The Senate version of FISA reauthorization would grant immunity to those phone companies, but liberal Democrats in the House were staunchly opposed to doing so. Democratic Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Rep. Silvestre Reyes (Tex.) wrote in a letter to President Bush on Thursday, “I see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized.”

His Senate counterpart Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-W.V.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, however, urged his Senate colleagues to vote in favor of the immunity provision in the Senate bill. On the Senate floor Thursday, Rockefeller said that without FISA reauthorization, "the quality of intelligence we are going to be receiving is going to be degraded. It is going to be degraded. It is already going to be degraded as telecommunications companies lose interest."

House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi argues that a FISA lapse “does not mean that surveillance activities will cease” but the White House says otherwise.

White House press secretary Dana Perino says Pelosi is wrong. Perino explained in a release that if FISA is not reauthorized, “The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence would be stripped of power to authorize new certifications against foreign intelligence targets, including international terrorists, abroad.”

The current FISA bill, that permits the government quickly obtain communications records, will expire on midnight February 15th. The law will automatically revert to a previous version that requires the government to prove probable cause of terrorist communication before communications may be monitored.