WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Temporary domestic wire-tapping legislation enacted
in August didn't give telephone companies retroactive legal immunity, Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Monday.
AT&T Inc. (T), MCI Communications Services, Inc. and its parent company,
Verizon Communications, Inc. (VZ), are all the subject of class-action lawsuits
seeking damages for their alleged participation in the National Security
administration's warrantless wire-tapping program.
But in a related class-action lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional
Rights against the Bush administration, the government is now arguing that the
temporary expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as
FISA, should be the reason to dismiss the case permanently.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Leahy responded that "lawyers can argue whatever
they want," but Congress "very specifically did not grant immunity."
Leahy said that the issue of whether to grant retroactive immunity hinges on
the Bush administration's legal rationale for the domestic wire-tapping program,
which the Bush administration calls the "Terrorist Surveillance Program."
But so far the White House has stonewalled Congress, Leahy said.
In a letter Monday to Leahy, White House Counsel Fred Fielding said that the
White House still wouldn't hand over any documents relating to the program's
legal rationale, because a "core set of highly sensitive national security and
related documents we have identified so far are potentially subject to claims of
executive privilege."
In 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney succeeded in blocking the Judiciary
Committee, then led by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., from seeking the information
directly from the telephone companies.
Cheney brokered a side deal with committee member Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah,
which left Specter without the votes needed to issue subpoenas to the telecomm
companies.
The committee had hoped to ask the companies about the program and why they
had cooperated. At least one company, Qwest Communications International Inc. (
Q), refused to comply with the government's request.
Speaking after his press conference Monday, Leahy he said he would still like
to hear from Qwest and why they felt legally comfortable ignoring the request.
Before leaving Washington for a month-long vacation, Congress bowed to White
House pressure and passed a six-month extension and expansion of domestic wire-
tapping authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The bill also included language requiring telecommunications providers to
cooperate with government intelligence surveillance orders and explicitly giving
those companies protection for any future cooperation with government
surveillance programs.
But President George W. Bush had sought to include in that bill a provision
giving telephone companies retroactive immunity from criminal and civil
liabilityfor cooperating with the wiretapping program and for handing over
telephone records for customers.
In a radio address last month, Bush argued that the provisions would "allow
the government to work more efficiently with private-sector entities like
communications providers, whose help is essential."
While acceding to most of the Bush administration's other demands, lawmakers
balked at the retroactive immunity provision.
The basis for the class-action lawsuits against the telephone companies is
that federal law prohibits the government from obtaining customers' call-detail
records without a warrant or other valid legal process, and similarly prohibits
telecommunications providers from giving such information to the government
without judicial or other lawful authorization.
-By John Godfrey, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6601; John.Godfrey@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-20-07 1722ET
Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
