Wiretaps and subpoenas: Administration wants to continue surveillance law

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The Obama administration promised Congress on Tuesday to negotiate stronger privacy protections for Americans under terrorism surveillance but insisted on retaining current authority to track suspects and obtain records.

Liberals on the House Judiciary Committee were left unsatisfied, clearly wanting the administration to go further and pledge to curb what they consider abuses of the Bush administration.

They repeatedly insisted that the law be rewritten to require better justification for wiretaps and subpoenas, and Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., even compared the Obama administration's position so far with that of the Bush administration.

"You sound like a lot of people who came over from DOJ (the Department of Justice) before," Conyers told Todd Hinnen, deputy assistant attorney general.

Congress is starting to consider changes in three expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, a counterterrorism law initially passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

These three provisions require the government to seek permission from a special foreign surveillance court for subpoenas and surveillance. The Bush administration, while using the court, also had the National Security Agency — without warrants — eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for terrorist activity. That program ended before Bush left office.