Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has come out in opposition to a bill on warrantless wiretapping. April Baer reports his vote is considered crucial to the bill's future.

Congress has been wrestling with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

It details the rules for surveillance.   Those rules include whether phone companies that cooperated in Bush administration surveillance should be protected from legal action.

Some say telecom companies broke the law when they created wiretaps, and helped with other post-September 11th surveillance.

Senator Wyden says he will not support the current bill unless the telecom firms can be held accountable.

Ron Wyden: "There are a number of aspects of the legislation that I think are flawed but the real showstopper is this immunity provision."

When similar bills have come up, Republican Sen. Gordon Smith has been in favor of FISA renewal, but he hasn't indicated his stance on this latest draft.