Following Wednesday’s House vote against a three-week extension of a temporary, but broad expansion of the government’s wiretapping powers — a vote that signaled the House was likely to hand the Bush Administration permanent new powers and amnesty for telecoms that aided in Bush’s secret, five-year warrantless wiretapping program, the ACLU called on Congress Wednesday to just let the old law expire and not pass a replacement.
“We hope the House and Senate let the Protect America Act expire and tell tell the administration that if it wants to wiretap Americans on American soil, it needs to get a warrant from the FISA court,” the ACLU’s Caroline Fredrickson said, referring to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that issues warrants for eavesdropping on suspected spies and terrorists physically inside the United States.
If this summer’s Protect America Act expires — as it is set to Friday night, the government will lose the legal power to warrantlessly wiretap telephone and internet providers inside the United States.
Instead of being able to install broad ranging nets catching any or all communications that flow through U.S. telecom switches, the government will revert to a 30 year-old framework that requires it to get a secret court order to wiretap an American or inside the United States.
The ACLU argues that framework protects civil liberties more than the Protect America Act, the Senate’s recently passed permanent version of the PAA or even the House’s Restore Act, which is supported by other civil liberties groups as the most palatable compromise.
Early Wednesday afternoon, the House rejected a 21-day extension to the PAA, time Democratic leaders hoped they could use to negotiate a compromise between the Restore Act and the Senate measure. The Senate bill passed on Tuesday includes telecom amnesty and wide warrantless wiretapping powers, while the House bill has no immunity provision and more sharply limits when the government can spy inside America without warrants.
President Bush threatened to veto another extension to the PAA, but that veto would have been politically difficult since the administration says the powers in that bill are critical to national security.
The ACLU’s call-to-arms comes during a time of uncertainty since the House leadership is faced with the choice of letting the temporary powers expire while they conference their bill with the Senate’s, or quickly adopting the Senate version, as they did this summer with the now-expiring law.
While expiration seems like a long-shot politically, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) issued a statement indicating she’s prepared to let the PAA expire to give the conference time to iron out a compromise.
Since any current dragnets would stay legal for a year, there would little fallout from the expiration for the nation’s spies.
But if the House leadership did let the powers expire, wiretapping advocates would argue — as they have been — that the Democrats were endangering national security, an simplistic argument that would likely be prove to be an effective way to win a complicated debate.
Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami says the House clearly needs more time since Senate just passed its bill yesterday and the President just gave long-requested spying documents to some House members recently.
It’s much more likely that the House will adopt the Senate bill at the last possible moment tonight, just before the House adjourns for a long President’s Day weekend break starting Thursday which could start Friday, though no decision has yet been announced, according to Elshami.
NOTE – This story was updated with information from Pelosi’s office at 7:00 pm EST.
Photo: Nick Mollberg
