Bush has argued that the cooperation of such companies is crucial to the nation's ability to monitor the communications of members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, largely because much of the world's telephone and e-mail traffic passes through data networks in the United States.
"You cannot expect phone companies to participate if they feel like they're going to be sued," Bush said Thursday during a news conference.
A temporary espionage law that Congress passed last summer expired in February, prompting warnings from top intelligence officials that phone companies could curb their cooperation and create dangerous intelligence gaps. Under the law, much of the eavesdropping can continue for a year before it has to be reauthorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The Senate has already passed legislation that would bolster the authority of the surveillance court, expand the government's eavesdropping authority and grant the phone companies retroactive liability protection. But the issue has been stalled in the House.
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greg.miller@latimes.com
