(CNSNews.com) - Though both Republicans and Democrats have said that updating surveillance laws is critical to national security, legislation stalled in the Senate Tuesday in favor of consideration for the president's economic stimulus package.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) oversees how the government can conduct surveillance for intelligence gathering. At the request of the intelligence community, Congress passed updates to the law in August which expired Friday.

Congress has now passed a two-week extension to the updates known as the Protect America Act while it considers a more permanent solution.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had scheduled debate and votes on amendments to FISA updates for Monday and Tuesday.

"There is no reason in the world that we should not finish FISA - soon," he said on the Senate floor on Tuesday.

He noted that the current amendments dealing with retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that may have acted illegally in providing the federal government with customer information, as well as ensuring that FISA has the exclusive authority to grant such warrants, would take six hours of debate and should be completed Tuesday.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, "Just as soon as we have an understanding about how we're going to go forward on the stimulus package, then we'll be able to make progress on this bill."

"I think it's real unusual that we have an insistence that we move forward and work on the stimulus package," Reid countered. "Republicans have blocked our efforts to do that.

"The Republican minority seems to be more committed to obstruction than what it takes to make America stronger," he said.

Brian Darling, director of U.S. Senate relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Cybercast News Service that the "Republicans are trying to preserve their right to offer amendments.

"They feel blocked on the stimulus package, so they are refusing to move on to any other legislation, including FISA," he said.

Reid, however, called it "Orwellian talk from the other side."

"They want to stall the FISA legislation as long as they can and they've done a pretty good job, because they want this legislation to be completed at the last minute to give the House and Senate conferees little time to work on this," he said.

The House passed the RESTORE Act in November. The version does not include immunity for telecommunications companies.

Darling called Reid's claims "absurd. They've already had votes on FISA, and the Democrats are looking to offer amendments that are just untenable," he said. "They are amendments that will lead to a presidential veto."

According to the Associated Press, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell sent a letter to the Senate leadership threatening to veto any bill that did not include immunity.

"If the president is sent a bill that does not provide the U.S. intelligence agencies the tools they need to protect the nation, the president will veto the bill," Mukasey and McConnell wrote in the letter.

The minority leader noted that he believes the economic stimulus package and the FISA updates can be finished this week and that "both of them at the end of the day are going to pass on a strong bipartisan basis."

Michelle Richardson, legislative coordinator with the American Civil Liberties Union, however, was less optimistic about the timetable.

"I think they are probably going to run this right up to the deadline again on February 15," she told Cybercast News Service. "I think Republicans are doing this precisely because it's been so successful in the past."

Richardson also questioned the veto threat. "The president has said people are going to die. Will he really veto a bill that isn't exactly what he wants?"

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