Obama Embraces Patriot Act; As Senator, He Was Skeptical

[kpete]

Source: The Atlantic

Sep 15 2009, 2:10 pm by Marc Ambinder
Obama Embraces Patriot Act; As Senator, He Was Skeptical

The Obama administration wants Congress to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the 2001 USA Patriot Act scheduled to expire later this year, but said in a letter to two senators that it is open to adding (unspecified) civil liberties safeguards. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the sunsetting provisions next week and wants to consider broader reforms. Five months ago, it asked the administration for its views; just yesterday, the administration responded. Some of the changes to the law Barack Obama sought as a senator -- including modifications to the administrative subpoena power known as National Security Letters -- are not part of the corpus of his views today.

In a letter to Sens. Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin (Durbin-Feingold 091409.pdf), assistant attorney general Ronald Welch, the chief DOJ liaison to Congress, said that the administration supports the so-called "roving wiretap" provision, which allows the government to continue surveilling terrorism suspect under a single wiretap warrant even if the suspect changes the medium of communication. According to Weich, the administration will not authorize such a warrant unless it has "specific" evidence that the suspect is actively working to avoid detection by authorities. About 22 such wiretaps are authorized every year. "We believe the basic justification offered to Congress in 2001 remains valid today," Weich writes.

The administration also wants Congress to reauthorize the provision extending the ability of the FBI to request detailed business records under a FISA warrant. According to the government, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has issued about 220 orders to produce such records in 2004, and the Justice Department asserts that they have provided investigators with critical information -- although they say the specifics are classified. Weich writes: "It is noteworthy that no recipient of a FISA business records order has ever challenged the validity of the order, despite the availability, since 2006, of a clear statutory mechanism to do so."

Finally, the administration wants Congress to keep the so-called "lone wolf" provision in place, which allows them to conduct surveillance of a terrorism suspect even if they don't know what country that person is acting on behalf of -- if any. According to Weich , "the Government must know a great deal about the target, including the target's purpose and plans for terrorist activity (in order to satisfy the defmition of "international terrorism"), but still be unable to connect the individual to any group that meets the FISA definition of a foreign power."

Read more: http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/the_obama_administration_wants_congress.php