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Monday, January 28, 2008

Democrats kill Republican attempt to vote on FISA bill

By Rebecca Carr | Monday, January 28, 2008, 05:14 PM

A majority of Democratic senators killed a Republican motion Monday that would have forced a vote on legislation that overhauls the nation’s electronic surveillance rules.

The 48 to 45 vote put Democrats in the odd position of opposing a vote on a bill supported by Democratic leaders and authored by fellow Democrat-Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Va., chairman of the intelligence panel.

Rockefeller and most Democrats said they opposed the Republican motion because it would have prevented a full airing of Democratic amendments to the controversial bill.

“The FISA legislation before the Senate has been taken hostage,” said Rockefeller in a floor speech urging Democrats to vote against ending debate and 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.”

A temporary measure providing expanded wiretapping authority approved last August is scheduled to expire on Friday. The Senate voted 48 to 45 to reject an effort to extend that measure.

The bill, co-authored by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., cleared the Senate panel last fall by a wide, 13-2 vote. It would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which forces law enforcement agencies to obtain a court warrant before eavesdropping on suspected terrorists and spies.

The next step is uncertain. Civil liberties groups, which lobbied hard to prevent the bill come to the floor, said one option is to do nothing and force the administration to revert back to the original 1978 law.

The proposed law is controversial because it essentially makes permanent President Bush’s program that secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists without a court warrant as required under the law.

The bill also contains a provision, sought by the White House, that would give telephone companies legal protection from dozens of lawsuits now pending against the telcom industry for participating in the president’s terrorist surveillance program without a court warrant.

Republicans, just hours before President Bush was to address the nation in his annual State of the Union speech, portrayed Democrats as being weak on terrorists for failing to end debate and vote on the Rockefeller-Bond measure.

Prior to congressional action in August, the nation’s intelligence agencies were unable to collect vital foreign intelligence without the prior approval of a court, said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, speaking on the floor.

“This will be the case again if we do not make permanent these changes,” Chambliss said. “Our intelligence community told us that without updating FISA, they were not just handicapped, but that they were hamstrung.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, urged Democrats to vote with Republicans to end debate and vote on the intelligence committee bill. It is time to support a bipartisan bill, Cornyn said, and give the intelligence community the tools they need to thwart future terrorist attacks.

“Now is the time for Congress to decide this question. No more excuses. No more delays. No more extensions,” Cornyn said. “The Senate can and should choose a path forward immediately-a bipartisan path on a critical national security bill.”

The cloture vote was headed off by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups concerned about the administration bypassing the surveillance law.

“This vote will finally shows that the Democrats are capable of standing up against the Bush administration’s rush to legalize his warrantless wiretapping program,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington field office.

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