After passing a six-month "emergency" surveillance bill in August 2007 - to grapple with holes in US wiretapping powers while trying to legalize a previous secret spying program - Congress passed a long term solution in July '08.

The House and Senate originally had different takes on where to hinge the balance (their respective bills are listed below). At issue was how much oversight the courts should have when spying on calls to and from terrorist groups when one person on the call may be in the US - and also whether or not to give phone companies retro-active immunity for giving the feds access to phone calls under a previous, secret wiretapping program. As of the end of June '08, both chambers hatched a compromise, HR 6304, which passed both chambers over the summer.

We offer a glimpse of each chamber's bills below - alongside last year's slap-dash bill.

For background on the secret NSA program and what's been happening on Capitol Hill since, see our NSA Wiretap brief.

Issue in Brief

what's up

In December 2005, the New York Times reported the National Security Agency (NSA) was tapping into international calls to the US without warrants. A couple of years - as well as lawsuits, hearings and bills - later, Congress finally passed a bill in July '08, essentially legalizing the NSA program and giving legal protection to the telecom companies that complied with the NSA from pending lawsuits. See a brief overview of that bill here.

the back story

After the first '05 Times report, it didn't take long for the battalions of civil libertarians and security hawks to get in formation and accuse each other of "illegal power grabs," "forgetting the lessons of 9/11," etc. etc.

Bill in Brief

Passed in the wake of 9/11, the PATRIOT Act quickly became a target for civil libertarians who said the new law went too far in increasing the government's spying powers. Civil libertarians had a chance to tweak some of the Act's provisions in 2005, when many of its sections were slated to expire, but they won few concessions in the end when the law was finally renewed in March, 2006. (WP)

From the get go, the House and Senate's 2005 debates agreed that Patriot's more controversial parts - on "sneak & peaks," library records and "National Security Letters" - had to be changed up, but the Senate was slightly more aggressive in pushing for more civil libertarian safeguards. See the chart below on the - mostly subtle - differences between the draft bills from each chamber.

Bill in Brief

Congress passed a intelligence reform bill in 2004 with the idea of shaking up a system that seemed to be stuck in the past. Below is a bit of a "Joe Archive" on the bill from 2004.

The House and Senate passed two versions of a bill to overhaul the nation's complex and, some say, flawed intelligence system. Although both chambers put the creation of a National Intelligence Director (NID) at the center of their plans, they split on how much budgetary and hiring power to give that NID. The House proposal also tacked on a number of security measures which were designed to beef up anti-terrorist law enforcement, but which have civil libertarians calling the bill a "back door Patriot Act" (the House has since dropped many of those proposals during negotiations). Below is a snapshot of some of the changes the House and the Senate proposed - gleaned from the Washington Post, New York Times, Congress Daily, Congressional Quarterly and the LA Times.

Facts

The 9/11 Commission's report put Intelligence at the center of the policy map in 2004. While the 500+ page report has more criticisms and recommendations than we'd bother listing, its main thrust is that intelligence agencies have to coordinate more to get a handle on terrorism. Congress followed many of the reports recommendations in 2004, creating a grand overseer of terrorism intelligence and a terrorism intelligence center to pool and synthesize analysis.

At the opposite end of the “we-have-to-do-more-to-fight-terrorism” theme is the “not-if-it-steps-on-my-civil-liberties” debate. Civil libertarians point to ominous abuses to individual rights that have arisen since 9/11, including a few provisions in the Patriot Act, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, “voluntary interviews”, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and strict/intrusive security measures at airports (no fly lists and CAPPS).