Republicans Shun Wiretap and Telecom Amnesty Compromise Meeting

Submitted by MacRonin on February 22, 2008 - 10:51am

Republicans Shun Wiretap and Telecom Amnesty Compromise Meeting - Via Threat Level:

Congressional Republicans boycotted a meeting Thursday that was supposed to begin negotiations over how to reconcile differences between the House and Senate version of bills expanding the government's powers to wiretap inside the United States without court orders.

Democrats said they were meeting in good faith to work out differences in the new spying authorities and whether to give amnesty to telecoms that helped the Bush Administration spy on Americans and foreigners, using wiretaps inside the United States without court approval.

"[W]e are using this week to work on a compromise that strengthens our national security and protects Americans' privacy," according to a statement from House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence leaders. "Unfortunately, we understand our Republican counterparts instructed their staffs not to attend this working meeting, therefore not allowing progress to be made in a bipartisan, bicameral way."

Kit Bond (R-Missouri) , the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued his own statement, making clear the Republicans weren't budging on their position that the House should simply adopt the Senate bill, with its wide spying powers and telecom amnesty.

"The time for excuses and more meetings is over," Bond said. "Today’s so-called bicameral staff meeting is nothing more than a partisan attempt by Democratic staff at the 11th hour to dismantle the bipartisan compromise that a majority of the Senate and the House support."

The exchange highlights the enmity that continues to fester as Republicans push to neuter the warrantless wiretapping issue by having Congress largely legalize the secret program and obliterate the 40-odd lawsuits pending against the telecoms for violating federal privacy law.

The meeting was supposed to be the first for staffers and was not an "official" meeting under Congress's rules for resolving differences between bills from different Houses. No official conference representatives have been named, due to opposition from Senate Republicans, according to Erica Chabot, a spokeswoman for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Republican tactics include scaring freedom-loving people with phantoms of lost wiretaps in the wake of the expiration of a temporary spying bill on Saturday. That bill, known as the Protect America Act, was passed just months after a secret spying court ruled that the government's wiretapping inside the United States was illegal.

That act gave the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to order phone companies to give it copies of all calls where one person on the line is believed to be outside the country or order Gmail and Hotmail to do the same with all its emails. The secret court could overturn the directive, but only if it found the order to be "frivolous."

Though the measure expired Saturday, all the orders issued under the act remain in place until at least August and possibly for another 6 months after that, depending upon the last time the secret court ruled on them.

Over the last year, the head of national intelligence Michael McConnell convinced most Democrats and Republicans that the nation's spying law needs to be updated, because in the age of fiber optics, some international to international phone calls and emails traveled through switches in the United States. Experts say, however, that the proportion of purely international communications that flow through switches in New York, Miami and Los Angeles is actually decreasing as more fiber and traffic switching stations are built out. (see:  )

Federal law requires the nation's spies to ask a compliant secret spying court for a court order whenever they are spying on phone or internet lines inside the United States. The NSA remains free to spy outside the United States as it sees fit, regardless of whether communications flow into U.S. switches or involve an American. The only caveats to that are that spies can't, by law, target Americans inside the country from wiretaps outside the country without a warrant, and targeting Americans abroad requires the Attorney General to approve the operation.

The Senate bill largely retains the Protect America Act's framework, while the House bill --known as the Restore Act -- narrows when spying can be done inside America without a warrant. The House bill also excludes amnesty for the telecoms, while the Senate bill includes it. President Bush says he will not sign any bill expanding his wiretapping authority unless it has amnesty for telecoms. Bush says that's necessary so companies will help again in the future, but that's not accurate since companies handed spying orders must comply or face contempt of court charges and fines. 

House Republicans want to abandon the bill passed in October, and want simply to vote on the Senate bill. If the House leadership allowed such a vote, the Republicans are likely to prevail, with the help of more conservative Democrats.

Photo: Senator Kit Bond

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(Read Original Article - Via Threat Level.)

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