Finally: The U.S. House of Representatives seems to be developing a spine, at least where warrantless wiretapping is concerned.

Before the August recess, Congress wilted under White House pressure and passed the Protect America Act.

That legislation virtually neutered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which had traditionally granted warrants for all foreign-intelligence surveillance within the U.S. The law enables intelligence agencies to spy on communications that cross through the U.S., as long as the focus of the intelligence is on a foreign target.

Worse than that, however, the temporary law also nullified the oversight of these operations Democrats had said they wanted.

This week, House leadership unveiled a bill aimed at undoing some of that mistake, tightening oversight of foreign intelligence gathering. Surveillance would retain leeway but would operate with enough supervision to ensure protection of civil liberties.

There's a long way to go before a final accord can be struck. It would have been better if House and Senate Democrats had approached this in a coordinated fashion. And the pressure is on to grant telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for past collaborations with national security agencies. The House is leaving room to negotiate on that.

At least leaders are not waiting for the current law to lapse in an election year, when they may yield to fears of projecting a weak national-security front. It's far better that they act now as advocates for our civil liberties.