Senate Panel Rejects Democrat’s Attempt to Rein In Wiretapping Program
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WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Republicans blocked Democratic attempts to rein in President Bush’s domestic wiretapping program Wednesday, endorsing a White House-supported bill that would give the controversial surveillance legal status.
Under pressure from the Mr. Bush administration for quick action, the full Senate could take up the measure next week.
Progress on a companion bill in the House was not as tidy, in part because Republican leaders and Mr. Bush are intensely negotiating restrictions it proposes on the surveillance program. Even as the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Chairman Arlen Specter’s bill to the Senate floor on a party line vote, the same panel in the House abruptly canceled its scheduled markup.
The developments come amid a sustained White House campaign to persuade Congress to give the administration broad authority to monitor, interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects. The administration is up against an election season in which Republicans are struggling to keep its majority with approval from a war-weary electorate.
Mr. Specter, R-Pa. has acknowledged that GOP lawmakers fighting for re-election may not embrace a measure bearing Mr. Bush’s stamp of approval.
While refusing to give the president a blank check to prosecute the war on terrorism, Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee kept to the White House’s condition that a bill giving legal status to the surveillance program pass unamended. That’s not a sure thing on the Senate floor, where several amendments await the measure.
The panel also approved other measures relating to the program, some of which contradict Mr. Specter’s bill _ meaning the possibility of even more debate on the Senate floor.
But Mr. Specter’s bill survived the committee vote unchanged. Republicans defeated several Democratic amendments, including measures to insert a one-year expiration date into the bill and require the National Security Agency to report more often to Congress on the standards for its domestic surveillance program.
“We just don’t want to see Americans’ rights abused for the next 50 or 60 years because of an oversight on our part,” said Senator Feinstein who joined some Republicans in opposing some amendments offered by her Democratic colleagues.
But Republicans countered that the bill represented the best deal on the matter and should not be amended.
The deal is part of the White House’s election-season campaign to preserve its ability to fight the war on terror despite congressional concerns about civil liberties.
A parade of White House officials seeking support for legal tools against terrorists was to culminate Thursday with an appearance by Bush himself before House Republicans anxious to maintain their majority in the November elections.
Behind-the-scenes negotiations were intense Wednesday. As the Senate bill moved toward committee approval, the House Judiciary Committee abruptly canceled its markup that had been scheduled to happen simultaneously. The reason for the cancellation wasn’t immediately clear.
Sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and endorsed by House GOP leaders, that measure would require the president to wait until an attack has occurred to initiate wiretapping without warrants, a provision administration officials say would hamper the White House’s ability to prevent attacks.
Mr. Specter’s bill would submit the warrantless wiretapping program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for a one-time constitutional review and extend from the current three days to seven days the time allowed for emergency surveillance before a warrant application is submitted and approved by that court.
Vice PresidentCheney and other top aides encountered stiff resistance from senators and House leaders this week during visits to Capitol Hill. The standoffs raised questions about whether the president could unite Republicans on his anti-terror agenda before November’s midterm elections.