Talk:Protect America Act of 2007

SW: Consolidation
Since the RESTORE Act has its own page, and there was enough information contained here, I created a separate page for the Protect America Act. I also consolidated the information here to reflect the status of the RESTORE Act, and removed some redundant language:

Senate gets internal documents
On October 16, 2007 the administration agreed to give the Senate Intelligence Committee access to internal documents related to its domestic surveillance program in an attempt to win Democratic lawmakers' support for the administration's version of the bill to amend FISA. The administration’s version included a provision of immunity for telecommunications companies involved in the surveillance.

The move was meant to resolve a clash between Congress and the Bush administration over access to legal memoranda and presidential decisions reinforcing the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Some of the documents had been demanded by Senate Judiciary Committee members as a condition for considering the nomination of former judge Michael Mukasey as the 81st attorney general, however Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) dropped that condition weeks earlier while saying that he still wanted to see the documents.

Telecom immunity and Senate bill
On October 17, 2007 Democratic and Republican senators reached an agreement with the Bush administration on the terms of new legislation to control the government’s domestic surveillance program. The agreement included a controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted the program.

The Senate bill had the support of Senate Intelligence Committee chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. The bill included full immunity for companies that can demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United States. The demonstration could be made in secret and would eliminate a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of email traffic, and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants. Bush had threatened to veto any legislation without such a provision.

Senate Democrats maintained a requirement that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court review the government’s procedures for deciding who is to be the subject of warrantless surveillance. Democrats also pressed that the legislation be renewed in six years while the administration sought a permanent law that had less stringent oversight by the court.

The announcement of the Senate deal came after a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull their version of the bill, the RESTORE Act, from the floor because they lacked the votes to overcome Republican opponents and parliamentary maneuvers.