Congress legitimizes warrantless spying on Americans

A White House-backed spy bill to protect telecommunication companies from billions of dollars in possible privacy lawsuits passed a Senate test vote on June 25 and headed toward final congressional approval. On a vote of 80-15, mostly Republican supporters of the bipartisan measure, which would also implement the most sweeping overhaul of US spy laws in decades, easily mustered the 60 needed to clear a Democratic procedural roadblock. Overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives on June 20, the bill may win needed Senate concurrence before Congress begins a holiday break the end of this week. President Bush has promised to sign the measure, which would replace a temporary surveillance law that had expired in February. The deal, expanding the government's powers to spy on terrorism suspects in some major respects, would strengthen the ability of intelligence officials to eavesdrop on foreign targets. It would also allow them to conduct emergency wiretaps without court orders on American targets for a week if it is determined that important national security information would otherwise be lost. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, called the bill "a fig leaf," and one that "abandons the Constitution's protections and insulates lawless behavior from legal scrutiny." "This bill is not a compromise. It is a capitulation," said Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat. Feingold has offered an amendment to strip out protection for telecommunication companies. But both Democrats and Republicans predict the amendment will be rejected. The bill would protect companies that participated in the warrantless domestic spying program Bush secretly began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. About 40 lawsuits have been filed accusing AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp of violating Americans' privacy rights. Damages could total in the billions of dollars. While the House-passed bill would not provide the retroactive immunity Bush had demanded, it would enable a federal district court to dismiss a suit if written certification is presented that the administration assured the companies that the program was legal. Such assurances were provided. "The lawsuits will be dismissed," Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House, predicted with confidence. But critics charge that Bush, in implementing the program, violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that requires secret-court approval to electronically track any foreign target in the United States. Such an effort can sweep up law-abiding Americans communicating with foreigners. Bush maintains he had the wartime power to authorize the program. But he put it under FISA jurisdiction in January 2007. Terms remain secret. The proposal–particularly the immunity provision–represents a major victory for the White House after months of dispute. "I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get," said Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, who led the negotiations. Democrats control the House and Senate. The bill was supported by 188 Republicans and 105 Democrats in the House, while 128 Democrats and a single Republican voted against it. The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage. Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office said: "It's Christmas morning at the White House thanks to this vote. The House just wrapped up some expensive gifts for the administration and their buddies at the phone companies. In March we thought the House leadership had finally grown a backbone by rejecting the Senate's FISA bill. Now we know they will not stand up for the Constitution. "No matter how often the opposition calls this bill a 'compromise,' it is not a meaningful compromise, except of our constitutional rights. The bill allows for mass, untargeted and unwarranted surveillance of all communications coming in to and out of the United States. The courts' role is superficial at best, as the government can continue spying on our communications even after the FISA court has objected. Democratic leaders turned what should have been an easy FISA fix into the wholesale giveaway of our Fourth Amendment rights." Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced his support for the sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign. "Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program," Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129. This marks something of a reversal of Obama's position from an earlier version of the bill, which was approved by the Senate Feb. 12, when Obama was locked in a fight for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries," but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with [Christopher] Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty." Telecom Donations to Congress Noted After the House Democrats joined Republicans last week to reauthorize the controversial White House spying program, many critics attributed that support to election-year jitters. But as liberal voters continue to bash Democrats on the issue, some campaign finance reformers charge that political contributions from the telecom industry, which benefited handsomely under the bill, probably also swayed votes. In an analysis released on June 24, Maplight.org, a nonprofit campaign finance watchdog group, found that lawmakers voting in support of the wiretap deal averaged roughly twice the donations from the nation's leading telecoms -- Verizon, Sprint and AT&T -- over the last three years as those voting against it. The figures might not have raised eyebrows except that the proposal contained a gift for the industry, effectively granting retroactive legal immunity to the telecoms that enabled the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program. The immunity provision -- blasted by civil libertarians for putting industry concerns above Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure -- rescues the companies from the roughly 40 lawsuits pending against them. Some money-in-politics watchdogs say the connection between the contributions and votes is no accident. Maplight's analysis, crunched using contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics, found that the 293 House members voting last week in favor of the wiretapping compromise received, on average, more than double the amount of money as those who voted against it. They got $9,659 from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint between January 2005 and March 2008, while those voting against got $4,810. But some campaign finance experts warned against linking campaign donations to votes. "It's way too simplistic just to look at money given to a candidate and claim it's affected a particular vote," said Richard L. Hasen, an election specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "It's something that's often alleged, but much harder to prove." "There does seem to be a correlation between telecom money and the way people voted," Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, said, "but as in all cases when you're following the money, causation is nearly impossible to establish."