Bush Says Companies Need the Protection of the Wiretapping Law

By Marissa Wells

Bloomberg.com reports that President Bush is pushing Congress to pass his wiretapping legislation when its recess ends on February 25th, claiming that "the House's refusal to act is undermining our ability to get cooperation from private companies, and that undermines our effort to protect us from terrorist attacks" in a recent radio address. The House of Representatives, currently controlled by Democrats, has thus far rejected Bush's plan, which would extend wiretapping immunity for telecommunications companies by another six years. The previous wiretapping immunity bill expired on February 16th.

Democrats in the House have claimed that refusing to sign the bill into law would not hurt the war on terrorism, as orders given to telephone companies would continue to be protected for another year. Bush maintains that telecommunications companies must be protected from what he considers to be "abusive lawsuits" in order to prevent another major terrorist attack.