Democrats Capitulate to President Bush As Congress Gives Government Broad New Powers To Conduct Warrantless Surveillance

"Warrantless Surrender" – that's what the Washington Post called the Democrat-led Congress handing President Bush a major legislative victory this weekend when it voted to broadly expand the government's authority to eavesdrop without warrants on the international telephone calls and email messages of American citizens.

After weeks of pressure from President Bush, both the House and Senate approved rewriting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The New York Times reports that the new law sharply alters the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States. No protections exist for Americans whose calls or emails are vacuumed up.

The new legislation moves the power to approve the international surveillance from a special intelligence court to the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

The legislation was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began. On Friday President Bush pressured Democrats to support the bill

• President Bush

Democrats quickly responded. Hours after Bush spoke, the Senate passed the so-called Protect America Act of 2007 by a sixty to twenty eight vote with 16 Democratic Senators supporting the Republicans. Then, on Saturday, 41 Democrats joined Republicans to pass the bill in the House.

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the votes. Anthony Romero of the ACLU said "This Congress may prove to be as spineless in standing up to the Bush Administration as the one that enacted the Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act.”

Critics of the legislation say it gives the Bush administration the power to order the nation's communication services providers to create permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

According to Wired.com this could affect traditional phone companies, Internet service providers, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, instant messaging sites and online phone companies.

The law also grants immunity from liability to any company that cooperates with the government's spying operations.

Today we are joined by two attorneys and commentators who have been closely monitoring the Bush administration for years.

• Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. He is a constitutional attorney and author of the new book "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency."
• Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of the new book "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law."

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