Reuters
Thursday 21 February 2008
Aboard Air Force One - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would not compromise with the Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies that took part in his warrantless domestic spying program be shielded from lawsuits.
Bush has demanded Congress protect companies like AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications from civil lawsuits that accuse them of violating Americans' privacy rights in the administration's anti-terrorism program.
The Senate approved a measure that would grant the companies retroactive immunity but the House of Representatives has opposed it. The surveillance program began in 2001 after the September 11 attacks and some 40 lawsuits are pending.
House and Senate Democrats said they would try to find a compromise even as they said their Republican counterparts refused to permit staff to meet with them on Thursday.
"I would just tell you there's no compromise on whether these phone companies get liability protection," Bush told reporters as he traveled back from a trip to Africa.
A temporary law expired this weekend that expanded the federal government's power to track communications of suspected terrorism suspects without a court order.
Bush has contended that companies would become increasingly reluctant to help U.S. intelligence agencies without immunity and he argues that without listening to those communications, the United States is in greater danger of attack.
The issue will likely be at the forefront next week when Congress returns from a 12-day recess. Bush said his strategy for breaking the deadlock will be to keep talking about why it should be passed with immunity.
"The American people understand we need to be listening to the enemy," he said.
Democrats have countered that Bush was unnecessarily whipping up fears and said last week they were searching for common ground on the matter. Suggestions have included a secret court look at companies' actions before getting immunity or holding the government liable instead of phone companies.
"While we are disappointed that today's meeting could not reflect a bipartisan effort, we will continue to work and hope Republicans will join us to put our nation's security first," the Democratic lawmakers said in a joint statement.
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Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro
Writing by Jeremy Pelofsky; editing by Mohammad Zargham
GOP Aides Boycott Staff Talks on Surveillance Overhaul
By Tim Starks
Congressional Quarterly
Thursday 21 February 2008
Republican staff boycotted Thursday's meetings between House and Senate aides seeking to hammer out a final version of legislation to overhaul the nation's electronic surveillance law.
Two Democratic aides said Republicans were invited to an afternoon meeting to hash out a compromise between House and Senate versions of the legislation (HR 3773) to revamp the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But none showed up.
Democratic staffers for the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees met anyway, as they had earlier this week, and planned to meet again Friday.
Republican staffers are not participating, because their bosses have objected to holding the negotiations at all. Instead, Republicans want the House to accept the FISA bill passed by the Senate, without change. That measure, passed by a bipartisan 68-29 vote, was drafted with input from the administration and has the support of the White House.
Senate Republicans objected to the appointment of conferees Feb. 14, seeking to force the House to accept the Senate bill. But House Democrats refused, and launched informal negotiations over a final measure.
"The meeting today was a silly sham to draw attention away from the fact that House Democratic leaders seem more interested in protecting the profits of their trial lawyer campaign contributors than they are in protecting the American people," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio.
"There is no need for further negotiations. The only question is when the House Democratic leadership will bring the bipartisan FISA bill to the floor for a vote."
The Democratic chairmen of the four committees assailed the GOP stance in a statement.
"In what should have been a bipartisan, bicameral meeting, staff members of the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees met today to work in good faith to reach a compromise on FISA reform," they said. "Unfortunately, we understand our Republican counterparts instructed their staffs not to attend this working meeting, therefore not allowing progress to be made in a bipartisan, bicameral way."
The four chairmen said they and their staff would "continue to work and hope Republicans will join us to put our nation's security first."
Immunity Dispute
A key difference between the two chambers is over retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged assistance with the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program. The Senate-passed FISA bill would grant the retroactive immunity, while the House bill would not.
The administration has vowed to veto any legislation that does not provide immunity, and President Bush made clear that he sees no room for compromise on that score.
"How do you compromise on something like granting liability for a telecommunications company?" Bush said aboard Air Force One as he flew home from Africa Thursday afternoon. "You can't. If we do not give liability protection to those who are helping us, they won't help us. And if they don't help us, there will be no program. And if there's no program, America is more vulnerable."
Earlier, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. , D-Mich., wrote the White House this week to express his appreciation for its decision to allow all members of Conyers' committee to review legal documents related to the warrantless surveillance program and to renew his request for other documents from numerous previous committee inquiries.
Only some members of the House Judiciary Committee had previously been granted access to legal documents related to the warrantless surveillance program. Democrats had asserted they needed to review those documents to decide whether to grant immunity. Now all members of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees in both chambers have been granted access to the documents.
The Judiciary chairmen in both chambers have expressed the most opposition to retroactive immunity. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV , D-W. Va. has been an active proponent, while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes , D-Texas, said last week that he was still reviewing the documents.
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Kathleen Hunter contributed to this article.
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