Intellectual Property Law

More than 30 conservative Democrats joined with the House Republicans Wednesday to defeat a measure that would have extended the expiration date of a temporary spying law by 21 days. That measure was intended to give the House room to negotiate with the Senate, rather than quickly adopting a Senate bill that grants amnesty to telecoms and legalizes Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

The extension's failure by a vote of 199 191 to 229 will inevitably pressure House Democratic leaders to allow a vote to adopt the Senate bill, since the House is not in session Thursday or Friday.

The temporary spy law, known as the Protect America Act, expires at midnight on Friday. If the House adopts the Senate version, President Bush could immediately sign the bill into law, winning a key political battle and largely shutting down debate and lawsuits over his secret spying program.

The House's Democratic leadership wants instead to enter into negotiations with the Senate in order to reconcile the differences between the Restore Act -- which the House passed in November -- and the Senate's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2007.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House FISA bill does not include amnesty for telecoms that helped the government spy on Americans and data-mine their phone records, without getting warrants and in clear violation of federal privacy laws. It also places sharper limits on when the nation's spies can wiretap inside the United States without getting a court order.

Bush threatened earlier Tuesday to veto any extension, saying the "time for debate was over."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called that threat "Orwellian speak." saying if the temporary Protect America Act is allowed to lapse, Bush would be to blame for any lack of surveillance capabilities in the meantime.

The House leadership will likely re-group after this loss, but will struggle to find a way out of this political conundrum.

A vote tally is not yet available on the House website.

Photo: Kunal Mukherjee