House Meets in Closed FISA Session
The Democrats of the House of Representatives agreed to meet in the first closed session in 25 years over the issues presented by the Foreign Surveilance Intelligence Act (FISA) bill. The request for the closed session was based on the democratic revision of the bill. The significance of this session is that closed sessions of the regularly transparent House of Represenatives are extremely rare and have only occurred 5 times since 1825. (Crabtee)
The reason for the session, is that FISA would not grant immunity retroactively to telecommunications firms that complied with the warrantless wiretapping program. The equivalent Senate bill does grant that immunity to the telecommunications companies. The new bill as proposed in the House would certainly be vetoed by President Bush. (Crabtree)
President Bush also cited a very cumbersome process of obtaining permission to obtain telecom participation in intelligence gathering, which Bush believes would leave substantial gaps and unacceptable time lapses in intelligence gathering. (Bush)
Sources:
Bush, G. W. (2008, March 13). President Bush Discusses FISA. Washington D.C.
Crabtee, S. (2008, March 13). Hoyer Agrees to Closed House Session. Retrieved 17 2007, March, from The Hill: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-gop-seeks-closed-session-on-fisa-2008-03-13.html