at TPM Cafe:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/12/13/102010/33Update on the PATRIOT Act
rfeingold's picture
By Russ Feingold | bio
Thanks to everyone for your interesting and provocative responses to my post from yesterday. The current betting is that the House will take up the Patriot Act conference report tomorrow (Wednesday). If it passes, it will then come to the Senate, and a vote to cut off debate - i.e., prevent a filibuster -- is likely to take place Friday morning. So that's the key vote in the Senate. Now is the time to contact your Senators to urge them to oppose cloture and insist that a Patriot Act reauthorization bill include the modest but crucial reforms that I and the other bipartisan opponents of the conference report have recommended.
With your help, I believe we can win the vote Friday. And don't forget your representatives in the House. The vote there is not a foregone conclusion.
Some of you asked specific questions about the conference report. It is final and has been filed in the House. You can see the full bill here. And yes, it still contains extraneous provisions, including changes to the procedures for death row inmates to challenge their convictions or sentence through a habeas corpus petition and a new federal law on methamphetamines .
Many of you asked about specific provisions of the Patriot Act that I support or oppose. The original Patriot Act had over 150 different sections, and I supported most of the provisions when it passed in 2001.
The Patriot Act did a lot more than expand our surveillance laws. Among other things, it set up a national network to prevent and detect electronic crimes, like the sabotage of the nation's financial sector; it established a counterterrorism fund to help Justice Department offices disabled in terrorist attacks keep operating; and it changed the money laundering laws to make them more useful in disrupting the financing of terrorist organizations. One section even condemned discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans.
Even some of the Act's surveillance sections were not really that troubling. One provision authorized the FBI to expedite the hiring of translators. Another added terrorism and computer crimes to the list of crimes for which criminal wiretap orders could be sought.
But the Patriot Act also expanded the government's powers in significant and controversial ways. Take Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the so-called "library records" provision. Section 215 allows the government to obtain secret court orders in domestic intelligence investigations to get all kinds of business records about people, including library records, medical records and various other types of business records. The Patriot Act allowed the government to obtain these records whenever those records were "sought for" a terrorism investigation, a very low standard that meant it could easily obtain the records of innocent Americans. The government should have to prove that an individual is, at the very least, somehow connected to a terrorist or a spy before it can start looking through sensitive records. Unfortunately, the conference report fails to make that change.
Another very controversial provision is the expansion of National Security Letter (or "NSL") authority that was contained in Section 505. The Washington Post published a lengthy story last month explaining how easy it now is for the FBI to obtain certain types of records using NSLs, with no judicial review, and it reported that more than 30,000 NSLs are issued a year, a startling new revelation. When the Justice Department issued a letter calling the article a "materially misleading portrayal of the FBI's use of National Security Letters," the Post hit back with a short news story and a longer online response pointing out all the inconsistencies and misleading statements in the DOJ letter. Take a minute to read these materials, and then see if you agree with me and some of my colleagues that we need to place safeguards on the broad NSL power and to put a sunset on that power so that Congress can make sure it's not abused.
The White House has fought reasonable safeguards for constitutional freedoms every step of the way. It has resisted congressional oversight and often misled the public about its use of the Patriot Act. Now the Attorney General is arguing that the conference report is adequate "protection for civil liberties for all Americans." It isn't and, with your help, we can send it back to the drawing board.
Sen. Russ Feingold
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