WASHINGTON – House Democrats pushed their government eavesdropping bill through two committees Tuesday with only minor changes, setting the stage for a confrontation with the Bush administration.
President Bush said Wednesday that he will not sign the bill if it does not give retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that helped conduct electronic surveillance without court orders.
Bush said the bill, which envisions a greater role for a secret court in overseeing U.S. surveillance of overseas communications, would “take us backward” in efforts to thwart terrorism.
The measure advanced by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees left out the immunity provision Bush wants. Democrats also voted down Republican attempts to tailor the legislation more to the administration’s liking.
The committees even strengthened the bill slightly by establishing a new threshold for when the government has to seek a court order to listen in on American communications with foreigners. They also gave the secret court set up 30 years ago to oversee government surveillance a little more power to monitor intelligence agencies’ compliance with court orders.
Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the Intelligence panel, said Republicans had been left entirely out of the creation of the bill. It was delivered to them Monday, a federal holiday when few were working.
“This is a deeply flawed bill,” Hoekstra told reporters after the committees acted.
He and other GOP lawmakers said the bill gives too much power to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to oversee intelligence activities and will bog down intelligence agencies with administrative burdens. They charged that the measure extends constitutional protection to phone calls by terrorists overseas, takes rights away from telecommunications companies, and prohibits legitimate surveillance of other countries.
“We spy. America steals secrets from people who are not friendly to us,” said Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M.
Bush and the House Republicans want legislation that extends and strengthens a temporary eavesdropping bill passed in August.
Democrats, however, want to roll back some of the powers it granted the government to eavesdrop without warrants on suspected foreign terrorists.
Civil-liberties groups say the current law gives too much latitude to the administration and provides too little protection against government spying on Americans without oversight.
