Projo Politics Blog

WASHINGTON -- Rhode Island's House members split today as the House passed a bipartisan deal to overhaul the ground rules on electronic surveillance, while protecting telecommunications companies from lawsuits over their role in the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program.

After an extended impasse over the immunity provisions, the House passed the bill this afternoon on a vote of 293 to 129, with only one Republican opposed and Democrats deeply split.

Despite some reservations, Rep. James R. Langevin, a member of the Intelligence Committee, joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 103 other Democrats in voting for the bill.

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy was part of the majority of 128 Democrats on the losing side of the vote, opposed the bill. Many of those Democrats voiced strenuous objections to the immunity provisions for telecommunications firms.

``We must give our intelligence community the proper tools to protect us while upholding the civil liberties of Americans,'' Langevin said in a statement issued by his office.

Langevin touted the provisions of the bill that tightened the regulatons over electronic surveillance program, ordered by the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks but not disclosed until media reports years later. Among other protections, Langevin noted that the bill "clarifies'' that a special foreign surveillance court has a dominant role in approving acts of surveillance and overseeing the program.

"No President will have the power do an end-run around the legal requirements'' of the law governing foreign surveillance, Langevin said. "This provision will prevent the types of abuses we have witnessed under this Administration. ''

Langevin noted, too, that the measure approved protects the freedoms of U.S. citizens who may be caught up in overseas surveillance targeted at suspected foreign terrorists. For example, a warrant from the special court is required for surveillance of such Americans.

Kennedy noted in a statement that he supported an earlier House version of the bill. Among other things, that version withheld the immunity for telecommunications firms that the administration had demanded.

As to the bill that passed, Kennedy said, "I cannot support legislation which does not adequately protect the Constitutional rights and liberties of the American people. The bill we are voting on today gives too much power to an Administration that has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for the privacy of the American people.”

-- John E. Mulligan, Journal Washington Bureau

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