Patriot Act chalks up 310 arrests

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The USA Patriot Act has helped federal, state and local terrorism investigators arrest 310 persons since the September 11 attacks, 179 of whom have been convicted, and has proved to be "al Qaeda's worst nightmare," the Justice Department said yesterday in a report.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, attempting to dissuade Congress from weakening the act, key provisions of which will expire next year, delivered the 29-page document to the House Judiciary Committee, saying it gave authorities access to new legal tools and technology to "hunt down al Qaeda, destroy their safe haven and save American lives."

"We are a nation at war. ... We have to use every legal weapon available to protect the American people from terrorist attacks," Mr. Ashcroft said at a press conference with Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican.

The report said the act helped secure six guilty pleas from an al Qaeda "sleeper cell" in Lackawanna, N.Y.; allowed the surveillance of a reputed terror cell in Portland, Ore., resulting in convictions of six persons in a scheme to travel to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces; and the successful prosecution of a money launderer for Colombia's leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

It also credited the Patriot Act with the conviction of a man who sent more than 200 threatening letters laced with white powder to government agencies, businesses and individuals in Louisiana; and the discovery, through communication intercepts, of an 88-year-old Wisconsin woman who had been kidnapped and held for ransom.

Mr. Sensenbrenner said the report showed the act had been "an important tool" in tracking down criminals and terrorists, but that didn't mean the law shouldn't undergo more scrutiny.

He said when the committee is reconstituted next year, should he remain as chairman, it will look at "each and every provision" to determine whether the provision should be extended, modified or allowed to sunset.

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday said the report failed to mention a portion of the law known as Section 213, which expands access to "sneak and peek" search warrants, and ignored new government powers to gather personal data, including library records and medical information.

"While lawmakers and the ACLU have made repeated requests to find out how, exactly, the act has been used, the attorney general leaves those questions unanswered," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director.

Mr. Ashcroft said the report reinforced what the majority of Americans already know: "When it comes to saving lives and protecting freedom, we must use the Patriot Act and every legal means available to us in the act."

Congress enacted the Patriot Act after the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, passing the bill in the Senate by a 98-1 vote and in the House by a 357?66 vote.

Last week, however, a White House threat to veto the Justice Department's 2005 spending bill if the act was weakened was enough to persuade House Republicans to protect the law.

Republicans delayed for 40 minutes a vote on an amendment to the Commerce-State-Justice appropriations bill that would have limited the department's sneak-and-peek authority to read and keep records on a person's library activities until they got the votes necessary to kill it.

Reps. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, and C.L. "Butch" Otter, Idaho Republican, introduced the amendment, which failed when the House vote deadlocked at 210-210.