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WORLD> America
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US Senate to pass bill overhauling eavesdropping rules
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-09 23:36 WASHINGTON -- The Senate finally is expected to pass a bill overhauling rules on secret government eavesdropping, completing a lengthy and bitter debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. The vote, planned for Wednesday, would end almost a year of wrangling between the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, and Congress and the White House over the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A major issue was the Bush administration's insistence that the bill shield from civil lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without court permission after 9/11. The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from wiretapping lawsuits. About 40 such lawsuits have been filed. They are all pending before a single federal court. The House approved the surveillance overhaul last month. For about six years after 9/11, President Bush secretly directed telecommunications companies to tap phone and computer lines inside the United States without the permission or knowledge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court was created 30 years ago to prevent the government from abusing its surveillance powers for political purposes. The court is meant to approve all wiretaps placed inside the US for intelligence-gathering purposes. That includes international e-mail records stored on servers inside the US The wiretapping was brought back under the FISA court's authority only after The New York Times revealed the existence of the program. A handful of members of Congress knew about the program from top secret briefings. Most members are still forbidden to know the details of the classified program, and some object that they are being asked to grant immunity to the telecoms without first knowing what they did. |
