Thread: Patriot Act Renewal Clears Final Hurdle

http://www.startribune.com/587/story/276315.html

Last update: February 28, 2006 – 5:10 PM

Patriot Act Renewal Clears Final Hurdle

WASHINGTON (AP) - Months overdue in a midterm election year, the USA Patriot Act renewal cleared a final hurdle in the Senate Tuesday on its way to President Bush's desk. But the bill's sponsor made clear that he is unsatisfied with the measure's privacy protections and far from done tinkering with the centerpiece of Bush's war on terrorism.

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Months overdue in a midterm election year, the USA Patriot Act renewal cleared a final hurdle in the Senate Tuesday on its way to President Bush's desk. But the bill's sponsor said he is unsatisfied with the measure's privacy protections and far from done tinkering with the centerpiece of Bush's war on terrorism.
"The issue is not concluded,'' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. He said he plans more legislation and hearings on restoring House-rejected curbs on government power.

The Senate voted 69-30 Tuesday - 60 votes were needed - to limit debate and bring the bill to a final vote that could occur as early as Wednesday. The House then would vote and send the legislation to the White House. Sixteen major provisions would expire March 10 if President Bush doesn't sign the bill by then.

First passed in the weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the law has been extended twice for lack of congressional accord over the balance between civil liberties protections and law enforcement tools in terrorism investigations.

Several Democrats voted "no'' on the test vote Tuesday to protest the GOP majority's refusal to allow amendments, but said they would vote for the bill on final passage. These lawmakers included Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat.

Others still plan to vote against the bill as a whole, but they stand little chance of blocking it. Led by Sens. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. and Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., they contend that the months of haggling produced few meaningful curbs on government power.

Specter agreed on that point. Even as he urged his colleagues to vote this week for the bill, he introduced a separate bill to make the government satisfy a higher threshold for warrantless wiretaps and to set a four-year expiration date for the use of National Security Letters in terrorism investigations.

However appetizing to Specter's colleagues in the Senate, the new bill represents items House Republicans flatly rejected during talks last year.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., has insisted that once the House approves the renewal and sends it to Bush, his chamber is done with the issue for the year.

That will be none too soon for some lawmakers. The standoff pushed renewing the law into this midterm election year. Senate leaders were forced to find a procedural way of getting the bill to a vote without losing the support of Sensenbrenner, the Bush administration and libertarian-leaning lawmakers - all before March 10.

The solution is a convoluted procedural dance that illustrates the razor-thin zone of agreement when it comes to Bush's terror-fighting law.

Congress will extend the Patriot Act by passing two pieces of legislation. The first is the same accord passed last year by the House and filibustered in the Senate by members who said it contained too few privacy protections. The second is, in effect, an amendment to the first that adds enough privacy protections to win over those same libertarian-leaning Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is permitting no other amendments, allowing the measure to slide through both houses without extended debate.

Feingold, who has opposed the act since his lone "no'' vote against the 2001 law, complained that the lack of amendments had turned the Senate into an arm of the Bush administration.

"No one has the right to turn this body into a rubber stamp,'' he said just before Tuesday's vote. "The White House played hardball and the decision was made by some to capitulate.''

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. countered that the war on terrorism couldn't wait for more debate.

"Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead,'' Bunning told the Senate.

"Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead,'' Bunning told the Senate.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin.

We are tired of the same old rhetoric. Why not come up with something new? Your fear mongering no longer works.

This is why I hate the media! It is my understanding that this is just another extension. The Patriot Act is NOT a done deal. Am I right or wrong, here?

http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/s ... 6462c.html

Senate approves Patriot Act renewal
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Published 1:27 pm PST Wednesday, March 1, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to renew the USA Patriot Act, after months of pitched debate over legislation that supporters said struck a better balance between privacy rights and the government's power to hunt down terrorists.
The 89-10 vote marked a bright spot in President Bush's troubled second term as his approval ratings dipped over the war in Iraq and his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. Renewing the act, congressional Republicans said, was key to preventing more terror attacks in the United States.

Bush, in a statement issued by the White House while he was in India, applauded the Senate for overcoming what he said were attempts by Democrats to block the bill's passage.

"This bill will allow our law enforcement officials to continue to use the same tools against terrorists that are already used against drug dealers and other criminals, while safeguarding the civil liberties of the American people," he said.

Critics maintained the bill is weighted too much toward the interests of law enforcement.

The House was expected to pass the legislation next week and send it to Bush, who would sign it before 16 provisions expire March 10.

A December filibuster led by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and joined by several libertarian-leaning Republicans, forced the Bush administration to agree to modest new curbs on government power.

Feingold insisted those new protections are cosmetic.

"Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper," he said. "They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both - and we can if we try - we have failed."

Lawmakers who voted for the package acknowledged deep reservations about the power it would grant to any president.

"Our support for the Patriot Act does not mean a blank check for the president," said Democratic leader Harry Reid. "What we tried to do on a bipartisan basis is have a better bill. It has been improved."

