Senate extends Patriot Act law
WASHINGTON – Senate Republican leaders, faced with a New Year’s Eve deadline for the expiration of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act, gave in to Democratic demands Wednesday and unanimously agreed to extend the current law by six months in order to add more civil liberties protections to a new version of the law.
The deal defies President Bush, who had urged the Senate to pass legislation to renew the act, most of it permanently. Bush had vowed to reject an earlier proposed extension of three months.
The agreement also ensures that the Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 law that the Bush administration credits for thwarting terror plots in the United States, would remain on the books.
“It gets us to where we want to get,” said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, one of four Republicans who joined Democrats in blocking renewal of the law. “The majority of the United States Senate did not want to see the Patriot Act die. We wanted to see it reformed.”
The deal came together after Democrats, joined by four Republicans, last Friday blocked a vote to renew the act in hopes of winning stronger civil liberties provisions in the new law. On Wednesday, pressure mounted on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to extend the law, even though he’d been adamant that he wouldn’t.
Fifty-two senators, including eight Republicans, asked Frist to accept a three-month extension. Most senators had indicated earlier they would have accepted a six-month extension as well.
The House previously voted to renew the act as it is, not to extend it temporarily. If the House, as expected, convenes today and agrees to the extension, and if Bush, as expected, signs it, House and Senate negotiators will have six months to come up with a proposal.
For days, Bush had portrayed Democrats as obstructionists intent on killing the Patriot Act.
The president didn’t mention that four Republican senators – Craig, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – had joined all 44 Democrats to block the act’s renewal by vowing a filibuster.
The act gives law enforcement agencies enhanced powers to search and seize an array of personal documents, ranging from medical and financial records to library lending lists.
It requires investigators who want to seize such records to convince a court that the records are “relevant” to a terrorism investigation. That’s a far lower threshold than the “probable cause” standard required to get a warrant in a criminal case.
Opponents say the law doesn’t sufficiently protect innocent Americans. Senate opponents have taken particular aim at Section 215, which allows a special judge to issue an order for “any tangible thing” that investigators want in a foreign intelligence investigation. The provision also prohibits the record holders from telling anyone about the order.
Critics call that a “gag order” because it prohibits the holder of the records from talking to anyone about the order.