Schroeder.

Schroeder said another inmate had been spotted in Grand Beach, but he didn't know which one or who saw him.

Authorities were still searching for convicted murderer Mark Booher, 46, of New Castle, and convicted rapist Lance Battreal, 45, of Rockport.

It was not immediately clear whether Daley was at the house when Smith taken into custody and Schroeder did not have any more information about Smith's capture.

The Associated Press left a message at the house where Smith was captured in the driveway.

Indiana Department of Correction officials said the men were discovered missing about 10 a.m. Sunday. The three escaped by getting past bars in the tunnels and pipe chases under the grounds of the maximum-security prison in Michigan City, Ind., said Department spokesman Doug Garrison.

Two of the inmates did maintenance work in the prison's tunnel system as part of supervised work crews. Garrison said he wasn't sure which two had done the work.

The three men were in the same housing unit but it's unclear how they knew each other, Garrison said. Prison officials were talking to people who knew the inmates, including people on their visitation or e-mail lists and family and friends.

Smith, Booher and Battreal started serving time in the late 1990s and all faced at least 30 more years behind bars.

"I've always preferred my idea of a commission of inquiry to look at all these issues," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Sunday.

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., head of the intelligence committee, suggested that the George W. Bush administration broke the law by concealing a CIA counterterrorism program from Congress.

The Wall Street Journal, anonymously citing former intelligence officials, reported Monday the secret program was a plan to kill or capture al-Qaida operatives.

The Journal's sources said the plan, which was halted by CIA Director Leon Panetta, was an attempt to carry out a presidential finding authorized in 2001 by President George W. Bush.

The Journal said the agency spent money on planning and maybe some training, but it never became fully operational. The plan was highly classified and the CIA has refused to comment on it.

The assertion that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the program kept secret from Congress came amid word that Attorney General Eric Holder is contemplating opening a criminal probe of possible CIA torture.

The Senate Judiciary Committee opened the historic confirmation hearing for Sonia Sotomayor, the first nominee to the Supreme Court by a Democratic president in 15 years, at 9:58 a.m. today with Democratic and Republican senators beginning to frame the debate over her nomination.

In a packed hearing room of the Hart Senate Office Building, Sotomayor, 55, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, made her first public appearance since President Obama on May 26 chose her to fill his first vacancy on the nation's highest court. Five minutes before the hearing began, Sotomayor wore a broad smile and a royal blue suit as she walked into the paneled room, accompanied by the committee's chairman,  Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)

Moments before the Senators began their opening statements that are to occupy most of the hearing's first day, Leahy invited the nominee to introduce her family members occupying the room's front rows. "If I introduced everyone who was family-like," Sotomayor replied, "we'd be here all morning."

The Democrats picked the bouffant-haired Hatoyama to replace his scandal-hit predecessor in a May leadership race, seeing him as best able to hold the sometimes fractious party together.

He was not, however, the most popular candidate with the public, who saw him as being under the shadow of previous party leader Ichiro Ozawa.

Hatoyama attracts more support than Prime Minister Taro Aso in opinion polls, but many voters say they see neither as suitable to be premier.

"His best quality is that he's not Aso," said Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus. "He's a bit of a cipher. He's prominent, but he doesn't leave a strong impression."

Aso, the grandson of a former prime minister, has been criticized as out of touch with ordinary Japanese because of his wealthy background.

But Hatoyama, a Stanford University PhD once nicknamed "the alien" for his prominent eyes, hails from an even wealthier family of industrialists and politicians. His mother's father founded Bridgestone Corp, one of the world's largest tire makers.