December 17, 2007

Senate Takes Up FISA Revisions Without Immunity Deal

The Senate today voted 76-10 today to begin debate on legislation that would limit the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance activities, as lawmakers and aides scrambled behind the scenes to prepare amendments and find common ground on several controversial issues.

The Senate agreed to take up a bill approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee that would overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with plans to consider a competing bill backed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as a floor amendment. Significantly, the Intelligence panel's measure would give telecommunications companies retroactive legal immunity for helping the Bush administration engage in electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens without warrants dating back to September 2001. The Judiciary bill does not include any protections for the phone carriers, who face about 40 civil lawsuits.

The unsuccessful effort to prevent the Senate from beginning debate on the Intelligence Committee's version came primarily from Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

"The bill is deeply flawed and I am very disappointed by the decision to take it up on the floor rather than the better bill reported by the Judiciary Committee," Feingold said. Feingold also charged Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell with conveying false information to senators last week during a closed briefing on FISA.

Intelligence Committee ranking member Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., called his committee's measure "an extremely delicate arrangement of compromises" that "won't become law" if many changes are made to it. He noted that a temporary law to overhaul FISA expires in February, creating a tight time frame to reach a conference agreement with the House on a final bill. The White House supports the Senate Intelligence measure and has threatened to veto a competing bill pushed through by House Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he expected several amendments to the bill to be debated and hoped to seek a final vote Tuesday.

Senators and their aides were locked today in behind-the-scenes negotiations on several amendments. On Friday, both Reid and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. -- a critic of the immunity provision -- indicated that talks were under way to craft a possible compromise that could offer the telecommunications firms some liability protection but not blanket immunity. There were no indications today of progress, however. Bond and Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., also said today that they were trying to reach agreement on two issues, which would then be incorporated into a manager's amendment.

An aide said one issue focused on making changes to language in the Intelligence panel's version of the measure that would require the Bush administration to get a court warrant in order to conduct surveillance against a U.S. resident traveling or living abroad. The other issue focused on softening a requirement under which the Bush administration would have to keep records and report to Congress every time the communications of a U.S. resident were intercepted. Republicans want to allow the administration to discard records that are irrelevant to terrorism investigations.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he would make some changes to the Judiciary measure and then offer it as an amendment. Dodd said he would offer an amendment to strike language giving the telecommunications companies retroactive legal immunity. For his part, Rockefeller said he would join forces with Leahy to push language requiring all provisions in the FISA bill to expire in four years. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., offered an amendment under which the secret FISA court would determine whether the telecommunications companies should be protected from lawsuits.

Should companies be excused from the lawsuits, court cases would proceed against the government. In a related matter, Reid sent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a letter Sunday asking for every senator to be given access to key legal documents concerning the telecommunications companies' role in warrantless spying activities.

-Chris Strohm, CongressDaily

Posted at 3:50 PM
Posted to: Congress, Senate, Terrorism
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