Washington ? The Bush administration briefed top lawmakers on a significant intelligence program only after a key Republican committee chairman angrily complained of being left in the dark, the chairman said Sunday.

House intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., would not describe the program, but said it was significant enough that the administration should have briefed him and others voluntarily, without waiting for them to learn of it through government tipsters.

“There was at least one major – what I consider significant – activity that we had not been briefed on that we have now been briefed on,” Hoekstra said on Fox News Sunday. “Some people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right.”

Hoekstra said the briefings took place after he complained in a May 18 letter to President Bush of hearing about “alleged Intelligence Community activities” not described to committee members in classified briefings. “If these allegations are true,” he wrote Bush, “they may represent a breach of responsibility by the Administration, a violation of law and … a direct affront to me and the Members of this committee.”

Sunday, Hoekstra appeared mollified. But he said he still believes the administration falls short of its legal obligations to brief key congressional members on significant intelligence operations.

“I wanted to reinforce to the president and to the executive branch and the intelligence community how important, and by law the requirement, that they keep the legislative branch informed of what they are doing,” he told Fox News. “It is not optional for this president or any president or people in the executive community not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing.”

Numerous Democrats and civil liberties groups have alleged that the administration ignores laws involving due process and congressional notification in conducting surveillance and intelligence programs.