House passes FISA bill with no telcom immunity

The U.S. House of Representatives today passed a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Services Act that does not include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

By a vote of 213-197-1, the House amended the Senate bill to strip language that would have given immunity to telcoms that may have assisted the Bush administration in setting up illegal wiretaps on American citizens.

The bill will now go back to the Senate, which must decide whether to concur with the changes and send the bill on to President Bush, or whether to reject them, and force a conference with the House to work out differences.

Continued: Click “Read More.” Bush has been adamant that any reauthorization include immunity for the telcoms.

In debate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that that the president’s demands signaled a fear that the Bush administration could face legal problems if cases against telcoms came to trial.

“First, the President knows that it was the administration’s incompetence in failing to follow the procedures in statute that prevented immunity from being conveyed – that’s one possibility. They simply didn’t do it right. Second, the administration’s legal argument that the surveillance requests were lawfully authorized was wrong; or public reports that the surveillance activities undertaken by the companies went far beyond anything about which any Member of Congress was notified, as is required by the law,” Pelosi said. “None of these alternatives is attractive but they clearly demonstrate why the administration’s insistence that Congress provide retroactive immunity has never been about national security or about concerns for the companies; it has always been about protecting the Administration.”

Minnesota lawmakers voting for the measure were Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz, all Democrats. Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann, John Kline and Jim Ramstad opposed the bill. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., did not vote.