Patriot Act debate is proper, necessary

Larry Craig of Idaho, one of the most senior, powerful and conservative Republicans in the Senate, doesn’t usually dig in his heels against the Bush administration. But as the Senate faces a reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, Craig is standing firm against a bill that doesn’t deal with his concerns about government power.

“I’m not going to deprive citizens of their privacy,” he said in a telephone interview “There has to be a double check when that happens.

“There’s a basic right that has to be protected here.”

Craig stands with a handful of other senators – Republicans and Democrats – who think that the oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic includes the House of Representatives.

Immediately after Sept. 11, Congress whipped through the Patriot Act, barely pausing to think about it but insisting that any problems could be dealt with when the act sunsetted four years later. A few months ago, the Senate unanimously passed a Patriot Act renewal dealing with some of the concerns expressed by Americans, from the American Library Association to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Then the renewal went to a House-Senate conference committee, with heavy administration involvement and no Democrats consulted. Wednesday, the House passed the measure, but Senate resistance is strong.

“I was very pleased with the work we were able to do in the Senate,” said Craig. “The House stepped back quite a ways from us.”

The House, and the conference, stepped back on several Senate adjustments, such as new limits on Section 215, known as the library provision, which gives the government power to secretly get records of agencies and businesses. (It’s also a part that now concerns many business groups not primarily concerned with freedom of reading.) The conference report also backs away from the Senate’s changes on the “sneak-and-peek” section, about how soon someone must be notified that his premises have been secretly searched.

Monday, half a dozen senators – including Craig; Russell Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act; John Sununu, R-N.H.; Richard Durbin, D-Ill.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Ken Salazar, D-Colo. – declared their opposition to the conference report. Another bill called for a three-month Patriot Act extension to allow the renewal to be reworked.

Feingold declared his willingness to filibuster the conference report. With the act lapsing Dec. 31, and the session running out, it’s a significant threat – especially with Craig saying that unless something changes, “I will push against cloture.”

Tuesday afternoon, in an extended and unusual – and occasionally prickly – exchange on the Senate floor with Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Feingold declared, “Let’s do at the same time what we have to do to protect the civil liberties and the rights of absolutely law-abiding Americans. … We are prepared to use whatever means we are allowed under the Senate rules to try to protect this conference report from becoming law in its current form.”

Speaking publicly on the Patriot Act conference report, Specter told its opponents, “It’s not going to get any better,” and House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., warned the senators, “They won’t get a better deal.”

But with a senior senator’s serenity, Craig explained that if the three-month extension passed, “We could come back (in 2006) and we could demonstrate to the chairman in the House that these provisions are important.”

This debate is now coming down to a matter of days, as the lapsing of the Patriot Act, Congress’ eagerness to get out of D.C. for the holidays and the complexity of Senate rules come together. When the act was first passed, supporters insisted there was no time to debate it, and there’s not much time now.

The difference is that this time the debate is inescapable.

Which is exactly what it should be.