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Congress Gives Boost to Patriot Act; House Votes to Make Most Search Powers Permanent

Posted on: Friday, 22 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

Washington Congress moved closer Thursday to renewing the police powers in the 4-year-old USA Patriot Act but did so amid sharp and persistent differences over the proper balance of liberty and security.

With many lawmakers invoking the latest London bombings, the House voted Thursday evening to make permanent all but two of the law's expanded search and surveillance powers.

The only exceptions involved the government's authority to conduct roving wiretaps and to obtain personal records from businesses, libraries and medical offices in terrorism investigations. Those hotly debated provisions were given a 10-year extension.

By nine votes, Republicans defeated an attempt by Democrats to extend 16 of the law's provisions on a temporary, but not permanent, basis.

In the end, the House-backed bill gave the White House most of what it wanted.

But a different story was unfolding in the Senate.

After a bipartisan deal was struck, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a re-authorization of the Patriot Act with greater curbs on law enforcement, and with time limits of four years instead of 10 on the most controversial powers.

The compromise bill was unanimously supported by both Republicans and Democrats on the committee, including Wisconsin senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold.

Feingold, the lone senator to oppose the Patriot Act in 2001, praised the measure, saying it contained "meaningful" safeguards for privacy and personal liberties.

Compared with the House bill, the Senate version places a greater burden on the government when it demands personal information from businesses a part of the law critics have dubbed the "library" provision.

It also addresses objections to the government's power to conduct secret searches (labeled "sneak and peak" by opponents), in which the target of the search isn't notified until days or weeks afterward. The Senate bill requires the government to notify a target within seven days after a search, unless it can offer a specific justification for a longer delay.

Partisan division

As it has in the past, Thursday's debate had its partisan, symbolic and ideological overtones, pitting broad claims about keeping Americans safe against charges of rights being trampled or privacy invaded.

But the debate also involved complicated disputes over exactly what standards the government should meet when it conducts searches and surveillance how much disclosure, how much discretion, how much judicial oversight.

In the House, the passage of "Patriot Act Two" produced far more partisan division Thursday than the original Patriot Act did when it was approved 357-66 in October 2001. On that occasion, 62 Democrats, three Republicans and one independent voted against it.

This time, approval came on a 257-171 vote, with 156 Democrats, 14 Republicans and one independent voting no.

Among Wisconsin lawmakers, all four Republicans voted for the bill, while all four Democrats voted against it.

Sensenbrenner defends law

The chief architect of the House bill was Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Menomonee Falls, who accused critics Thursday of transforming the law into "a grossly distorted caricature that bears no relationship to the legislation itself."

Said Sensenbrenner, who conducted extensive hearings this year on the issue: "The record shows there is no evidence whatsoever that the Patriot Act has been abused to violate civil liberties none whatsoever."

The bill Sensenbrenner introduced earlier this month made the Patriot Act permanent in its entirety and left the government's expanded powers almost entirely intact.

But Sensenbrenner approved the addition of some specific curbs last week in committee (the 10-year "sunsets" on two provisions) and Thursday on the floor.

Among a series of amendments adopted Thursday, the House voted to require the FBI director to personally approve any requests for personal records from libraries and bookstores, matching a provision in the Senate bill. It also increased reporting and judicial oversight of other powers.

But the law's critics complained that these changes didn't go very far and that the House leadership prevented votes on more meaningful curbs that Democrats wanted.

In the original 2001 Patriot Act, 16 of the law's 100-plus provisions were subject to a four-year sunset, or expiration, date so Congress could reconsider them later and have the leverage to conduct close oversight of the Justice Department's use of the powers.

Michigan's John Conyers, the senior Democrat on the judiciary panel, complained Thursday that the 10-year extensions on two of the law's provisions were far too lengthy to give Congress real leverage.

"What's wrong with sunsets?" Conyers said. "Ten years is not a sunset. Ten years is semi-permanent."

Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Madison urged colleagues to "restore the checks and balances that must exist in a free society."

Lisa Graves of the American Civil Liberties Union described the changes adopted by the House on Thursday as "cosmetic" and expressed disappointment that more curbs on law enforcement weren't supported by Sensenbrenner, who had backed the original four-year time limits in the bill and has at times resisted powers sought by the Bush administration. Graves called the Senate bill "a good step in the right direction," though "it doesn't cure all the significant flaws in the Patriot Act."

Sensenbrenner said the House bill struck a "careful balance" between liberty and security, and like other supporters of the law invoked not only Sept. 11, 2001, but also last year's attack in Madrid and this year's attacks in London.

Skepticism on both sides

In keeping with skepticism on both the right and the left about government power, Thursday's debate at times transcended party. Some of the opposition to making the Patriot Act permanent came from Republicans.

California Republican Dana Rohrabacher, who supported the original Patriot Act, argued that the expanded powers should be treated as temporary wartime measures and was one of nine Republicans who joined Democrats in voting to preserve sunsets on all of the temporary provisions.

"We should not to be required to live in peacetime under the extraordinary laws that were passed in time of war and crisis," Rohrabacher said.

But in an official statement on the House bill, the Bush administration objected to even the 10-year limits on two of the law's provisions, saying sunsets were "unnecessary and detrimental."

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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