Senate gives Bush what he wants in surveillance bill

WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a major expansion of the government's surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security.

The measure, approved 69-28, marks the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years. It includes a divisive element that Bush had deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The vote came 2-½ years after public disclosure of the wiretapping program set off a debate over the balance between protecting the country from another terrorist strike and ensuring civil liberties.

Bush, speaking at the White House just after his return from Japan, called the vote "long overdue." He promised to quickly sign the measure into law.

Even as his political stature has waned, Bush has maintained his dominance on national-security issues over a Democratic-led Congress. He has defeated efforts to cut troops and financing in Iraq, and he has won victories on issues such as interrogation tactics and military tribunals.

Debate over the surveillance law was the one area where Democrats had held firm in opposition. House Democrats allowed a temporary surveillance measure to expire in February, leading to a five-month impasse.

In the end, administration officials helped forge a deal between Republican and Democratic leaders that included almost all the major elements Bush wanted. The measure gives the executive branch broader latitude in eavesdropping on people abroad and at home who it believes are tied to terrorism, and it reduces the role of a secret intelligence court in overseeing some operations.

Supporters said the plan includes enough safeguards to protect Americans' civil liberties, including reviews by several inspectors general.

The final plan, which restructures the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) passed by Congress in 1978 in the wake of Watergate, reflected political reality and legal practicality, supporters said.

Wiretapping orders approved by secret orders under the previous version of the law were set to begin expiring in August unless Congress acted. Heading into their convention in Denver next month and on to the November congressional elections, many Democrats were wary of handing Republicans a potent political weapon.

Obama on the spot

The issue put Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a precarious spot. He had long opposed giving legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in the NSA's wiretapping program, threatening a filibuster during his run for the nomination. But Wednesday, he voted for what he called "an improved but imperfect bill" after backing a failed amendment earlier in the day to strip the immunity provision from the bill.

Obama's decision last month to reverse course angered some ardent supporters, who organized an Internet drive to influence his vote. And his position came to symbolize the continuing difficulties that Democrats have faced in striking a position on national security even against a weakened president. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had battled Obama for the nomination, voted against the bill.

Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, was campaigning in Ohio and did not vote, though he has consistently supported the immunity plan.

Washington Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both Democrats, voted against the measure.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who leads the intelligence committee and helped broker the deal, said modernizing FISA was essential to give intelligence officials the technology tools they need to deter another attack.

But he said the plan "was made even more complicated by the president's decision, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, to go outside of FISA rather than work with Congress to fix it."

He was referring to the secret program approved by Bush weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that allowed the NSA, in a sharp legal and operational shift, to wiretap the international communications of Americans suspected of links to al-Qaida without first getting court orders. The program was disclosed in December 2005 by The New York Times.

Immunity ends lawsuits

As Congress repeatedly tried to find a legislative solution, the key stumbling block was Bush's insistence on legal immunity for the phone companies. The program ended in January 2007, when the White House agreed to bring it under the auspices of the FISA court, but more than 40 lawsuits continued churning through federal courts, charging AT&T, Verizon and other major carriers with violating their customers' privacy by conducting wiretaps at the White House's direction without valid court orders.

The final deal, which passed the House on June 20, effectively ends those lawsuits. Lawyers involved in the lawsuits against the phone companies promised to challenge the immunity provision in federal court.

The legislation also expands the government's power to invoke emergency wiretapping procedures. While the NSA would be allowed to seek court orders for broad groups of foreign targets, the law creates a new seven-day period for directing wiretaps at foreigners without a court order in "exigent" circumstances.

The law also expands from three to seven days the period for emergency wiretaps on Americans without a court order if the attorney general certifies there is probable cause to believe the target is linked to terrorism.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.