Hoyer hopeful on FISA resolution

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday he remains hopeful that the House and Senate can finish the contentious overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) this week. 

The House could vote on the bill Friday, Hoyer said.

{mosads}“I think we are very close to an agreement, which will not get everything that we had in the House bill,” Hoyer said.

Hoyer reached an accord last week with Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.), House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and the Bush administration that would break a weeks-long stalemate over balancing electronic surveillance with the right to privacy for American citizens, according to several people familiar with the talks.

The compromise, which is being finalized behind closed doors, attempts to split the difference over the hot-button issue of whether telephone companies deserve retroactive immunity for assisting in government surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. According to people familiar with the draft, the language gives federal district courts a role in determining whether companies should be given immunity for the role they played in eavesdropping on telephone calls.

The compromise has so far not satisfied privacy-rights groups. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have called it a giveaway to the White House and the phone companies.