Attorney General Michael Mukasey became the latest Bush Administration official to pressure Congress for an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, Friday, saying that Congress's failure to pass the bipartisan extension makes it harder "by the day" to track terrorists. Mukasey made his comments as Congress prepares to return to Washington from its President's Day recess. The issue will be high on the list of priorities in the coming week.

The Senate, after much debate, passed an extension of FISA in the first week of February, leaving the House one week before a temporary extension of the law expired. But Democratic leaders in the House refused to allow the Senate bill to come up for a vote before the deadline, causing the law to lapse on February 16th. The Senate bill is supported by a majority of House members on a bipartisan basis, and would surely pass if it were allowed to come to the floor.

The sticking point holding up the legislation is the issue of immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the government turned to the major telephone and communications companies and requested their assistance in setting up the controversial terrorist surveillance program. The companies agreed to help the government track phone calls moving through the United States between suspected terrorists and persons both inside and outside the country without warrants under the previous version of FISA. When word of the program was leaked to the press, some felt that the phone companies should be liable for their actions. The Administration insists that the terrorist surveillance program is legal and that the telecommunications companies did nothing wrong in helping the government track potential terrorists. It insists on the immunity provision in any FISA extension to protect those companies from frivolous lawsuits.

The Protect America Act, the temporary extension of FISA that expired last week, contained an immunity provision. The Senate rejected an effort to strip the immunity language from its version of the extension, and the final bill passed with 68 Senators voting in favor. The House version of the extension does not contain immunity. House Republicans, along with a group of over 30 Democrats from more conservative home districts, maneuvered before the recess to prevent the House from taking up another temporary extension of FISA. That left House leaders with a choice, bring the Senate bill up for a vote, or let the law expire.

House and Senate negotiators have been meeting to try and iron out the differences between the two bills even as the two parties trade barbs over the House's failure to pass an extension before the deadline. House Republicans have been charging that majority Democrats have left the country at the mercy of terrorists and other plotters for the sake of scoring political points with trial lawyers, a valued component of the Democratic Party's base. Democrats counter by insisting that the government has all the authority it needs under the previous version of FISA; and that Republicans are only seeking to protect their friends in big business. Meanwhile, the Administration continues to prod Congress to get a final bill passed. The debate will likely take up a good portion of next week, as Congress returns and the Administration turns its attention back to domestic affairs after the president's recent Africa trip.

In the end, it appears likely that an extension of the law will get done, with the immunity provision included. Democrats know that in order to hold on to control of Congress, they must protect those 30 or more seats they hold in traditionally more conservative districts.