House Holds Secret Session On Surveillance
The House of Representatives held a closed session Thursday for the first time in 25 years to discuss a hotly contested surveillance bill.
Republicans requested privacy for what they termed "an honest debate" on the new Democratic eavesdropping measure that is opposed by the White House and most Republicans in Congress.
Lawmakers were forbidden to disclose what was said during the hour-long session. The extent to which minds were changed, if at all, should be more clear Friday, when the House was expected to openly debate and then vote on the bill.
Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee said she did not believe anyone changed positions but that the session was useful because no one would be able to complain on Friday that their views had not been heard.
"We couldn't have gone more of an extra mile to make sure we're doing the best for national security," she told The Associated Press.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview that he read aloud the titles - but not details - of intelligence reports "that shows the nature of the global threat and how dynamic the situation is, and how fluid."
The representative from Michigan released a statement after the meeting, calling it, "imperative that our terrorist surveillance program be extended."
Hoekstra said the House discussed the procedures intelligence agencies use to protect the identities of innocent Americans whose calls and e-mails are incidentally intercepted in wiretaps.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, said "there was nothing new, nothing that wasn't public, nothing that can't and shouldn't be debated on the floor tomorrow in open session."
An aide to one senior Democrat who attended told CBS News the meeting was "a waste of time," and all Democrats who spoke to CBS News upon leaving the closed session indicated they had not been convinced by the Republicans' evidence, and would still support the bill without automatic retroactive immunity for corporations.
President Bush said Thursday that the House Democrats' version of the surveillance bill would undermine the nation's security and that if it reaches his desk, he will veto it.
Ratcheting up his rhetoric, Mr. Bush said, "The American people understand the stakes in this struggle. They want their children to be safe from terror."
Mr. Bush commented at a GOP fundraiser Wednesday night that "The Democrat version of protecting America is a bad bill. It is irresponsible," reported CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller. "House leaders know this, yet they're pursuing this anyway. This is bad public policy, and another reason to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives."
The last closed session in the House was in 1983 on U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. Only five closed sessions have taken place in the House since 1825.
Four members declined to sign the confidentiality oath required to participate in the closed session, House staff members said.
Many Democrats initially objected, calling it a political ploy by Republicans to delay a vote on the bill. House leaders did in fact push off the scheduled vote until Friday, just before taking a two-week recess. If it passes, the bill would need Senate approval before going to the president.
Mr. Bush opposes it in part because it doesn't provide full, retroactive legal protection to telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies by people and organizations alleging they violated wiretapping and privacy laws. The lawsuits have been combined and are pending before a single federal judge in California.
"Our ability to help secure our homeland and provide vital intelligence to our troops in combat and allies cannot be done without the support of patriotic, private companies," the statement from Hoekstra's office said. "Tonight's secret session helped provide a better understanding of the support we get from non-government providers, the importance of that support going forward, and what we risk if that support is cut because businesses simply cannot afford the risk."
The Democrats' measure would encourage the judge to review in private the secret government documents underpinning the program in order to decide whether the companies acted lawfully. If they did, the lawsuits would be dismissed.
The administration has prevented those documents from being revealed, even to a judge, by invoking the state secrets privilege. That puts the companies in a bind because they cannot use the documents to defend themselves in court.
One house Democrat told CBS News that Republicans presented a mixture of classified and unclassified information to make their case Thursday night. Just a fraction of Congress has been allowed to read secret documents underpinning the surveillance program, and those who have arrived at varying conclusions.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, after seeing classified material, said the companies acted on the good-faith belief that the wiretaps they allowed were lawful. Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees were unconvinced after being presented with the same material.
The surveillance law is intended to help in the pursuit of suspected terrorists by making it easier to eavesdrop on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. A temporary law expired Feb. 16 before Congress was able to produce a replacement bill.
Hoekstra said intelligence was already being lost.
"Each and every day our capabilities are eroding," he said.
Mr. Bush predicted the Senate would not pass the House version of the bill, and said even if it did, he would veto it.
At least one Senate Republican said the lawsuits should go forward to determine whether the wiretapping program was illegal. But Sen. Arlen Specter wants to substitute the government for the phone companies as the defendant in the court cases.
"The president can't have a blank check," Specter said in an interview. "If you close down the courts, there's no check and balance."
He added: "Wiretaps are important for national security. There's no doubt about that. Al Qaeda and terrorism continue to be a major threat to this country. It is my hope that the president will not find it necessary to veto the bill, that we'll be able to work it out."