The U.S. House made a tepid attempt to find a compromise between protecting Americans' civil liberties, while allowing the White House to conduct sensible surveillance operations on potential foreign terrorists.

The "compromise" would allow the administration to authorize the surveillance, but would require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court to enforce protections for U.S. residents — except under "exigent circumstances." In those cases, the administration would have a week to seek approval.

Equally problematic is that the bill also would essentially grant immunity to telecommunications companies, in the event the administration unduly crosses the line.

While the House bill is much improved from an earlier Senate version, which offered no safeguards, there's little cause for comfort.

Americans' calls and e-mails could still be intercepted without prior approval from the FISA court in the event of a loosely defined emergency, which would be left to the discretion of the administration.

It's now up to the Senate to improve the bill by including assurances to prevent the liberal use of this warrantless surveillance. Senators also must revisit the issue of granting immunity to telecom companies so that there is some degree of accountability should things go awry.

Those changes would strike a better balance between keeping our nation safe — and preventing any rollback of our precious civil liberties.