Senate grapples with spy bill
GOP bid to stop debate fails; deadline looms
WASHINGTON - The Senate yesterday left the fate of a new electronic surveillance law uncertain as a Republican-led effort to cut off a Democrat-led debate and proceed to a vote on the White House-backed bill failed, mostly along party lines.
Heightening the drama surrounding expiration of the existing surveillance law at midnight Thursday, the Senate also failed to approve a Democratic effort to extend the deadline by 30 days - a move that the White House has opposed because the law already was extended last summer for a six-month run.
Congress broadly supports passing a new version of the controversial legislation at issue, named the Protect America Act by its sponsors. But congressional Democrats and the White House are battling over President Bush's demands that any bill include immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with intelligence agencies in warrantless wiretaps after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The telecommunications companies are now the targets of dozens of lawsuits alleging that they violated privacy rights by aiding the government's surveillance.
The Democrat-led House has already passed a version without an immunity provision, while in the Senate at least a dozen Democrats have joined Republicans in endorsing a bill that includes immunity. Those Democrats, led by Senator John Rockefeller of West Virginia, chairman of the intelligence committee, say they want to allow more amendments to be debated and considered.
"I regret the games that are being played by both sides," Rockefeller said during floor debate. He pleaded for Bush to accept a 30-day extension of the bill instead of the brinksmanship of letting the law expire. "The White House has decided to exercise its own form of political terrorism."
But Republicans rejected the notion of considering additional Democratic amendments, calling them "poison pills" that would just draw Bush's veto. "We are flirting with disaster," said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky.
The Republican-led vote to end debate needed 60 votes to pass. But just 44 Republicans and four Democrats voted for the measure, while 44 Democrats and one Republican voted no. The Democratic push for a 30-day extension, also needing 60 votes, received just 48 votes, all from Democrats.
One potential remedy being considered to end the gridlock would be an even shorter-term extension, a two-week version that would expire in mid-February, senior aides said. Members of the House are poised today to approve a 30-day extension of the Protect America Act, then leave town tomorrow morning for a three-day retreat in Williamsburg, Va.
McConnell has agreed to the short-term extension, if necessary, as Republicans continue to seek legal immunity for the telephone companies, Reuters reported.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, suggested that the law be extended a month or more, perhaps even into the middle of next year, when there will be a new president, to give time to resolve differences.
"There is no reason to vote against an extension - or for the president to veto one - except for political posturing," Reid said.
In rejecting the Republican motion seeking to end debate, most Democrats said the motion would have prevented a full airing of Democratic amendments to the bill.
Rockefeller urged Democrats to vote against bringing his bill up for a vote. "In a transparent attempt to score political points off of national security issues, the White House has decided once again that scaring the American people with unfounded and manipulative claims is in order," he said.
The surveillance bill, co-written with Senator Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri, cleared the Senate panel last fall by a 13-to-2 vote. It seeks to reauthorize the 2007 Protect America Act, which is an update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under FISA, law enforcement agencies were required to obtain a court warrant before eavesdropping.
The bill is controversial because it essentially makes permanent Bush's program that secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and e-mails without a court warrant.
Civil liberties groups, which lobbied to keep the bill from coming to the floor, said one option is to revert to the original law, forcing intelligence agencies to gain approval from the FISA court each time they want to conduct electronic surveillance.
Democrats said existing electronic surveillance cases could continue for a year without new authorization, but any new case would require intelligence gatherers to follow the old FISA rules.
Just hours before President Bush was to deliver his annual State of the Union speech, Republicans portrayed Democrats as being weak on terrorists for failing to end debate and vote on the Rockefeller-Bond measure.
"Our intelligence community told us that without updating FISA, they were not just handicapped, but that they were hamstrung," said Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Time is running out."
Material from Cox News Service was included in this report. 