Lawmakers see progress on FISA talks

Congressional Republicans are reviewing a Democratic proposal to break the logjam on electronic-surveillance legislation by allowing federal district courts to determine whether telephone companies seeking legal immunity received orders from the Bush administration to wiretap people’s phones.

{mosads}That differs from a plan that Republicans, with support from the White House, floated right before Memorial Day that would give that authority to the secret court that operates under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In both cases, the courts would not decide whether those orders constitute a violation of the law, according to people familiar with the language. The plan was floated by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and has the support of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

GOP aides said that Republicans would likely suggest more revisions, but saw the proposal as a step in the right direction.

“While several issues still remain, Sen. Bond believes he and Hoyer are making progress on crafting an ultimate compromise and remains hopeful that a bill to keep American families safe can be signed into law before the August expiration moves the intelligence community back to 1978,” said Shana Marchio, communications director for Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.).

Rockefeller said he is “mildly optimistic” that the plan could yield agreement, and added that the status of negotiations is “getting pretty darn good.” 

Lawmakers are trying to break a stalemate that has existed since February on a major domestic security proposal amid a rancorous election-year debate over the issue. The issue of immunity for the phone companies has become a major sticking point. Democrats say that retroactive immunity should not be given without some restrictions, saying that they don’t want to reward lawbreakers. Republicans say the companies were simply doing their job in the interest of national security and should be protected in order to preserve the integrity of surveillance operations. Court cases that are open to the public could result in the leaking of sensitive information, the GOP says.

The new plan appears unlikely to win over civil libertarian groups. They sent a letter to Capitol Hill Monday calling on Congress to reject the Republican proposal and saying it would allow the FISA court to “rubber stamp” a grant of immunity for surveillance operations.

Their allies on Capitol Hill also might be skeptical of the latest Democratic plan. Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) sent a letter to congressional leaders asking them to reject immunity for the telephone companies.

“As we have explained repeatedly in the past, existing law already immunizes telephone companies that respond in good faith to a government request, as long as that request meets certain clearly spelled-out statutory requirements,” Dodd and Feingold wrote Tuesday.