Hoyer agrees to closed FISA session

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has agreed to a GOP request for a secret House session Thursday to discuss the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA).

House Republicans had been seeking the closed session to delay a vote on a new Democratic FISA overhaul, unveiled Tuesday, and discuss its national security implications.

{mosads}The last closed House session was held in 1983. Only five have been held since 1825.

Republicans plan to discuss behind closed doors why the new Democratic FISA bill is flawed, said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). It would not grant retroactive immunity to the telecommunications firms that participated in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which the Senate bill does.

The session comes on the heels of President Bush’s harsh criticism of the House Democratic bill earlier Thursday.

Republicans maintain that the delay in congressional action is causing “vital intelligence information” to be lost, according to an internal GOP memo about the need for a closed-session discussion.

House Democrats plan to bring up their FISA bill for a vote later Thursday after action on the budget is finished. At that time, a Republican member plans to call for a vote to go into closed session, which could last for up to one hour.

Republicans maintain that Democrats are bringing up a bill they know Bush would veto.

“The reason for calling a closed session is so that all members of the House can be present to discuss and have a candid debate on the importance of passing a long-term modernization of our nation’s foreign surveillance,” the GOP memo states.

It criticizes the Democratic FISA bill for failing to provide a long-term fix because the legislation would sunset in two years, and for giving an “unelected judge” the power to determine whether the carriers that aided the administration’s surveillance efforts after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks should be protected.

Jackie Kucinich contributed to this story.