WASHINGTON, 23 July 2005 — Following a second bomb attack on London’s transit system, the US House of Representatives voted late Thursday night to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Congressmen — overriding some Americans’ fears that their freedoms are being restricted in contradiction of the US Constitution — voted to make permanent provisions of the Patriot Act that gave authorities more investigative power in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
House lawmakers say they widely view provisions in the Patriot Act as breaking down “the wall” that was a barrier to communication and cooperation between FBI and CIA agencies.
After a day-long debate, the lawmakers voted 257-171 Thursday night to make permanent 14 of the Patriot Act’s 16 sections that are scheduled to expire in December. They rejected the civil libertarians concerns of Democrats and some Republicans who wanted to limit several provisions of the anti-terrorism law.
Two provisions — Section 215, which gives the FBI secret access to people’s business, medical, library, bookstore and other shopping records, and Section 206, which authorizes so-called roving wiretaps — would be renewed for 10 years as part of the vote.
The votes by the House and the Senate Committee set the stage for sharp debate on Capitol Hill over how far Congress should go in limiting the powers given to the government. Other proposals for sharper limits were rejected. Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the bill’s main author and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Americans are safer today because of the anti-terrorism law.
“The Patriot Act has proven itself over the past three and a half years as an invaluable tool against terrorists while remaining true to our strong civil liberty protections,” he said in a statement.
“Passage of this act is vital to maintaining the post-9/11 intelligence reforms that have reduced America’s vulnerability to terrorist attacks,’’ said Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin.
Rep. David Dreier, R-California, agreed, saying that when the legislation was proposed four years ago, he had insisted on limiting the life of the 16 sections to ensure “the civil liberties of the American people.”
He said he would still demand limits “if we had seen failure, if we had seen violations of civil liberties” — but he emphasized that no such failures or violations had occurred.
Both sides in the debate said they were trying to find a balance between civil liberties and security and said they didn’t want to do anything to undermine the country’s fight against terrorists, whose second attack in two weeks Thursday on London subways and buses was a running subtext through the House debate.
But civil libertarians, who oppose the Patriot Act as an unwarranted augmentation of the federal government’s power to mount secret surveillance of suspects and seize records without immediate court review, fought the cancellation of the some provisions. Without such provisions, they argued, it would be harder for Congress to guard against government abuse.
“We now know that some of the provisions in the Patriot Act went too far too fast,” said Lisa Graves, a senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been a leading critic to the law.
“Flawed from the start, this bill fails to protect our most fundamental freedoms...the leadership of the House pushed forward with a limited set of amendments and refused to allow votes on key amendments that would have restored key checks and balances and helped ensure greater oversight and protection of our civil liberties,” said Graves.
