House Votes to Reject Immunity for Phone Companies Involved in Wiretaps

HOUSE VOTES TO REJECT IMMUNITY FOR PHONE COMPANIES INVOLVED IN WIRETAPS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Lichtblau]
After its first secret session in a quarter-century, the House on Friday rejected retroactive immunity for the phone companies that took part in the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, and it voted to place tighter restrictions on the government’s wiretapping powers. The House bill includes three key elements. It would refuse retroactive immunity to the phone companies and would instead provide special authority for the courts to decide whether the companies should be held liable in some 40 lawsuits growing out of an N.S.A. eavesdropping program approved by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. It would restore certain judicial checks on wiretapping powers while plugging loopholes that the administration has cited in coverage of foreign targets. And it would create a Congressional commission to investigate the past workings of the N.S.A. program. The Senate will take up the question again next month after a two-week break. It passed a bill last month that was much more to the liking of the White House. Unlike the bill approved Friday by the House, it would give legal immunity to those phone providers that helped in the wiretapping program, and would give the security agency broader discretion in deciding how it goes about wiretapping in the pursuit of terrorist targets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/us/15fisa.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
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* House passes surveillance bill without immunity
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/14/House-passes-surveillance-bill-without-immunity_1.html