clipped from: www.cqpolitics.com   
As Congress returns to work this week, GOP lawmakers, backed by the Bush administration, are insisting that the House simply clear bipartisan Senate-passed surveillance legislation (HR 3773)

The marquee difference is whether to provide retroactive liability protection for telecommunications companies that cooperated with a National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless surveillance program for more than five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Senate-passed bill includes the protection; the House-passed bill does not.

But there are other differences between the two chambers’ versions, particularly in the degree to which they would involve a secret federal court in the government’s surveillance efforts. In addition, the House legislation would sunset on Dec. 31, 2009, four years earlier than the Senate-passed bill.

Positions only seem to be hardening.

President Bush made the issue the topic of his Saturday radio address.