Democrats Try to Delay Eavesdropping Vote

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
New York Times

WASHINGTON—Senate Democrats concede that they probably lack the votes needed to stop a White House-backed plan to give immunity to phone utilities that helped the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping, and they are seeking to put off the vote for another month.

The Senate delayed a vote in December, and it is scheduled to take up the issue again in a debate beginning Thursday.

Putting off the vote for a second time riled White House officials and Republicans on Tuesday, because they insist that national security will be put at risk if Congress does not meet a Feb. 1 deadline to amend the eavesdropping law.

“We’ve had six months to get this done,” a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said in an interview. “We shouldn’t need more time to get this done.”

The debate has percolated since the disclosure in December 2005 that President Bush had authorized the security agency to eavesdrop without warrants on the international communications of Americans suspected of terrorist ties.

Since then, Congress has struggled with how it should respond to the president’s actions. A temporary solution developed last August, when Congress, in a rushed vote just before its summer recess, agreed to give Mr. Bush many of the broadened eavesdropping powers he had sought.

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