House FISA Bill Picks Up Some Backers

[babylonsister]

House FISA Bill Picks Up Some Backers
By Tim Starks, CQ Staff


The House was nearing a vote on an electronic surveillance overhaul after a contentious day that featured the first secret session of the House in 25 years and furious efforts by Democratic leaders to round up caucus support for their plan.

Before the late-night secret session began Thursday, a number of the 21 conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats who had endorsed a competing Senate bill (HR 3773) and whose votes are crucial to the new House legislation’s fate appeared to be lining up behind Democratic leaders.

Ultimately, though, even the bill’s passage Friday would not resolve anytime soon what has been a grinding legislative slog for Democrats wrestling with a long-lasting overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511).

President Bush has vowed to veto the new House bill, giving it virtually no chance of passing in the Senate, although Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin , D-Ill., said Thursday that the chamber intends to take it up after the spring recess.

The biggest dispute is that the Senate bill would — as Bush has sought and congressional Republicans have insisted upon — grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged cooperation with the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. The House bill, in an attempt to address some of the companies’ concerns without granting them full immunity, would instead give them an avenue to present to judges classified material they view as necessary to their legal defense, but which is currently closed off by the Bush administration.

more...

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002687862

[ananda]

1. Remember that..

.. a couple of weeks ago Bush pressured
the telecoms into renewing their cooperation
in warrantless surveillance and wiretapping..

.. on the premise that Congress would eventually
cave and pass legislation legalizing it.

So it absolutely doesn't matter whether Congress
passes a FISA bill or not. Simply by delaying the
bill, they are caving.

[Robbien]

2. If Congress doesn't pass a FISA bill

then the telecos will eventually have to stop. Their agreement with the WH is that eventually they will be granted immunity by Congress. If it isn't forthcoming, there are forty court cases right now waiting in the wings ready to pounce on the telecos.

[sellitman]

3. Thanks for the good news. K&R

Dems with a backbone?

Who wudda thunk it?

[L. Coyote]

4. ***** OFFICIAL thread = House FISA amendment DEBATE = HR 3773 *****

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3007900

Conyers up now, doing a great job arguing the case.