nd what now appears to be permissible in Congress' view. As such, it diminishes significantly any chance that any White House official will ever be held accountable for breaking the law to begin with.

In addition, the White House's insistence that the FISA court's authority be significantly diminished is consistent with the administration's pattern of attacking any entity in a position to question their actions. It appears that there is no impediment to the DOJ notifying the FISA court when surveillance is needed, just an ongoing refusal on the part of the White House to share information with anyone, for any reason, regardless. ma/TO

The roll call vote for the surveillance bill can be found at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml (See list below the article)

**********************

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure "does violence to the Constitution of the United States."

Washington - Under pressure from President Bush, the House gave final approval Saturday to changes in a terrorism surveillance program, despite serious objections from many Democrats about the scope of the executive branch's new eavesdropping power.

Racing to complete a final rush of legislation before a scheduled monthlong break, the House voted 227 to 183 to endorse a measure the Bush administration said was needed to keep pace with communications technology in the effort to track terrorists overseas.

"The intelligence community is hampered in gathering essential information about terrorists," said Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas.

The House Democratic leadership had severe reservations about the proposal and an overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure "does violence to the Constitution of the United States."

But with the Senate already in recess, Democrats confronted the choice of allowing the administration's bill to reach the floor and be approved mainly by Republicans or letting it die.

If it had stalled, that would have left Democratic lawmakers, long anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August spent fending off charges from Republicans that they had left Americans exposed to threats.

Despite the political risks, many Democrats argued they should stand firm against the initiative, saying it granted the administration far too much latitude to initiate surveillance without judicial review.

They said the White House was using the specter of terrorism to weaken Americans' privacy rights and give more power to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, an official Democrats say has proved himself untrustworthy.

"Legislation should not be passed in response to fear-mongering," said Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.

The legislation makes changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet.

They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they are likely to resurface before the end of the year.

Democrats have expressed concerns that the administration is reaching for powers that go well beyond solving what officials have depicted as narrow technical issues in the current law.

In a statement issued late Saturday, Mr. Bush said he would "sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk." The Senate approved its version of the bill on Friday.

In seeking changes to the surveillance program, the administration said it was being prevented from monitoring communications of terrorism suspects overseas in a period of apparently heightened activity. Other Republicans called for swift House action as well.

"I can't imagine they would take a monthlong vacation without fulfilling their obligation to keep America safe," Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said before the House approved the bill.

Senior House Democratic leaders said they were resigned to the measure, which will be in force for six months. But they said they would not wait that long before trying to come up with a more acceptable, permanent change in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"There is no way we are ever going to wait six months," said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

The surveillance measure came up in the House late Saturday, after lawmakers had approved an energy efficiency measure and were preparing to pass a major Pentagon spending bill and approve $255 million for rebuilding the collapsed bridge in Minnesota.

In the final vote, 41 Democrats joined all but 2 Republicans in backing the measure; 181 Democrats opposed it.

Some Democrats complained they were being bullied into hasty action on the intelligence bill by the administration and Congressional Republicans. They said the House should stick with a proposal defeated Friday that kept more judicial control over the program than the administration wanted.

House Republicans pointed to Senate's approval of the measure, which was supported by most Democratic members of the panel that oversees intelligence operations.

"If it is good enough for Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats, it should be good enough for House Democrats," said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the second-ranking Republican.

Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee, accused Democrats of dithering for months without giving "the intelligence community tools they need while we are at heightened risk."

Administration officials had been quietly pushing Congress to pass a "modernization" of the current law, arguing that technological changes - especially the expansion of telephone calls over the Internet - had made the current rules outdated.

One major issue, apparently raised in secret by judges overseeing the program, is that many calls and e-mail messages between people outside the United States are routed over data networks that run through the United States.

In principle, the surveillance law does not restrict eavesdropping on foreign-to-foreign communications. But in practice, administration officials contend, the path of those calls through this country means the government cannot monitor them without a warrant.

But Democratic lawmakers have been deeply suspicious that the Bush administration was seeking a broader and more controversial expansion of surveillance authority by making changes that were vague on important issues.

Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that the bill the administration wanted would allow wiretapping without warrants as long as it was "concerning a person abroad." As a result, Mr. Reyes said, the law could be construed as allowing any search inside the United States as long as the government claimed it "concerned" Al Qaeda.

