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Senate approves bill changing spy rules
President George W. Bush won final congressional approval on Wednesday for a bill granting liability protection to telecommunication companies that took part in the warrantless domestic spying program he began after the September 11 attacks.
- Reuters
- Published: 08:17 July 10, 2008
Washington: President George W. Bush won final congressional approval on Wednesday for a bill granting liability protection to telecommunication companies that took part in the warrantless domestic spying program he began after the September 11 attacks.
The measure shields those firms from potentially billions of dollars in damages from privacy lawsuits and implements the biggest overhaul of US spy laws in three decades.
On a vote of 69-28, the Senate approved the measure, previously passed by the House of Representatives, and prepared to send the legislation to Bush to sign into law.
With Bush's term set to end in January, the vote marked perhaps one of his final triumphs on Capitol Hill but drew a firestorm of criticism from civil liberties groups.
"This bill will help our intelligence professionals learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying, and what they're planning," Bush declared, hailing its passage.
"It will ensure that those companies whose assistance is necessary to protect the country will, themselves, be protected from lawsuits for past or future cooperation," he said.
The measure replaces a temporary law that expired in February and modernizes the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to keep pace with technology.
It will also bolster judicial and congressional oversight of US surveillance of foreign targets and increase protection of civil liberties of law-abiding Americans swept up in such spy efforts - but not as much as critics wanted.
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