fisa

Update December 18, 4:43 a.m. PST: Adds more analysis and background.

Congress won't decide until next year whether to pass a complex law that would let telephone and Internet companies off the hook from lawsuits alleging illicit cooperation with federal government spies.

After a day of back-and-forth on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged on Monday evening and announced he would postpone debate on the so-called FISA Amendments Act. That bill, which has already been approved in a closed-door meeting of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would grant such corporate immunity and make … Read more

Correction 2:40 p.m. PST: The original version of this story incorrectly stated the vote count. It was 76-10.

In a preliminary victory for the likes of AT&T and Verizon, the U.S. Senate has ventured a step closer to passing a law that would crush lawsuits accusing telecommunications companies of illegal cooperation with government spying programs.

By a 76-10 vote on Monday, the senators agreed to cut off the possibility of a filibuster that would delay final action on the so-called FISA Amendments Act, which the Bush administration argues is necessary to remove supposed hurdles to … Read more

Update 12:42 p.m. PST: A key U.S. Senate panel on Thursday pushed back a hotly anticipated vote on a new proposal to shield telephone and Internet companies from lawsuits alleging illicit cooperation with federal spying programs.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had planned to consider the bill, known as the FISA Amendments Act, at its morning business meeting. The lengthy measure, among other things, would effectively crush the pending lawsuits against companies like AT&T and Verizon, as well as some ongoing investigations by state utility commissions into their practices. It was already approved by a 13-2 … Read more

WASHINGTON--Despite demands from President Bush to shield telephone and Internet companies from surveillance-related lawsuits, key U.S. senators are reluctant to offer legal immunity. But they may force taxpayers to pick up the legal tab instead.

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the co-chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at a hearing here Wednesday that they still don't have enough information to decide whether it's wise to immunize any past assistance by telecommunications providers to a wide swath of U.S. government agencies over the last six years.

That's precisely what would happen, however, … Read more

A few decades ago, the FBI regularly conducted "black-bag jobs" that involved sneaking into homes, hotel rooms and offices with the cooperation of the building's owner or even a neighbor with a spare key. Locks were picked otherwise.

Because no judge had authorized the FBI's black-bag job, they were incredibly illegal. In the mid-1970s, the Church Committee famously disclosed the bureau's clandestine operations.

Now President Bush is backing a bill that seems to encourage the FBI to revert to some of its old habits.

The FISA Amendments Act, approved by a Senate committee last week, … Read more

Republicans are so eager to sink a wiretapping bill that includes some privacy safeguards that they're invoking what amounts to a do-this-or-Americans-will-die argument.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said after an Intelligence Committee vote on the Restore Act on Wednesday that the bill "puts our nation and troops at risk." A few minutes earlier, responding to a Judiciary Committee vote, Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said the bill protects "terrorists, spies and other enemies."

Politicians of both major parties wield this as the ultimate political threat. Its invocation typically predicts that if a certain piece of legislation is … Read more

President Bush this week ventured by helicopter to the National Security Agency's Maryland headquarters, where he made a public, photographed, 6-minute plea to Congress: Make expanded Internet and phone surveillance powers permanent.

Without an extension of the "tools" provided by the Protect America Act, which is set to expire February 1, "our country will be much more vulnerable to attack," Bush said Wednesday, according to the White House's transcript of his remarks.

The president said Congress must heed the repeated statements by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell about the importance of the temporary … Read more

Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee that a recent expansion of electronic snooping law helped lead to a recent trio of terror arrests in Germany.

Now he's publicly admitting that he was wrong, which may complicate the Bush administration's efforts to renew and further expand the controversial new law.

"The Protect America Act was urgently needed by our intelligence professionals to close critical gaps in our capabilities and permit them to more readily follow terrorist threats, such as the plot uncovered in Germany," he said in a statement issued … Read more

WASHINGTON--A recent expansion of U.S. eavesdropping law helped lead to the high-profile arrest of three terrorism suspects in Germany last week, the nation's intelligence director told senators on Monday.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell credited Congress's much-criticized update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last month with making "significant contributions" that ultimately allowed the U.S. government to aid German investigators. The apprehensions targeted what were described as Islamic militants plotting attacks against sites regularly visited by Americans.

McConnell spoke at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing here, which was … Read more