Democrats said their suspicions had been fueled in part by the White House's repeated reluctance to ask Congress for technical changes addressing issues that should have been apparent long ago.

In a recent letter to a Republican on the committee, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, Mr. Reyes noted that Congress had updated the FISA law eight times since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"You repeatedly claim that FISA is woefully outdated," Mr. Reyes wrote. "Neither you nor the administration raised concerns during consideration of those bills that the statutory changes proposed were inadequate."

For years, but especially since the attacks, Democrats on the intelligence oversight committees have been loath to do anything that might provoke charges of tying up the intelligence agencies in "outdated" restrictions.

But relations have steadily soured since the public disclosure of the warrantless surveillance program 18 months ago. White House officials have repeatedly argued that the president has broad authority to carry out such programs without explicit permission from Congress, even if the programs appear to violate long-standing legal restrictions.

The mistrust has gone in both directions. Administration officials contend that any effort to have Congress address even straightforward issues prompts Democrats to seek all manner of new restrictions.

But Democrats, and some Republicans, say the administration has worsened the distrust by refusing to be provide detailed information to lawmakers and by offering what appear to have been misleading answers to Congressional queries.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has criticized Mr. Gonzales, the attorney general, for insisting that the Justice Department never had any internal disputes about the legality of the surveillance program.

Several top Justice Department officials, including the director of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller III, have publicly contradicted Mr. Gonzales's testimony and told lawmakers that senior officials threatened in 2004 to resign over the disputes.

*************************

From: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 836

(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)

S 1927 YEA-AND-NAY 4-Aug-2007 10:20 PM

QUESTION: On Passage

BILL TITLE: Protect America Act

Yeas Nays PRES NV

Democratic 41 181 9

Republican 186 2 14

Independent

TOTALS 227 183 23

---- YEAS 227 ---

Aderholt

Akin

Alexander

Altmire

Bachmann

Bachus

Baker

Barrett (SC)

Barrow

Bartlett (MD)

Barton (TX)

Bean

Biggert

Bilbray

Bilirakis

Bishop (UT)

Blackburn

Blunt

Boehner

Bonner

Bono

Boozman

Boren

Boswell

Boustany

Boyd (FL)

Brady (TX)

Broun (GA)

Brown (SC)

Brown-Waite, Ginny

Buchanan

Burgess

Burton (IN)

Buyer

Calvert

Camp (MI)

Campbell (CA)

Cannon

Cantor

Capito

Carney

Carter

Castle

Chabot

Chandler

Cole (OK)

Conaway

Cooper

Costa

Cramer

Cubin

Cuellar

Culberson

Davis (AL)

Davis (KY)

Davis, David

Davis, Lincoln

Davis, Tom

Deal (GA)

Dent

Diaz-Balart, L.

Diaz-Balart, M.

Donnelly

Doolittle

Drake

Dreier

Duncan

Edwards

Ehlers

Ellsworth

Emerson

English (PA)

Etheridge

Everett

Fallin

Feeney

Ferguson

Flake

Forbes

Fortenberry

Fossella

Foxx

Franks (AZ)

Frelinghuysen

Gallegly

Garrett (NJ)

Gerlach

Gilchrest

Gillmor

Gingrey

Gohmert

Goodlatte

Gordon

Granger

Graves

Hall (TX)

Hastings (WA)

Heller

Hensarling

Herger

Herseth Sandlin

Higgins

Hill

Hobson

Hoekstra

Hulshof

Inglis (SC)

Issa

Jordan

Keller

King (IA)

King (NY)

Kingston

Kirk

Kline (MN)

Knollenberg

Kuhl (NY)

Lamborn

Lampson

Latham

LaTourette

Lewis (CA)

Lewis (KY)

Linder

Lipinski

LoBiondo

Lucas

Lungren, Daniel E.

