At issue is an attempt to rein in President Bush's post-9/11 usurpation of wiretap law. Until 2005, he gave intelligence gatherers wide powers to eavesdrop on domestic calls to overseas phones in the name of tracking terrorists. But he largely dodged using a special intelligence court that federal law established to oversee the work. He also enlisted major phone companies in the operation and kept it secret.
The new rewrite falls short in serious ways. It allows judges to dismiss about 40 lawsuits that claim the phone companies illegally cooperated. If these suits end, the public may never know the extent of the Bush wiretapping scheme.