Key Republicans offer concessions to kick-start FISA bill

Senate and House Republicans announced Thursday what they described as one of their last offers to House Democrats in an attempt to strike a compromise on the long-stalled measure revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Comment on this article in The Forum."I think this is a good-faith effort," Senate Intelligence ranking member Christopher (Kit) Bond said in announcing that Republicans have made "major concessions" in their latest proposal.

"I hope that we have a bicameral, bipartisan consensus on the FISA bill," Bond said.

But it was far from certain House Democratic leaders would accept the proposal.

"It is unfortunate that while Congress and the administration are making progress on this important legislation that some on the other side decided to engage in rhetoric that is not helpful to our ongoing negotiations," said House Majority Leader Hoyer, who has been trying to broker a deal for weeks but has been unhappy with recent public suggestions by Bonds that Hoyer may be prolonging negotiations.

"In fact today I had a conversation with a high-level White House official who agreed that we are continuing to make progress and that both sides are negotiating in good faith to move this process forward," Hoyer said.

A senior Democratic aide said that high-level official was White House Chief of Staff Bolten.

Republicans and House Democratic leaders have tangled for weeks over bill language, especially a Senate provision added at the insistence of the White House that would grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the Bush administration's warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed against the telecoms for participating in the administration's terrorist surveillance activities from the days immediately after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks until January 2007, when the intelligence gathering program was under the purview of the secret FISA court.

Republicans said they made their "major concessions" in four primary areas.

On the hotly disputed issue of immunity for the telecom firms, the FISA court would determine whether the lawsuits should be dropped.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits would be allowed to appear before the court and participate in legal briefs, but the court would not be permitted to conduct a full-scale investigation into the actions of the telecommunications companies, aides said. The court would be allowed to review directives and certifications that the administration gave to the companies, aides added.

The court would then use a standard under which it considers "a preponderance of the evidence" to decide each case. That is different from an "abuse of discretion" standard that was written into the administration-backed FISA bill approved by the Senate this year.

On another front, the GOP proposal would require the administration to submit its procedures and certifications to the FISA court for review before surveillance could begin, except in exigent circumstances. This would apply to wiretaps involving the communications of a U.S. citizen inside the United States.

In a third area, the Republicans said they will accept, for the most part, language from House Democrats making FISA the exclusive means for conducting wiretaps. House Speaker Pelosi has said that having the language in a final FISA bill is her top priority.

And Republicans agreed to accept a Democratic demand that the inspectors general of the intelligence agencies conduct an audit of the terrorist surveillance program.

Bond said he believes the GOP proposal would be supported by the White House. "I believe they would be very happy to get this proposal," he said.

House Intelligence ranking member Pete Hoekstra said the concessions go about as far as the Republicans can go without compromising the capabilities of the intelligence community.

House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith said Republicans are reaching the point where they will "draw a line in the sand."

But it was unclear how much longer it will take to reach a final deal. "There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to get this done," Hoekstra said.

Hoyer said Democrats are reviewing the proposal carefully and "look forward to resolving remaining differences in the near future."

"Despite today's events, we look forward to continued discussions with Senator Bond and other stakeholders as we work toward a final agreement," he added.

An aide to Senate Intelligence Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller said the proposal reflects negotiations Rockefeller has been conducting with the administration. "It's taking us in the right direction in terms of getting closer to a deal but there are several remaining issues to resolve," the aide said.