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.
