House Tackles Surveillance Law

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee began tackling legislation Wednesday that temporarily gives the Bush administration expanded authority to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and e-mails of Americans without a warrant.

At issue is legislation that Congress passed in haste just before the August recess without public hearings. The White House pushed the measure, saying it would help thwart an impending terrorist attack. Administration officials said it would also close loopholes in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires spy agencies to obtain a warrant from a secret court before they can conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies in America.

The new legislation, set to expire in February, must be fixed to protect civil liberties, said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the Judiciary panel. Conyers wants to craft a new bill that would guarantee court oversight.

The legislation passed by Congress just before recess is a mistake, Conyers said, because it gives the attorney general "largely unfettered authority to conduct surveillance on American citizens engaged in communications abroad."

But Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the panel's ranking member, said Congress did the right thing by making the changes sought by the Bush administration.

"We are a nation at war with foreign terrorists who are continuing to plot deadly attacks," Smith said. "It is essential that our intelligence agencies have the necessary tools to detect and disrupt such attacks."

Former Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr opposes his conservative brethren. Barr, now chairman of Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, told the committee that the administration's new surveillance powers undermine the public's right to have private phone calls. The changes create a "brave new world" of electronic surveillance, he said.

The new law makes it possible for the administration to order the "surreptitious interception and surveillance of virtually any electronic communication, including phone calls and e-mails, from or to any person in the United States," Barr said.

That was music to most Democrats' ears. After Barr's testimony, Conyers took the unusual action of interrupting the next speaker to allow Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., have the floor.

Rather than talk about the legislation, Johnson praised Barr.

"I deeply respect his patriotism," Johnson said. The two haven't always agreed on every issue in the past, Johnson said, but Barr has done "great work" for the people of Georgia.

The controversy surrounding the new surveillance powers is detracting from what is needed to fight the war against terrorists, said Robert F. Turner, founder of the center for national security law at University of Virginia.

The president has the right to expand surveillance of enemies during a time of war, Turner said. "Not all presidential decisions were intended by the Constitution to be "checked" by Congress or the courts," Turner said.

At the core of presidential powers are diplomacy, the collection of foreign intelligence and the command of military forces, Turner said.

"A decision by the president to ignore FISA would not involve a usurpation of power," Turner said. The president would be reclaiming authority that the Founding Fathers said he should have.

But Morton H. Halperin, once the subject of a government wire tap during the Nixon administration, told the panel that he is troubled by what he sees as the excessive authority that Congress granted the executive branch to spy on Americans.

The legislation prevents the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from having "any meaningful role in permitting the surveillance to go forward," said Halperin, the director of U.S. advocacy at the Open Society Institute, a non-profit group.

The court provided assurance to the public that civil liberties were being preserved while giving the intelligence agencies the surveillance power to hunt terrorists and spies in America, Halperin said.

The new changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act fail to provide clear guidance on how to conduct oversight, said Suzanne Spaulding, who has worked at the CIA and the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

"It is also clear that the failure of the administration to follow the law or take advantage of our system of checks and balances in its implementation of the terrorist surveillance program and other related intelligence activities, had significant negative consequences for our national security," Spaulding said.

On the Web:

The House Judiciary Committee: judiciary.house.gov