Battle Over Domestic Wiretap Legislation to Begin in Earnest as Reid Backs Administration-...

[jayfish]

Source: Ars Technica

The battle in the Senate over how to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) begins on Monday when, over the objections of prominent Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid will introduce the White House–supported version of a reform bill approved in October by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

This past Tuesday, fourteen Democratic senators—including presidential contenders Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joseph Biden, and Chris Dodd—signed a letter urging Reid to instead bring to the floor an alternative bill produced in November by the Judiciary Committee. That version of the legislation, which will now be offered as an amendment to the Intelligence Committee's bill, contained a variety of additional restrictions and checks on government wiretaps sought by civil liberties groups. It also, crucially, omitted a provision granting telecom companies retroactive immunity from lawsuits related to their cooperation with the president's extrajudicial eavesdropping program. President Bush has pledged to veto any FISA amendment that failed to provide such immunity—a threat that did not deter the House from passing just such a bill last month.



Read more: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071214-battle-over-domestic-wiretap-legislation-to-begin-in-earnest-as-reid-backs-administration-supported-bill.html

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Man, I could have sworn that the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in 2006. WTH am I missing here?

Jay