August 06, 2007
Bush Signs Wiretap Bill As Congress Adjourns For August
Congress worked through the weekend, finishing up a spate of bills leaders had hoped to pass before leaving town for the August recess while shelving some contentious issues until after Labor Day.
Yesterday, President Bush signed into law a counterterrorism bill expanding intelligence agencies' authority to wiretap Americans' international phone and e-mail correspondences. The law was designed to clarify the legal framework for electronic surveillance after a controversial National Security Agency program that operated outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was exposed.
The New York Times has details on the bill, and the White House Web site has Bush's statement on its passage.
The House also passed a $459.6 billion appropriations bill for the Defense Department around 1 a.m. yesterday morning, minus the president's 2008 funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sent a $250 million authorization bill for the replacement of Minneapolis' collapsed Interstate 35W bridge to the White House.
See Sunday's special edition of CongressDailyPM (subscription) for more details.
