House Votes to Reject Immunity for Phone Companies Involved in Wiretaps
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
March 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — 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 decision, by a largely party line vote of 213 to 197, is one of the few instances when Democrats have been willing to buck the White House on a matter of national security. It also ensures that the monthslong battle over the government’s wiretapping powers will drag on for at least a few more weeks — and possibly much longer.

The White House immediately criticized the vote, calling it “a significant step backward in defending our country against terrorism.” The White House predicted that the measure would be “dead on arrival” when it moved to the Senate and promised that, even were it to be approved there, it “would be vetoed by the president if it ever got to his desk.”

With President Bush and Democratic leaders squaring off almost daily on the wiretapping question, neither side has shown any inclination to budge, leaving them at a political impasse. A temporary wiretapping measure expired last month.

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.

I’ve been hard on the Democratic party over the last year, and rightfully so. Charlie Brown and Lucy football kicking scenarios get old quick. But this is a step in the right direction. This along with the enactment of an Independent Office of Congressional Ethics is two steps in the right direction. Can we dare hope to see three?

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