WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee approved legislation Thursday that would place new controls on the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program, but includes provisions sought by the White House to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits for aiding the government spying effort.
The measure, passed 13-2, represents a tentative deal between a key Senate panel and the White House. The issue has been a source of acrimony since it was revealed nearly two years ago that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without court warrants on conversations of Americans.
But the committee's compromise faces a series of challenges. Those include opposition from other members of the Senate as well as a competing House bill that would impose tighter restrictions on spy agencies and deny any legal protections to phone companies.
The Senate measure is the product of weeks of discussions between the Bush administration and the nation's top intelligence officials with Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the intelligence committee, and Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the panel's ranking Republican.
As part of the negotiations, Rockefeller, Bond and other members were granted access this week to previously secret documents outlining the administration's legal rationale for the warrantless surveillance program.
Their bill would give a special federal court expanded authority to monitor an espionage program that was first authorized by Bush in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The measure is designed to overhaul a 1978 law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was passed to crack down on domestic spying abuses by the CIA and other agencies. Top U.S. intelligence officials have pressed for sweeping revisions, arguing that the law has not kept pace with the emergence of the Internet, the spread of cellphones and other telecommunications advances.
Under the Senate committee's approach, the NSA -- which eavesdrops on electronic communications around the world -- would have clear authority to intercept calls and e-mails between foreigners, even when they cross over networks inside the United States.
The bill would also allow the NSA to monitor communications between a suspect overseas and someone in the United States, without a warrant. Instead, the government would be required to win court approval for the procedures it uses to determine that its surveillance targets are outside the country.
