WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Judiciary Committee punted on Thursday over whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly helping the government eavesdrop on Americans.
That decision — the main sticking point in a rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — will be left to the full Senate. The FISA law dictates when the government must obtain court permission to conduct electronic eavesdropping, and President Bush has promised to veto any rewrite that does not provide legal immunity to telecom companies. Bush argues that the lawsuits could bankrupt the companies and reveal classified information.
About 40 civil lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies alleging they broke wiretapping and privacy laws.
The Senate panel rejected, 11-8, an attempt to strip the immunity provision out of the bill.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said granting immunity would give the Bush administration a "blank check" to do what it wants without regard to the law. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's top Republican, also is leery of full immunity. He says court cases may be the only way Congress can learn exactly how far outside the law the administration has gone in eavesdropping in the United States.
When the full Senate takes up the bill, Specter is likely to offer a compromise that would shield the companies from financial ruin but allow lawsuits to go forward by having the federal government stand in for the companies at trial.
The House, meanwhile, prepared to vote on a Democratic surveillance bill that would expand court oversight of government surveillance inside the United States while denying immunity to telecom companies.
It was the chamber's second attempt in a month to pass an eavesdropping bill, and Democrats hoped small changes made since the first attempt would hold their party's slim House majority together. Last month, House Republicans used a procedural maneuver to force the withdrawal of a similar bill just before a vote.
Opponents attacked it from both sides_ some argued it encroached on American privacy on one hand, while others said privacy safeguards in the bill would tie up intelligence agents in unnecessary red tape.
The House bill would allow unfettered telephone and e-mail surveillance of foreign intelligence targets but would require special authorization if the foreign targets are likely to be in contact with people inside the United States — a provision designed to safeguard Americans' privacy.
The special authorization is called a "blanket warrant" and would let the government obtain a single order authorizing the surveillance of multiple targets.
Republican critics say even blanket warrants would impede intelligence agents by slowing their ability to collect intelligence on terrorist suspects.
The White House says the surveillance law must be updated because of changes in technology that mean many more international communications now flow through the United States.
Like the House bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee's bill would prohibit future presidents from conducting electronic surveillance outside the procedures established by FISA. This so-called exclusivity provision would undermine President Bush's claim that Congress' approval of the use of military force after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was all the approval he needed to bypass FISA and eavesdrop inside the United States without court approval.
The White House also opposes the exclusivity provision, saying it encroaches on the president's constitutional powers.
The Judiciary bill also prohibits the wholesale interception of foreign communications, requiring that the government must specify its targets.
