By Ryan Paul
| Published: January 28, 2008 - 06:07PM CT
The increasingly tangled debate over federal surveillance powers
reached a new milestone today when a Republican cloture motion failed
to pass after receiving only 48 of the required 60 votes. If the
cloture motion had passed, it would have blocked all further attempts
to remove controversial telecom immunity provisions from a Senate
intelligence committee surveillance bill by forcing an immediate vote
on the bill itself. As it stands, the issue of retroactive immunity for
telecoms who helped the NSA spy on Americans can now come to the floor
for a full debate. A second cloture motion—filed by Congressional
Democrats in an effort to force immediate vote on a 30 day extension to
the Protect America Act—also failed to pass.
This controversy erupted only days before the scheduled expiration of the Protect America Act,
a temporary surveillance bill that was enacted six months ago in
response to a secret ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court (FISC) that reportedly imposed limitations on warrantless
intelligence gathering operations. The Protect America Act enables the
executive branch and some of its direct subordinates to authorize
warrantless surveillance and interception of communications between
individuals "reasonably believed" to be outside of the United States.
The Bush administration characterizes the Protect America Act as a
modernization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978
(FISA) and has been lobbying to make it permanent. Critics say the act
broadly expanded federal surveillance power while diminishing judicial
oversight.
Establishing a replacement for the Protect America Act has proven to be a serious