FLE

House Panels Reject Appeal on Eavesdropping Two Congressional panels today rejected President Bush’s request to renew without added restrictions his administration’s broad eavesdropping authority, and instead adopted a measure that gives federal judges greater oversight authority over foreign electronic surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency. The bill approved by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees was along straight party lines, just as they split to defeat the administration’s proposal. The legislation, sponsored by Representative John Conyers of Michigan and Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the chairmen of the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, respectively, conspicuously did not contain two provisions demanded by the White House. One would have provided retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that had helped the N.SA. to conduct eavesdropping without warrants. A second would have made the surveillance program permanent — instead, the legislation expires in two years. As the administration has sought, the legislation provides authority for the government to obtain “basket” or “umbrella” warrants for bundles of overseas communications. But White House and Justice Department officials nonetheless criticized the legislation because of the greater authority it gives to a special foreign intelligence surveillance court. The House legislation sets up various categories of court intervention and oversight of electronic surveillance. It continues the policy of not requiring a warrant for intercepting communications between foreigners outside of the United States. It also continues the policy of requiring a warrant from a special foreign intelligence surveillance court when the officials are targeting people in the United States. For a third category of intercepts—bundles of communications by groups of people—the legislation permits the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to a year but only with tight supervision by the foreign intelligence court. The court is required to review procedures to assure that they are reasonably designed to monitor only people outside the United States. The legislation also requires quarterly audits of the program by the Justice Department’s inspector general that would be shared with the foreign intelligence court and Congress....
Investigation looks at airport-screener testing A federal investigator has launched a probe into whether security screeners at six airports have cheated on covert tests run by undercover agents trying to sneak weapons through checkpoints. Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner said he is investigating whether screeners were tipped off to tests that determine how well airport workers find guns, bombs and knives. The broad investigation follows Skinner's findings that screeners at airports in San Francisco and Jackson, Miss., had been told in advance of undercover tests in 2003 and 2004. Skinner is investigating "whether (screeners) at other airports received advance notice of any covert testing," spokeswoman Tamara Faulkner said Thursday. The probe was welcomed by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Last year, he called for an investigation into Jackson-Evers International Airport in his home state after media reports of wrongdoing. Cheating "weakens our security systems at airports," Thompson said....
Death row dispute puts Bush at odds with Texas Supreme Court justices engaged in robust arguments Wednesday over a Texas gang rape and murder. The case has grown into a dispute of international magnitude that goes to the core of the president's powers. A Texas official told the justices states do not need to follow an international court order to hear the appeal of a Mexican citizen on its death row. Lawyers for the prisoner and the Bush administration countered that Texas must help meet U.S. treaty obligations by granting the appeal. The case places Bush, a death penalty supporter, at odds with the state he used to govern. Jose Medellin was convicted of murder and sentenced to die for the rape and strangling of two teenage girls who stumbled into a gang initiation as they walked home from a friend's house in 1993. After he exhausted his regular appeals, Medellin, a Mexican who lived most of his life in Texas, sought a new hearing because he was not told of his right to contact a local Mexican representative when he was arrested. The right to contact a representative, called a consul, is spelled out in the Vienna Convention, a 1969 international treaty signed by the United States....
Judge Suspends Key Bush Effort in Immigration A federal judge in San Francisco ordered an indefinite delay yesterday of a central measure of the Bush administration’s new strategy to curb illegal immigration. The judge, Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California, said the government had failed to follow proper procedures for issuing a new rule that would have forced employers to fire workers if their Social Security numbers could not be verified within three months. Judge Breyer chastised the Department of Homeland Security for making a policy change with “massive ramifications” for employers, without giving any legal explanation or conducting a required survey of the costs and impact for small businesses. Under the rule issued by the department, which had been scheduled to take effect last month, employers would have to fire workers within 90 days after receiving a notice from the Social Security Administration that an employee’s identity information did not match the agency’s records. Illegal immigrants often present false Social Security information when applying for jobs. The rule, announced with fanfare in August by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, was the linchpin of the administration’s effort to crack down on illegal immigration by denying jobs to the immigrants. It is part of a campaign of stepped-up enforcement since broader immigration legislation favored by President Bush was rejected by Congress in June....