House vote expected on spy bill

Defying the Bush administration, the House is expected to vote today on legislation that would expand the government’s wiretapping authority but stop short of giving telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits for helping U.S. spy agencies.

The planned vote represents the latest in a series of showdowns between congressional Democrats and President Bush over a controversial espionage operation that involves monitoring international e-mail and telephone traffic that travels through networks in the United States.

Underscoring the stakes surrounding the issue, the Bush administration threatened Wednesday to veto the legislation. The threat was contained in a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) from Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell and Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey.

The letter said the new House draft contains “unworkable provisions” and includes provisions that are “drastically different” from previous legislative attempts. The bill fails to give U.S. spy agencies the tools they need, and “the president will veto the bill,” the two wrote.

The House bill would give phone companies legal protection for cooperating with the government on ongoing intelligence activities. But it would not shield AT&T;, Verizon and others from dozens of lawsuits they are already facing for giving the government access to their networks under a secret warrantless wiretapping operation authorized by Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The carriers have complained that they are hamstrung in their ability to fend off the lawsuits because the Bush administration has asserted that the instructions it gave the companies are classified and cannot be shared in open court.

In response, the latest House bill would give the companies the ability to go before a special court to present evidence that senior Bush administration officials led them to believe that their cooperation in the espionage program was both required and lawful.

The House bill also would create a congressional commission to investigate the warrantless wiretapping program, which was kept secret from all but a handful of members of Congress until it was exposed publicly in December 2005.

As part of that program, the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on electronic communications around the world, tapped into data networks based in the United States, intercepting e-mails and phone calls, in some cases of U.S. citizens.

Many lawmakers have said that program ran afoul of a 1978 law that banned the NSA from spying on Americans and have argued that it would be improper to shield giant telecommunications companies from liability for participating in a potentially illegal espionage operation.

The conflict over that issue has repeatedly stalled congressional efforts to update the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

Congress passed a temporary overhaul of FISA last year, but it expired last month. The Senate already has passed a new bill that includes immunity for phone companies, which has been endorsed by the White House. But House Democrats have been more adamant in their opposition to the liability provision.

This week, McConnell and the Department of Justice issued a statement saying that because of its treatment of the liability issue and other provisions, the House bill “would not provide the intelligence community the critical tools needed to protect the country.”

The House bill also would give a special FISA court greater authority to oversee the NSA’s operations than the Senate bill would, including a provision that would require the government to obtain prior approval of NSA procedures, rather than submitting those procedures to the court for review after eavesdropping has begun.

Prospects for the House legislation are uncertain because more than 20 moderate Democrats have already indicated their willingness to support the bill passed by the Senate.

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greg.miller@latimes.com