FISA Legislation: Another trench

Written by: Henry Barru on Jan 30, 2008 2:00 PM EST

The Senate's Tuesday vote against closing debate on the Intelligence Committee version of FISA legislation was encouraging.  But it's still possible that this awful legislation will pass the Senate with the worst provisions (telecom immunity and blanket warrants) essentially intact.

There is another fallback if that happens.  The Senate version will have to be reconciled with the House version,  and the latter is a much better bill that does not include retroactive immunity or blanket warrants.  (Much closer in fact to the Senate Judiciary Committee version, that Harry Reid refused to send to the full Senate) 

Speaker Pelosi has final say on which House members will sit on the Conference Committee.  We need to urge her to appoint people who will not compromise on the rule of law or supporting the constitution.  Her office just told me that a 15-day extension has passed the House, to give the Senate more time to hammer out a bill.  So, along with contacting our Senators, we have some time to let our Reps and Speaker Pelosi know how we feel about this issue.  

The Speaker's Washington office is (202) 225-4965; District office in SF is (415) 556-4862.

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