House Passes New Surveillance Bill, Sans Telecom Immunity

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 5:16 PM on March 14, 2008.

Well, I don’t imagine the White House is going to be pleased.

A deeply divided House approved its latest version of terrorist surveillance legislation today, rebuffing President Bush’s demand for a bill that would grant telecommunications firms retroactive immunity for cooperation in past warrantless wiretapping and deepening the impasse on a fundamental national security issue.

Congress then defiantly left Washington for a two-week spring break.

The legislation, approved 213-197, would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to expand the powers of intelligence agencies and keep pace with ever-changing communications technologies.

But it challenges the Bush administration on a number of fronts, by restoring the power of the federal courts to approve wiretapping warrants, authorizing federal inspectors general to investigate the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance efforts, and establishing a bipartisan commission to examine the activities of intelligence agencies in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

And, of course, the legislation passed without retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program. As the WaPo explained, “Instead of granting them immunity, as the Senate has, the House measure would send the issue to a secure federal court and grant the telecommunications companies the right to argue their case before a judge with information the administration has deemed to be state secrets.”

This was all very encouraging — and a welcome example of congressional Democrats standing up to Bush on a matter of national security, Republican demagoguery notwithstanding.

What happens now? Paul Kiel offers a lay of the land.

As for what’s next, it’s over to the Senate where it’s sure to undergo some modifications. In a statement earlier this week, Senate intelligence committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said that “considerable work remains” on reconciling the House’s latest version and the Senate version. Rockefeller said he’s willing to adopt a number of the House’s provisions, including a much shorter sunset (2 years) on the law, but notably omitted the topic of immunity. Rockefeller supports blanket immunity for the telecoms.

The Senate is certainly a different place. Today, 12 House Dems voted against a bill that does not contain retroactive immunity (and some of those were from liberals like Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Last month in the Senate, 18 Dems voted against an attempt to strip retroactive immunity from the Senate bill.

If you’re interested, here’s the roll call.

The Speaker’s happy; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is happy; the ACLU’s happy; and EFF is happy. This is so much better than the outcome I expected as recently as a few weeks ago, it’s hard to measure.

Not a bad day on Capitol Hill; kudos all around.

Tagged as: bush, bush administration, reid, fisa, democratic congress, warrantless wiretapping, telecom immunity

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.