The Senate blocked an attempt by 15 Democrats Wednesday to kill legislation that would overhaul domestic surveillance laws and supported a highly controversial measure to immunize telecommunications companies from civil suits for working in tandem with the White House by tapping into telephone and computer lines without first receiving a court order.

The bill is likely to withstand additional efforts by at least two Senate Democrats to remove the immunity provision from the final bill. Thirty-two Democrats and 48 Republicans voted in favor Wednesday of bringing the measure to a floor vote Wednesday, well above the 60 votes needed to block a filibuster.

The full Senate is expected to vote on the final version of the bill before leaving for the July 4th holiday Friday. President George W. Bush said he would immediately sign the bill into law when it reaches his desk. The measure would radically alter the 30 year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The measure was brokered over the past two weeks by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer despite an outcry from constitutionalists that the plan gave the President far too much power, including the authority to wiretap for one week before seeking a warrant.

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, said he supports the legislation, angering his progressive supporters. Last week, Obama said he would try and strip telecom immunity from the bill but backtracked this week.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, said he too backed the measure.

Neither of the presidential candidates voted Wednesday.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, commented recently that Democrats gave “the White House a better deal than even they had hoped to get.”

The House passed the legislation last week. Privacy groups and progressive organizations undertook a massive letter writing campaign immediately after the House approved the bill urging Senate Democrats to oppose the measure.

Last week, Pelosi called the new FISA bill a “compromise” and pointed out that it does require the telecom companies to show a federal district court that they had written presidential instructions to tap phones and e-mails. If the documents are in order, a judge would dismiss the lawsuit.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, one of the most outspoken critics of the legislation said he will still try and introduce an amendment to strip the immunity provision from the final bill. But Democrats and Republicans have said they will likely kill the amendment.

Feingold said Wednesday that the bill is a “capitulation” and criticized Pelosi’s characterization of the legislation.

“This legislation has been billed as a compromise between Republicans and Democrats,” Feingold, who opposes the measure, said Wednesday in remarks made on the Senate floor. “We are asked to support it because it is a supposedly reasonable accommodation of opposing views. Let me respond as clearly as possible: This bill is not a compromise. It is a capitulation.

“This bill will effectively and unjustifiably grant immunity to companies that allegedly participated in an illegal wiretapping program – a program that more than 70 members of this body still know virtually nothing about,” Feingold added. “And this bill will grant the Bush Administration – the same administration that developed and operated this illegal program for more than five years – expansive new authorities to spy on Americans’ international communications.”

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., another critic of the current legislation, has long been opposed to the bill because of the immunity provision. Last December, he threatened to filibuster the Senate version of the bill forcing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to postpone the vote until after the winter break.

On Wednesday, Dodd said he was disappointed the Senate decided to approve “this misguided FISA legislation.”

“If passed, this legislation will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president’s hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law,” he said.

In addition to this immunity provision, civil liberties and privacy groups are opposed to the bill because they say it weakens oversight of the surveillance court and extends the time — from 72 hours to one week — during which the administration can conduct wiretaps without seeking a warrant.

The final version of the bill will likely doom 40 lawsuits that are pending against telecom companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, for taking part in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program that the Bush administration justified by citing the 9/11 attacks. Many civil liberties groups believe the surveillance was illegal, violating both the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment.

Senators added a stipulation to the bill in exchange for supporting telecom immunity that calls for the inspectors general of the Pentagon and Justice Department to probe the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The program was initiated shortly after 9/11 to monitor alleged terrorists telephone and electronic communications in the United States without consulting the special court set up in 1978 to monitor and approve domestic surveillance activities. The New York Times exposed the secret program in December 2005, one year after President Bush and top administration officials urged the paper to withhold publication of the story.