Four prominent Democrats have resigned from the advisory board of a nonprofit tied to ads targeting Democratic representatives across the country, including New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea-Porter.

The ads, bought by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, concern a surveillance bill reauthorization that stalled on Capitol Hill earlier this month amid a dispute between the White House and House leadership. The White House wants to pass a broader Senate version of the law, which includes retroactive legal immunity for phone companies that aided the federal government's warrantless wiretapping program. House leaders are pushing for a more limited version, a stance Shea-Porter supports.

The ads flash a picture of Osama bin Laden and of the U.S. Capitol before an announcer says that after halting the bill, called the Protect America Act, the nation's terrorist surveillance has become "crippled." The New Hampshire ads then show a picture of Shea-Porter, a first-term Rochester Democrat, and urge viewers to call her office. According to records on file at WMUR, the group spent about $120,000 to air ads on the station from last week to this week, with the buy heavily concentrated on news shows.

One of the former advisory board members, Donna Brazile, condemned the ads in a statement, saying she hadn't heard from the group in years.

"I strongly condemn their misleading and reckless ad campaign," said Brazile, who managed Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000. "The organization is using fearmongering for political purposes, and worse, their scare tactics have the effect of emboldening terrorists and our enemies abroad by asserting our intelligence agencies are failing to do their job. I am deeply disappointed they would use my name, since no one has consulted me about the activities of the group in years."

Other Democrats who resigned from the board are New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Jim Marshall of Georgia and Eliot Engel of New York.

A spokesman for Defense of Democracies said the group and its ads are nonpartisan. Brian Wise said the ads have been tailored to 15 congressional districts, although he declined to say if any of those were Republican seats.

"I haven't looked at who's Republican and who's Democrat, because again, this is a policy issue for national security," Wise said.

Wise said the group has praised one of the Democrats targeted by the ad, Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly, for backing the surveillance bill.

In an interview earlier this week, Shea-Porter decried the advertising campaign as a "cynical attempt to terrify Americans" and said the government still has the ability to apply to a secret court for a wiretap, which can be done after the fact in cases of emergency.

Rep. Paul Hodes, a Concord Democrat, was not a target of the ads. The ads were bought by a nonprofit social welfare group that stemmed from Defense of Democracies. Wise speaks for both groups.