Two months after vowing to roll back broad new wiretapping powers won by the Bush administration, Congressional Democrats appear ready to make concessions that could extend some of the key powers granted to the National Security Agency.
Bush administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened wiretapping authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess, and some Democratic officials admit that they may not come up with the votes to rein in the administration.
As the debate over the N.S.A.?s wiretapping powers begins anew this week, the emerging legislation reflects the political reality confronting the Democrats. While they are willing to oppose the White House on the conduct of the war in Iraq, they remain nervous that they will be labeled as soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on intelligence gathering.
A Democratic bill to be proposed Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. wiretapping that the administration secured in August for just six months. But in an acknowledgment of civil liberties concerns, the measure would also require a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the N.S.A.?s interception of foreign-based communications.
A competing proposal in the Senate, still being drafted, may be even closer in line with the administration?s demands, with the possibility of including retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that took part in the N.S.A.?s once-secret program to wiretap without court warrants.
No one is willing to predict with certainty how the issue will play out. But some Congressional officials and others monitoring the debate over the legislation said the final result may not be much different than it was two months ago, despite Democrats? insistence that they would not let stand the August extension of the N.S.A.?s powers.
?Many members continue to fear that if they don?t support whatever the president asks for, they?ll be perceived as soft on terrorism,? said William Banks, a professor specializing in terrorism and national security law at Syracuse University who has written extensively on federal wiretapping law.
The August bill, known as the Protect America Act, was approved by Congress in the final hours before its summer recess after heated warnings from the Bush administration that legal loopholes in wiretapping coverage had left the country vulnerable to another terrorist attack. The legislation significantly reduced the role of the foreign intelligence court and broadened the N.S.A.?s ability to listen in on foreign-based communications without a court warrant.
?We want the statute made permanent,? Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said today. ?We view this as a healthy debate. We also view it as an opportunity to inform Congress and the public that we can use these authorities responsibly. We?re going to go forward and look at any proposals that come forth, but we?ll look at them very carefully to make sure they don?t have any consequences that hamper our abilities to protect the country.?
House Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the interim legislation in August and believed at the time they had been forced into a corner by the Bush administration.
As Congress takes up the new legislation, a senior Democratic aide said House leaders are working hard to make sure the administration does not succeed in pushing through a bill that would make permanent all the powers it secured in August for the N.S.A. ?That?s what we?re trying to avoid,? the aide said. ?We have that concern too.?
The bill to be proposed Tuesday by the Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees would impose more controls over the N.S.A.?s powers, including quarterly audits by the Justice Department?s inspector general. It would also give the foreign intelligence court a role in approving, in advance, ?basket? or ?umbrella? warrants for bundles of overseas communications, according to a Congressional official.
?We are giving the N.S.A. what it legitimately needs for national security but with far more limitations and protections than are in the Protect America Act,? said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California.
Perhaps most important in the eyes of Democratic supporters, the House bill would not give retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that took part in the N.S.A.?s domestic eavesdropping program ? a proposal that had been a top priority of the Bush administration. The August legislation granted the companies immunity for future acts, but not past deeds.
A number of private groups are trying to prove in federal court that the telecommunications companies violated the law by taking part in the program. A former senior Justice Department lawyer, Jack Goldsmith, seemed to bolster their case last week when he told Congress that the program was a ?legal mess? and strongly suggested it was illegal.
In the Senate, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, is working with his Republican counterpart, Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, who was one of the main proponents of the August plan, to come up with a compromise wiretapping proposal. Wendy Morigi, a spokeswoman for Mr. Rockefeller, said that retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies is ?under discussion,? but that no final proposal had been developed.
The immunity issue may prove to be the key sticking point between whatever proposals are ultimately passed by the House and the Senate. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who was among the harshest critics of the legislation passed in August, said he would vigorously oppose any effort to grant retroactive legal protection to telecommunications companies. ?There is heavy pressure on the immunity and we should not cave an inch on that,? he said in an interview.
Mr. Nadler said he was worried that the Senate would give too much ground to the administration in its proposal, but he said he was satisfied with the legislation to be proposed Tuesday in the House.
?It is not perfect, but it is a good bill,? he said. ?It makes huge improvements in the current law. In some respects it is better than the old FISA law,? referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Civil liberties advocates and others who met with House officials today about the proposed bill agreed that it was an improvement over the August plan, but they were not quite as charitable in their overall assessment.
?This still authorizes the interception of Americans? international communications without a warrant in far too many instances and without adequate civil liberties protections,? said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, who was among the group that met with House officials.
Caroline Frederickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she was troubled by the Democrats? acceptance of broad, blanket warrants for the N.S.A., rather than the individualized warrants traditionally required by the intelligence court.
?The Democratic leadership, philosophically, is with us, but we need to help them realize the political case, which is that Democrats will not be in danger if they don?t reauthorize this Protect America Act,? Ms. Frederickson said. ?They?re nervous. There?s a ?keep the majority? mentality, which is understandable. But we think they?re putting themselves in more danger by not standing on principle.?
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