Patriot Act renewal blocked

Bob Aspey

Patriot Act renewal blocked

Fri Dec 16, 2005 20:06

Patriot Act renewal blocked

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News
December 16, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ken Salazar and a bipartisan group of Senate critics today blocked reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, saying they still have concerns about an erosion of civil liberties.

Backers of the sweeping anti-terrorism law warned that the move could leave gaping holes in the country's homeland security, but Salazar and other lawmakers said they had too many unresolved questions about civil rights protections.

"Unfortunately, these concerns were not addressed in the conference report, and I'm left with no choice but to work with my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to defeat the bill before us," Salazar told colleagues during this morning's debate.

By a 52-47 vote, the Senate fell short of the 60 votes it would have taken to invoke "cloture" and force a final up-or-down vote on the reauthorization bill. Backers of the bill were rushing to get a final vote before congress adjourns for the holiday recess, since the original Patriot Act, enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks, is set to expire Dec. 31.

"God help us if there's some kind of terrorist attack when we are not protected by the Patriot Act," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Texas, argued.

"I dare say, the American people will hold us accountable if anything happens and we're not able to extend and reauthorize the Patriot Act," Kyl said.

Salazar joined a group, led by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, that had been threatening to block the reauthorization if it did not address their concerns.

Even with late wording changes approved by the White House and House of Representatives, they said the bill could potentially be abused to intrude on average citizens. They called for more safeguards on the use of "roving wiretaps" allowed under the law, and they demanded tougher judicial review before the government issues so-called National Security Letters, allowing investigators to force libraries, Internet providers and other institutions to turn over records of their customers.

"We cannot protect our borders if we cannot protect our ideals," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

Friday's debate was influenced by a New York Times report that President Bush signed an executive order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and e-mail messages within the United States without court-approved warrants.

"These allegations, if true, are deeply, deeply troubling," Salazar said. "If we needed a wake-up call about the need for additional civil liberty protections ? this report is the wake-up call."

Colorado's two U.S. Senators found themselves on opposite sides of the vote that would have forced final consideration of the bill, with Salazar opposed and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, in favor.

Salazar called it a bipartisan effort to delay the bill until more improvements can be made, but critics pointed out that only five Republicans joined the 41 Democrats and one Independent in voting to block the bill. One of the Republican "no" votes was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who was merely preserving his right to bring the bill back up for consideration.

"If 90-plus percent of Democrats vote against cloture and 90 percent-plus of Republicans vote for cloture, it's hard to argue (that) it is not partisan," Kyl said.

All day Friday, Senate leaders were trying to broker a deal that still might allow members to consider a bill before they adjourn for the holiday recess.

Salazar said he agrees with "95 percent" of the current law, but that he thinks the Senate needs to defend the U.S. Constitution.

Salazar said he would favor extending the current law by several months or even a full year while the two sides negotiate revisions.

"I believe strongly that the Senate and congress should not adjourn until we have an extension of the Patriot Act in some form," Salazar said.
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How Congress Has Assaulted Our Freedoms in the Patriot Act
by Andrew P. Napolitano

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/napolitano2.html

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
A Half-Century of Surveillance
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/Bush_spy.htm

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The Rant
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7779.shtml

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Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
5 page article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 16, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Doug Mills/Associated Press
In 2002, President Bush toured the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Md., with Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was then the agency's director and is now a full general and the principal deputy director of national intelligence.

A Half-Century of Surveillance (December 16, 2005)
In the Blogs: Reaction to Relaxed Restrictions on Domestic Spying (December 16, 2005)

Forum: National Security
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."

Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight.

According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said.

The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose threats to the United States, the officials said. Defenders of the program say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and prevent attacks inside the United States.

Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Dealing With a New Threat

While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials.

Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A. monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

The eavesdropping program grew out of concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks that the nation's intelligence agencies were not poised to deal effectively with the new threat of Al Qaeda and that they were handcuffed by legal and bureaucratic restrictions better suited to peacetime than war, according to officials. In response, President Bush significantly eased limits on American intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the military.

But some of the administration's antiterrorism initiatives have provoked an outcry from members of Congress, watchdog groups, immigrants and others who argue that the measures erode protections for civil liberties and intrude on Americans' privacy.
FULL REPORT:>>
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/Bush_spy.htm
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ICH INDEX:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/index.html

Renewal/expansion of Patriot Act blocked by Senate! —blueridge, Sat Dec 17 00:34