[Infowarrior] - Bush Warns House on Surveillance

[Richard Forno]

Bush Warns House on Surveillance

By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: March 13, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/washington/13cnd-fisa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sl
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WASHINGTON ‹ With the House poised to vote today on electronic surveillance
legislation that the White House has said falls far short of its
requirements, President Bush warned legislators strongly Thursday morning
against passing what he called ³a partisan bill that will undermine American
security.²

In clear defiance of the White House, the proposal from House Democratic
leaders would not give retroactive legal protection to the phone companies
that helped in the National Security Agency program of warrantless
wiretapping. Mr. Bush also threatened to veto any such measure, should it
reach his desk.

The Senate last month passed a bill that did provide such protection and
also broadened government eavesdropping powers.

Using tough language on a subject on which he has been persistent and
unswerving, Mr. Bush warned House members that ³they should not leave for
Easter recess without getting the Senate bill to my desk.²

He argued that failure to pass the Senate language would make it harder to
detect emerging terrorist threats.

³Voting for this bill would make our country less safe,² Mr. Bush said.
³Congress should stop playing politics with the past and focus on helping us
prevent attacks in the future.²

Democrats have accused the president of fear-mongering, saying surveillance
can be monitored more carefully without losing its effectiveness.

Administration officials say that the Democrats know that the House version
would face probable defeat in the Senate. Mr. Bush has threatened, in any
case, to veto such language. But House Democratic leaders have shown
themselves more ready than in the past for a fight on national security.

Mr. Bush also argued again that the House Democrats¹ approach would unfairly
expose the phone companies to lawsuits that could potentially be enormously
expensive.

³House leaders simply adopted the position that class-action trial lawyers
are taking in the multibillion law suits they have filed² against the phone
companies, he said. This ³would undermine the private sector¹s willingness
to cooperate with the intelligence community, cooperation that is essential
to protecting our country from harm.²

Instead of giving the companies blanket immunity, as the Senate would do,
the House proposal was understood to give the federal courts special
authorization to hear classified evidence and decide whether the phone
companies should be held liable.

But the president said that this approach ³could reopen dangerous
intelligence gaps by putting in place a cumbersome court approval process
that would make it harder to collect intelligence on foreign terrorists² and
could lead, he said, to disclosure of state secrets.

³Their partisan legislation would extend protections we enjoy as Americans
to foreign terrorists overseas,² Mr. Bush said.

In a statement yesterday, 19 Democratic members of the House Judiciary
Committee questioned the administration¹s arguments.

³We have concluded that the administration has not established a valid and
credible case justifying the extraordinary action of Congress enacting
blanket retroactive immunity as set forth in the Senate bill,² they said.

Some 40 lawsuits are pending in federal courts, charging that by cooperating
with the eavesdropping program put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks, the phone companies violated their responsibilities to customers
and federal privacy laws.