Saturday 23 February 2008
Washington - The Bush administration said on Saturday U.S. telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate "for the time being" with spy agencies' wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation.
The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying wiretaps will resume under the current law "at least for now."
"Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the ongoing uncertainty and have indicated they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists," the statement said.
On Friday U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said telecommunications firms have been reluctant to cooperate with new wiretaps since six-month temporary legislation expired last weekend. As a result, they told Congress, spy agencies have missed intelligence.
Democrats accused the Bush administration of fear-mongering and blamed it for any gaps.
President George W. Bush has said he would not compromise with the Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies be shielded from lawsuits for taking part in his warrantless domestic spying program.
The measure passed by the Senate would provide retroactive lawsuit immunity to firms which cooperated with warrantless wiretaps that Bush authorized after the September 11 attacks. But the House of Representatives has opposed it, and Democratic leaders of both chambers said they would try to find a compromise.
Democratic leaders of congressional intelligence and judiciary committees issued a statement on Friday saying they were committed to passing new legislation and urged Bush to support an extension of the temporary law. Bush has said he would hold out for a permanent overhaul of the 1978 surveillance law.
Bush, Democrats Clash on FISA
By Kevin Bogardus
The Hill
Saturday 23 February 2008
The standoff between President Bush and House Democrats on wiretapping legislation showed no signs of slowing down Saturday, with the White House charging that Democrats have left the country vulnerable to attack and Democrats accusing the administration of using scare tactics to get its way.
The two sides are at odds over giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies as part of a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Bush charged in his weekly radio address that House Democrats are blocking passage of a bill that already passed the Senate because they are beholden to trial lawyers.
"The Senate bill would prevent plaintiffs' attorneys from suing companies believed to have helped defend America after the 9/11 attacks," Bush said. "It is unfair and unjust to threaten these companies with financial ruin only because they are believed to have done the right thing and helped their country."
The president is worried that telecom companies, without protection from lawsuits, will not help the U.S. intelligence community in the future. Bush called upon the House to match the Senate in protecting those corporations from such suits.
"Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, terrorists are planning the next attack on America. And to protect America from such attacks, we must protect our telecommunications companies from abusive lawsuits," said Bush.
By blocking the legislation, the president argued, Democrats have left "our nation increasingly vulnerable to attack." The president urged them to pass the measure as soon as possible after returning from recess.
In response, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) sought to assure the public that, despite "dire warnings" from Bush, "FISA remains in effect today and allows for rapid court-approved wiretapping to collect foreign intelligence information, while protecting Americans' civil liberties."
In August, Congress had passed a temporary FISA fix, which expired earlier this year. That legislation was extended for two more weeks but Bush made it clear earlier this month that he would not sign any more short-term extensions, which let the update expire. However, the original FISA legislation remains in place.
Conyers said that "amazingly" Bush and House Republicans opposed another three week extension of the August legislation, which he argues would have given the Senate and the House time to iron out their differences.
"The president and House Republicans simply can't have it both ways," Conyers said. "They cannot argue simultaneously that the temporary August law was essential to national security, and then turn around and engineer the defeat of an extension of it."
In an effort to put additional pressure on House Democrats, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in a letter to Capitol Hill that "remedial" measures taken in the absence of the tools provided through the FISA update were not sufficient to keep the country safe.
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