Congressional lawmakers are gearing up for major showdowns this week on eavesdropping and a children’s health insurance program.
The House is expected to pass a bill Thursday that tightens restrictions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs wiretapping of terror suspects. President Bush said he opposes the bill because it adds restrictions and does not provide retroactive immunity to telecommunications carriers that cooperated with intelligence gathering operations.
The vote on a short-term reauthorization of the act, known as FISA, will take place on the same day the House attempts to override Bush’s veto of a $60 billion proposal to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program for the next five years.
Democrats will likely fall 15 votes shy of the number they need to override the veto. Bush has said the plan sent to him by Congress is too costly, while Democrats have attempted to paint the president as neglectful of the needs of children.
The Senate, meanwhile, will begin working on its own FISA proposal this week. Because Democrats have a slimmer majority in the Senate, Republicans have much more power to force Democrats to write a bill that is less restrictive.
Senate Democrats have signaled a willingness to include retroactive immunity for the telecom carriers, so Republicans will concentrate on producing a bill that provides intelligence officials with greater freedom to monitor foreign calls without having to secure warrants from the FISA court.
The House bill, a Senate GOP leadership aide said, “takes us back to pre-Sept. 11 capabilities,” because it requires intelligence officials to get warrants to monitor calls from foreigners who might be talking to Americans. Congress passed a temporary measure in August that does not require a warrant under such circumstances.
At a briefing held by House Democrats on Monday, former Sept. 11 Commission member Tim Roemer, also a Democrat, argued that the House bill “strikes the right balance” by protecting civil liberties and allowing intelligence officials to quickly target terror suspects through a better-funded FISA court.
Roemer criticized the director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell, who oversees intelligence gathering, and whose position was created at the recommendation of the Sept. 11 panel.
Roemer said many members of Congress believe McConnell “has become too much of a spokesperson for the administration and may not be the independent intelligence broker” envisioned by the Sept. 11 panel.
