WASHINGTON — President Bush, at loggerheads with House Democrats over how closely the government can eavesdrop on U.S. citizens, warned Wednesday that terrorists were planning fresh assaults that would make the Sept. 11 attacks “pale by comparison.”
Bush called on the image of planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 2001 as he pressured lawmakers to rewrite the intelligence rules governing how phone calls and e-mails are monitored for terrorist activity. Democrats and others fear the changes Bush and his Republican allies support would unduly encroach on civil liberties.
The House is considering the Senate version of the bill Bush favors, one that includes retroactive protection from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with government eavesdropping after 9/11. The House bill provides no telecom immunity.
Rather than wait for the House and Senate to negotiate differences in their versions of the legislation, Bush wants a rubber-stamp of the Senate bill so he can sign it into law immediately. The current law expires at midnight Saturday, and Bush said he wouldn’t approve another extension. The House wouldn’t either — a 229-191 vote rejected a 21-day extension.
While giving the White House what it wanted on immunity for the phone companies, the Senate also expanded the power of the court to oversee government eavesdropping on Americans. An amendment would give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court the authority to monitor whether the government is complying with procedures designed to protect the privacy of innocent Americans whose phone or computer communications are captured during surveillance of a foreign target. The Senate bill would also require FISA court orders to eavesdrop on Americans who are overseas.
Expiration of the current Protect America Act would not mean an immediate end to wiretapping. Existing surveillance could continue under the law for a year from when it began — at least until August.
