WASHINGTON, April 13  The administration proposed a bill on Friday to relax certain legal restrictions on the government’s ability to intercept telephone calls and other communications in the United States.

The proposal would change provisions in the primary law on domestic surveillance that the Bush administration says limit its ability to spy on the domestic and international communications of foreigners and would provide new legal immunity for telecommunications companies that have been sued for cooperating with the government as it conducts domestic wiretapping.

But the proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 face resistance in Congress. Democratic lawmakers have been pressing for more oversight of the domestic eavesdropping run by the National Security Agency before they agree to amend the laws, and they have become increasingly concerned by disclosures of abuses in other data collection programs, too.

A crucial Republican senator, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said in an interview that he believed that Congress might be reluctant to take significant action on the issue soon, because of legal challenges to the constitutionality of the domestic surveillance that are in the courts. Last year, a federal judge in Detroit ruled the program unconstitutional.