Senate to Debate Telecom Firms' Immunity in Surveillance Role

A battle over legal immunity for telecommunication companies that participated in a controversial Bush administration counterterrorism surveillance program landed on the Senate floor yesterday, after the Judiciary Committee voted to preserve protections for companies who help the government.

The outcome in the Senate represents a procedural defeat for lawmakers and outside groups that opposed giving the companies immunity from lawsuits alleging privacy violations, but it leaves open the possibility of a bruising floor fight on the provision.

Separately, the House voted last night 227 to 189 on a Democratic-sponsored bill that would deny immunity to companies while expanding court oversight of surveillance conducted outside the United States.

The wrangling is part of congressional efforts to rewrite the law that governs clandestine surveillance, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, because of revelations that the Bush administration conducted a long-term warrantless surveillance program without court oversight. A temporary rewrite passed in August is due to expire in February.

About 40 privacy lawsuits are now pending against several of the nation's largest and more influential telecommunications companies. President Bush says the telecom firms that helped the U.S. government with its surveillance programs should not be threatened by lawsuits and has vowed to veto any legislation that does not include retroactive legal immunity.

The Senate intelligence committee, with support from key Democrats and approval from the administration, has passed a proposal that includes such protections. During a tumultuous day-long meeting yesterday, the Judiciary panel, which had the intelligence bill before it, voted 10 to 9 along party lines to approve a bill that added new restrictions on government surveillance powers. But this did not include language addressing the immunity issue.

The committee defeated in a 12 to 7 vote a proposal from Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) that would have precluded legal protections for telecom companies. Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Herb Kohl (Wis.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) joined nine Republicans in voting against the proposal.

The panel's chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who voted against the immunity, said in a statement that "passing a law to whitewash the administration's undermining of another law would be a disservice to the American people and to the rule of law."

Committee Republicans grumbled that the committee did not, in the end, decide the immunity matter directly in the version it passed to the Senate floor. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, also complained that the overall bill would "gut our critical terrorist early warning system" and would end up "handcuffing our terror-fighters."

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who has not signaled his position on the proposals, will decide how the competing provisions will be handled on the floor. "In the end, there's going to be an open-ended debate on immunity," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley, who said he expects the issue will be considered on the floor in early December.

Staff writer Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.