Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, told the House Judiciary Committee that since he took office last February, they have not conducted any wire-tapping without warrants on American citizens. His testimony was part of the big push by the Bush administration to make the new surveillance law passed in August permanent and to change the law to grant retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies now facing lawsuits. (NY Times) Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball have a good piece in Newsweek about this. They say the telecommunications companies "campaign" to get the law changed, "which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firms," has become urgent recently "because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed." If the court so rules, telecom companies will stop cooperating without getting warrants. "'It’s not an exaggeration to say the U.S. intelligence community is in a near-panic about this,' said one communications industry lawyer familiar with the debate." But the changes proposed by the White House, "drafted in close cooperation with the industry officials," is so "extraordinarily broad that it would provide retroactive immunity for all past telecom actions related to the surveillance program. Its practical effect, they say, would be to shut down any independent judicial or state inquires into how the companies have assisted the government in eavesdropping on the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks."

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