Bush Urges Congress to Extend Limit on Eavesdropping Law

By Anastacia Mott Austin

President Bush wants Congress to consider expanding a temporary law allowing the U.S. government to spy on communications between Americans and foreign citizens suspected of being terrorists.

The Protect America Act was temporarily expanded last month by Congress, but now Democrats want to add restrictions to the law, such as ensuring that Americans who communicate with people outside of the United States do not unwittingly become targets of surveillance without their knowledge.

The law was intended to be extended only through February of 2008, but President Bush wants to make it permanent.

"The threat from al Qaeda is not going to expire in 135 days," said the President to Associated Press reporters. "So I call on Congress to make the Protect America Act permanent."

In addition to extending the law, President Bush is asking for a provision that would protect telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government and helped carry out surveillance activities without a warrant before January of 2007.

Bush visited the National Security Agency in Maryland this week, and spoke with employees and reporters there. If the Protect America Act is not extended, said Bush, "Our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country."

"Without these tools, it will be harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to train, recruit and infiltrate operatives into America," added the President. "Without these tools, our country will be much more vulnerable to attack."

But some Democrats aren’t buying it. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, had some serious concerns.

"Let's have some truth in advertising. The act gives the president almost unfettered power to spy without judicial approval - not only on foreigners but on Americans," Nadler told reporters.

Nadler and others fear that the law could be interpreted to give the government access to the business records, personal mail, and medical records of Americans.