Despite the win President Bush scored on legislation expanding the administration’s eavesdropping authority, Democrats appear determined to make it a temporary victory.

Barely an hour after the House voted, 227-183, to clear the legislation (S 1927) late Aug. 4, Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter calling on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees to “send to the House, as soon as possible after Congress reconvenes, legislation which responds comprehensively to the administration’s proposal while addressing the many deficiencies in S 1927.” The legislation expires in February.

The House vote on the surveillance bill was one of its last acts during a weekend of acrimony sparked by Republican allegations of Democratic procedural misconduct, which delayed the start of a monthlong recess. Working through numerous delays caused by Republican floor protests, the House managed to pass a defense spending bill and a major energy package and clear $250 million in aid for the Minneapolis bridge disaster before adjourning around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. The Senate adjourned Aug. 3 after passing the surveillance bill.

Pelosi’s letter indicates that the tug-of-war over how much authority to give the administration to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists with little or no court oversight is far from done.

“Many provisions of this legislation are unacceptable, and although the bill has a six month sunset clause, I do not believe the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken,” Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote to Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

Capitulating to pressure from Bush, the House cleared the Republican-crafted legislation, which would temporarily give the administration expanded powers to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

A sharply divided House Democratic caucus spent most of Aug. 4 behind closed doors, debating whether to clear the bill and move on or make a stand against the president, who threatened to keep Congress in session until it sent him a bill he could sign.

Even many House Democrats who supported the bill did so reluctantly, and those who opposed it did so with heated rhetoric.

“Once again, this House is being stampeded by fear-mongering and deception into signing away our rights,” Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said.

Eventually, House Republicans joined forces with 41 Democrats to clear the bill and send the legislation to the president. The night before, the Senate passed the legislation, sponsored by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Christopher S. Bond, by a vote of 60-28.

Democrats in the House preferred their own legislation to fix an intelligence gap created by a hitch in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA — PL 95-511) and a recent court ruling. The Democrats’ bill, defeated by a vote of 218-207 the night of Aug. 3 under suspension of the rules, which required a two-thirds vote for passage, would have clarified that FISA does not require warrants for surveillance of communications between foreigners — the main problem cited by Republicans and Bush administration officials and the one primarily caused by a recent court ruling.

“I know it’s not the bill that many of our friends on the other side would have liked to have passed tonight,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “I think they also know that this bill is needed at this moment.”

The White House and its Republican allies in Congress insisted that the Democratic alternatives unreasonably expanded the role of the secret court that approves FISA warrants, added layers of bureaucracy that would slow urgent surveillance and extended rights to foreign targets that did not have them previously.

Complaints From Levin

Some House Democrats said privately that they believed the Senate “cut us off at the knees” by sending over a bill favored by the administration, making it difficult for House Democrats to fight against the president and congressional Republicans by themselves.

The cleared measure would permit warrantless surveillance of any targets located abroad, even if they are communicating with someone in the United States. That expansion alone has infuriated privacy advocacy groups and segments of the Democrats’ base.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, who cosponsored the unsuccessful Democratic counterproposal (S 2011) to the McConnell-Bond measure, said the Republican bill went even further, allowing eavesdropping, without court review, on U.S. citizens who happen to be located on foreign soil.

“It says if Americans are overseas, they’re basically fair game,” Levin said.

The Center for Democracy and Technology agreed with Levin in its analysis of the bill, noting that the legislation allows warrantless surveillance of all foreign targets.

The authority provided by the measure would be broader than Bush said his Terrorist Surveillance Program had when he acknowledged its existence after its disclosure by the media in December 2005.

“The president said then that in every case, the administration had reason to believe that a member or associate of al Qaeda or another terrorist group was on the line,” the privacy advocacy group wrote Aug. 2. “The administration’s latest proposal eliminates that requirement. It would allow interception of any international call of any citizen, just on the basis that the government is targeting the person overseas.”

The legislation does add a layer of oversight from the secret court that administers warrants under FISA. It requires the attorney general, in consultation with the director of National Intelligence, to develop procedures for handling information collected through the surveillance to ensure that it is directed only at foreign targets. The court could approve or disapprove of the procedures.

But the Center for Democracy and Technology said a clause in the legislation allowing the court to reject the procedures only if they were “clearly erroneous” was a “ridiculously low” standard and was not the most important thing to examine anyway.

“The question should be whether the surveillance is resulting in the interception of the communications of Americans,” the center wrote. “If it is, it should be subject to a court order. Under the administration proposal, the court has no authority to examine that question and therefore no authority to protect the rights of Americans.”

The bill also would compel communications carriers to comply with the federal government’s surveillance demands.

The legislation would expire after six months, giving Congress a chance to revisit the controversy and address a more long-lasting FISA overhaul in the fall. Some Democrats said that is why they voted for the bill despite their concerns. Others said they merely wanted to vote for legislation that had the best chance of passing to quickly clear the intelligence gap.

Heather A. Wilson, R-N.M., an Intelligence panel member who has been at the forefront of her party’s efforts to clear a FISA overhaul bill, said Democrats have begun to see that “we’re not kidding” that the threat posed by gaps in the law is serious.

Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the committee, joined Wilson in pressing for the bill. He said Bush was prepared to sign the measure as soon as the House cleared it.

First posted Aug. 4, 2007 2:12 p.m.