The vote was a significant victory for Bush after revelations late last year that he had authorized a domestic wiretapping program provided ammunition to senators demanding more privacy protections in the Patriot Act.

Senate Democrats and a few Republicans refused to allow a vote before Christmas on renewing the law before 16 provisions expired on Dec. 31.

Unable to break the deadlock, Congress opted instead to extend the deadline twice while negotiations continued. In the end, the White House and the Republicans broke the stalemate by crafting a second measure that would curb some powers of law enforcement officials seeking information. Both will be sent as a package to Bush.

This second bill - in effect an amendment to the measure renewing the 16 provisions - would add new protections to the 2001 antiterror law in three areas. It would:

- Give recipients of court-approved subpoenas for information in terrorist investigations the right to challenge a requirement that they refrain from telling anyone.

- Eliminate a requirement that an individual provide the FBI with the name of a lawyer consulted about a National Security Letter, which is a demand for records issued by investigators.

- Clarify that most libraries are not subject to demands in those letters for information about suspected terrorists.

Passed in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the original Patriot Act expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers.

The renewal package would make 14 of 16 temporary provisions permanent and set four-year expirations on the others.

The renewal includes several measures not directly related to terrorism. One would make it harder for illicit labs to obtain ingredients for methamphetamine by requiring pharmacies to sell nonprescription cold medicines only from behind the counter.

Another focuses on port security, imposing new criminal sanctions and a death sentence in certain circumstances for placing a device or substance in U.S. waters that could damage vessels or cargo.

Feingold's chief ally, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said the package was not enough to check what he described as a presidential tendency through history of "always grabbing more power."

"The erosion of freedom rarely comes as an all-out frontal assault," warned Byrd, the dean of the Senate. "Rather, it is a gradual, noxious creeping cloaked in secrecy and glossed over by reassurances of greater security."

The "no" votes came from Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., and Feingold, Byrd and seven other Senate Democrats: Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Carl Levin of Michigan, Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

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The bill is HR3199.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... nworld-hed

Houses renews USA Patriot Act in cliffhanger


Associated Press

March 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The House renewed the USA Patriot Act in a cliffhanger vote Tuesday night, extending a centerpiece of the war on terrorism at President Bush's urging after months of political combat over the balance between privacy rights and the pursuit of potential terrorists.

Bush, forced by filibuster to accept new curbs on law enforcement investigations, is expected to sign the legislation before 16 provisions of the 2001 law expire Friday.

The vote was 280-138, just two more than needed under special rules that required a two-thirds majority. The close vote caught senior Republican aides in both chambers by surprise. Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.), the sponsor of the new civil liberties protections, worked the House floor during the vote.

Nonetheless, the vote marked a political victory for Bush and will allow congressional Republicans facing midterm elections this year to continue touting a tough-on-terror stance. Bush's approval ratings have suffered in recent months after disclosures that he authorized secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans.

That issue helped fuel a two-month Senate filibuster that forced the White House to accept some new restrictions on information gathered in terrorism investigations.

Republicans on Tuesday declared the legislative war won, saying the renewal of the act's 16 provisions along with new curbs on government investigatory power will help law enforcement prevent terrorists from striking.

"Intense congressional and public scrutiny has not produced a single substantiated claim that the Patriot Act has been misused to violate Americans' civil liberties," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). "Opponents of the legislation have relied upon exaggeration and hyperbole to distort a demonstrated record of accomplishment and success."

But the debate over the balance between a strong war against terrorists and civil liberties is far from over.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on the domestic wiretapping program. Additionally, Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the chief author of the Patriot Act renewal, has introduced a new measure "to provide extra protections that better comport with my sensitivity of civil rights."

Despite its passage, the Patriot Act still has staunch congressional opponents who protested it by voting "no" even on the part of the bill that would add new civil rights protections. During the Senate's final debate last week, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) said he was voting "no" because the new protections for Americans were so modest they were almost meaningless.

The package renews 16 expiring provisions of the original Patriot Act, including one that allows federal officials to obtain "tangible items" such as business records, including those from libraries and bookstores, for foreign intelligence and international terror probes.

Other provisions would clarify that foreign intelligence or counterintelligence officers should share information obtained as part of a criminal investigation with counterparts in domestic law enforcement.

Renewing the act, congressional Republicans said, was key to preventing more terror attacks in the United States.

Gee if your so concerned about preventing terrorists attacks, why don't you seal off the borders and close the dangerous loopholes that allow them to come into our country in the first place? Oh no, lets just keep on spying on our own citizens on the off chance that you might get someone that works for Al Qaeda, like they don't know that they are already being spied on and have probably already figured out ways to get around being spied on. These idiots are clueless in every way.

Too bad that once again our gutless, incompetent Senate caved in to the rantings of a madman in the darkhouse.

Well Said Dman

I guess they should authorize the US Constitution as Toilet Paper Act while they are at it.