White House says spy bill telecom protection vital

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White House says spy bill telecom protection vital

By Thomas Ferraro

The White House on Thursday urged the U.S. Senate to reject any bid to deny liability protection to telecommunication companies that participated in President George W. Bush's warrantless spying program.

"Failure to provide retroactive liability protection would undermine the private sector's willingness to cooperate," the White House said in a statement. "Such cooperation is essential to protecting the country from another terrorist attack."

A bill to revamp U.S. spy laws and protect telecommunication companies from potentially billions of dollars in damages from privacy lawsuits easily cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on late Wednesday.

But the measure, passed overwhelmingly last week by the House of Representatives, faced more Senate roadblocks and delays.

And it was uncertain if the Senate would be able to give anticipated final approval to the measure before lawmakers begin a holiday recess at the end of this week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said, "I'm convinced we will be able to work out an agreement to complete this bill."

Democratic Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut led the opposition, complaining liability protection was unwarranted. They drafted an amendment to strip it out, but appeared far short of the votes needed to prevail.

"We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans' civil liberties," Feingold and Dodd said in a joint statement. They maintain the courts should determine what the companies did before dismissing any suit.

A number of companies agreed to participate in the warrantless surveillance program Bush secretly began shortly after the September 11 attacks.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed accusing AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp of violating Americans' privacy rights. Damages could total in the billions of dollars.

Bush contends that any company that participated should be thanked, not punished, for helping protect the United States.

Critics charge Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in authorizing the spy program without court approval. He maintains he had the wartime power to do it. But in January 2007 he put the program under FISA court jurisdiction.

The House-passed bill would replace a temporary surveillance law that expired in February.

It would increase judicial and congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence activities and bolster privacy protection -- but not as much as civil liberties groups and a number of lawmakers want.

In addition, it would enable a federal district court to dismiss a lawsuit against a telecommunication company if the firm can produce certification that the administration told it the spying program was legal.

Since certification was provided, critics denounce the so-called compromise drafted by Democratic and Republican negotiators as a sham.

Democrats control the House and Senate. Yet they have faced election-year pressure to pass the bill, fearing failure to do so would let Republicans paint them as weak on security and force them to accept what they saw as a more objectionable earlier version of the legislation.