Bush, Democrats Clash Again Over Surveillance Law
By Dan Robinson
Washington
13 March 2008
Conflict continues between President Bush and Democrats in the House of Representatives over changes to U.S. foreign intelligence surveillance law. VOA's Dan Robinson reports from Capitol Hill, where the House is to debate legislation that President Bush says will harm U.S. security against possible new terrorist attacks.
House Republicans, backed by the White House, accuse Democrats of leaving critical loopholes in the ability of the intelligence community to conduct electronic surveillance.
Although the U.S. Senate approved, in a strong bipartisan vote, a measure granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted the government in electronic surveillance, House Democrats have resisted pressure to do the same saying the issue should be up to the courts to decide.
House-Senate negotiations to resolve the issue have been unsuccessful, and Republicans assailed House Democratic leaders for failing to act on the Senate's version of the measure before a two week recess to begin at the end of the week.
"The bill that is on the floor today endangers our national security and would outsource our national security decisions to un-elected judges [and] trial lawyers, instead of our intelligence officials," said John Boehner, the House Republican leader.
Democrats House speaker Nancy Pelosi fired back in a separate briefing for reporters. "When the president says that the legislation we are putting forth will not make America safer, the president is wrong. He knows full well that the existing FISA law gives him the authority he needs, [that] the administration needs, to collect [intelligence]," she said.
Democrats go some way to satisfy concerns, granting companies a legal avenue to mount a court defense of their cooperation with the once secret program approved by President Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
House and Senate measures are similar in that they would require a warrant for surveillance of U.S. citizens even if they are overseas.
Under the House measure a foreign intelligence court would issue a group of warrants for monitoring individuals who might be communicating through U.S.-based communications systems.
Republicans and President Bush insist on retroactive immunity, and the president lashed out at Democrats before the House began debate on Thursday. "Members of the House should not be deceived into thinking that voting for this unacceptable legislation would somehow move the process along. Voting for this bill does not move the process along. Instead voting for this bill would make our country less safe," he said.
The president described as a redundant and partisan exercise, a Democratic proposal to create a new commission, modeled on the independent panel that investigated the September 2001 al-Qaida attacks, to investigate how intelligence surveillance was conducted under the Bush administration.
Republicans proposed that Thursday's House debate on the Democratic measure be conducted in what is called a secret [closed] session because of the nature of the issues that would be discussed.
However, Speaker Pelosi questioned whether this would merely be an effort by Republicans to delay a floor vote on the Democratic measure.
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