Mack

Manzullo

Marchant

Marshall

Matheson

McCarthy (CA)

McCaul (TX)

McCotter

McCrery

McHenry

McHugh

McIntyre

McKeon

McMorris Rodgers

Melancon

Mica

Miller (FL)

Miller (MI)

Miller, Gary

Mitchell

Moran (KS)

Murphy, Tim

Musgrave

Myrick

Neugebauer

Nunes

Pearce

Pence

Peterson (MN)

Peterson (PA)

Petri

Pickering

Pitts

Platts

Poe

Pomeroy

Porter

Price (GA)

Pryce (OH)

Putnam

Radanovich

Ramstad

Regula

Rehberg

Reichert

Renzi

Reynolds

Rodriguez

Rogers (AL)

Rogers (KY)

Rogers (MI)

Rohrabacher

Ros-Lehtinen

Roskam

Ross

Royce

Ryan (WI)

Salazar

Sali

Schmidt

Sensenbrenner

Sessions

Shadegg

Shays

Shimkus

Shuler

Shuster

Simpson

Smith (NE)

Smith (NJ)

Smith (TX)

Snyder

Souder

Space

Stearns

Sullivan

Tanner

Taylor

Terry

Thornberry

Tiahrt

Tiberi

Turner

Upton

Walberg

Walden (OR)

Walsh (NY)

Walz (MN)

Wamp

Weldon (FL)

Weller

Westmoreland

Whitfield

Wicker

Wilson (NM)

Wilson (OH)

Wilson (SC)

Wolf

Young (FL)

---- NAYS 183 ---

Abercrombie

Ackerman

Allen

Andrews

Arcuri

Baca

Baird

Baldwin

Berkley

Berman

Berry

Bishop (GA)

Bishop (NY)

Blumenauer

Boucher

Boyda (KS)

Brady (PA)

Braley (IA)

Brown, Corrine

Butterfield

Capps

Capuano

Cardoza

Carnahan

Carson

Castor

Cleaver

Clyburn

Cohen

Conyers

Costello

Courtney

Crowley

Cummings

Davis (CA)

Davis (IL)

DeFazio

DeGette

DeLauro

Dicks

Dingell

Doggett

Doyle

Ellison

Emanuel

Engel

Eshoo

Farr

Fattah

Filner

Frank (MA)

Giffords

Gillibrand

Gonzalez

Green, Al

Green, Gene

Grijalva

Gutierrez

Hall (NY)

Hare

Harman

Hastings (FL)

Hinchey

Hirono

Hodes

Holden

Holt

Honda

Hooley

Hoyer

Inslee

Israel

Jackson (IL)

Jackson-Lee (TX)

Jefferson

Johnson (GA)

Johnson (IL)

Johnson, E. B.

Jones (NC)

Jones (OH)

Kagen

Kanjorski

Kaptur

Kennedy

Kildee

Kind

Kucinich

Langevin

Larsen (WA)

Larson (CT)

Lee

Levin

Lewis (GA)

Loebsack

Lofgren, Zoe

Lowey

Lynch

Mahoney (FL)

Maloney (NY)

Markey

Matsui

McCarthy (NY)

McCollum (MN)

McDermott

McGovern

McNerney

McNulty

Meek (FL)

Meeks (NY)

Michaud

Miller (NC)

Miller, George

Mollohan

Moore (KS)

Moore (WI)

Moran (VA)

Murphy (CT)

Murphy, Patrick

Murtha

Nadler

Napolitano

Neal (MA)

Oberstar

Obey

Olver

Ortiz

Pallone

Pascrell

Pastor

Payne

Pelosi

Perlmutter

Price (NC)

Rahall

Rangel

Reyes

Rothman

Roybal-Allard

Ruppersberger

Rush

Ryan (OH)

Sánchez, Linda T.

Sanchez, Loretta

Sarbanes

Schakowsky

Schiff

Schwartz

Scott (GA)

Scott (VA)

Serrano

Sestak

Shea-Porter

Sherman

Sires

Slaughter

Smith (WA)

Solis

Spratt

Stark

Stupak

Sutton

Tauscher

Thompson (CA)

Thompson (MS)

Tierney

Towns

Udall (CO)

Udall (NM)

Van Hollen

Velázquez

Visclosky

Wasserman Schultz

Waters

Watson

Watt

Waxman

Weiner

Welch (VT)

Wexler

Woolsey

Wu

Wynn

Yarmuth

---- NOT VOTING 23 ---

Becerra

Clarke

Clay

Coble

Crenshaw

Davis, Jo Ann

Delahunt

Goode

Hastert

Hayes

Hinojosa

Hunter

Jindal

Johnson, Sam

Kilpatrick

Klein (FL)

LaHood

Lantos

Paul

Saxton

Skelton

Tancredo

Young (AK)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------