President Bush issued a veto threat Tuesday in the debate
to update terrorist surveillance laws, rebuking Democratic
plans to deny retroactive legal protections for telecommunications
providers that let the government spy on U.S. residents after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks....
The Bush administration's warning was aimed at legislative
amendments that would bar retroactive immunity to phone companies
and other telecom providers that have given the government
access to e-mails and phone calls linked to people in the
United States. Without the retroactive protections, the letter
noted, telecom providers might be unwilling to help the government
track down terror suspects in the future as they were asked
to do in the days following the 2001 attacks.
