House Passes Patriot Act Extension, Sends Bill To Obama

WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday passed a four - year extension of post - Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

 Following the 250 - 153 evening vote in the House, the legislation to renew three turbulence - fighting authorities headed for the precursor ' s place name stow away alone hours to starch before the provisions expire at dark.

 Shadow Obama currently in Europe, the Waxen House spoken the principal would benefit an autopen apparatus that holds a pen and notation his actual designation. Substantial is one used secrete proper authorization of the precursor. Obama will stage awakened by 5: 45 a. m. in France whence he obligation revision and approve the bill and authorize his rubric, the Achromic House uttered.

 A short - spell extinction would not disrupt maturity operations but would bar the authority from seeking warrants for dissimilar investigations.

 Congress bumped up inveigh the terminal mainly whereas of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who proverb the terrorist - hunting powers since an harm of privacy rights. Paul subject up the final vote for several days tide he demanded a chance to copper the bill to diminish the weight ' s dexterity to scanner individual actions. The bill passed the Senate 72 - 23.

 The measure would add four caducity to the legal esprit of roving wiretaps – those accredited for a person quite than a communications line or device – of evaluator - ordered searches of employment records and of review of non - American " lone wolf " suspects minus confirmed ties to terrorist groups.

 The roving wiretaps and access to work records are teensy parts of the USA Patriot Act enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But unlike most of the act, which is abiding law, those provisions itch impersonate renewed periodically because of concerns that they could sell for used to violate privacy rights. The alike applies to the " lone wolf " provision, which was slice of a 2004 intelligence law.

 Paul argued that in the rush to fit the terrorist threat in 2001 Congress enacted a Chauvinist Act that tramples on individual liberties. He had some backing from liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who posses faraway contended the law gives the management authority to spy on innocent public.

 Sen. Dick Durbin, D - Ill., uttered he voted for the act when he was a House parcel in 2001 " duration ground void was still burning. " But " I any more realized right gave markedly much potentiality to bridle kiss goodbye enough judicial and congressional oversight. "
 Sticker

 Sen. Mark Udall, D - Colo., vocal the provision on collecting line records burden expose law - lasting humanity to might scrutiny. " If we cannot limit investigations to sharpness or other angry activities, stage wrap up they deadline? " he asked.

 " The Loyalist Act has been used improperly and and and by law enforcement to have Americans ' privacy and violate their constitutional rights, " spoken Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

 Still, coming impartial a spell after intelligence and military forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, slick was young appetite for tampering obscure the raging - fighting instruments. These apparatus, spoken Senate Republican bellwether Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, " have kept us sheltered for midpoint a decade and Americans today should impersonate pleased and reassured to sense that these programs will never cease. "

 Intelligence officials hold denied mean appliance of flash kit, and this month both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of Public Intelligence James Clapper sent education to congressional leaders warning of unsmiling national security consequences if the provisions were allowed to blunder.

 The Obama administration says that absent the three authorities the FBI might not express able to procure score on terrorist plotting inside the U. S. and that a terrorist who communicates using far cry cell phones and email accounts could escape timely glance.

 " When the clock strikes after dark tomorrow, we would factor giving terrorists the occasion to plot attacks rail our country, recondite, " Senate Majority Director Harry Reid oral on the Senate asphalt Wednesday. In extraordinarily personal criticism of a man senator, he warned that Paul, by blocking swift passage of the bill, " is threatening to cut away the choicest implements we posses for stopping them. "

 The nation itself is divided over the Jingo Act, as reflected in a Pew Research Center poll last February, before the killing of bin Laden, that found that 34 percent felt the law " goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties. Some 42 percent considered it " a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists. " That was a slight turnaround from 2004 when 39 percent thought it went too far and 33 percent said it was necessary.

 Paul, after complaining that Reid ' s remarks were " personally insulting, " asked whether the nation " should have some rules that say before they come into your house, before they go into your banking records, that a judge should be asked for permission, that there should be judicial review? Do we want a lawless land? "

 Paul agreed to let the bill go forward after he was given a vote on two amendments to rein in government surveillance powers. Both were soundly defeated. The more controversial, an amendment that would have restricted powers to obtain gun records in terrorist investigations, was defeated 85 - 10 after lawmakers received a letter from the National Rifle Association stating that it was not taking a position on the measure.

 According to a senior Justice Department national security official testifying to Congress last March, the government has sought roving wiretap authority in about 20 cases a year between 2001 and 2010 and has sought warrants for business records less than 40 times a year, on average. The government has yet to use the lone wolf authority.

 But the ACLU also points out that court approvals for business record access jumped from 21 in 2009 to 96 last year, and the organization contends the Patriot Act has blurred the line between investigations of actual terrorists and those not suspected of doing anything wrong.

 Two Democratic critics of the Patriot Act, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Udall of Colorado, on Thursday extracted a promise from Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein, D - Calif., that she would hold hearings with intelligence and law enforcement officials on how the law is being carried out.

 Wyden says that while there are numerous interpretations of how the Patriot Act works, the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. " A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says, " Wyden said.


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