Senate picks up work on wiretapping bill

SENATE PICKS UP WORK ON WIRETAPPING BILL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: J.?Taylor Rushing]
The Senate broke a logjam Wednesday on an overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as lawmakers began sorting through amendments to the controversial bill. The White House has been pressuring lawmakers to pass and make permanent the underlying bill, which was passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last fall and includes retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that aided the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. Many Senate Democrats want to either temper or strike that provision, while the House-passed FISA overhaul does not include immunity at all. The White House repeated its veto threat Tuesday, and FBI Director Robert Mueller pressed that point in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee the same day, calling immunity “absolutely essential” to the country’s surveillance efforts.
http://thehill.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71305&Itemid=70