President Bush’s quest for full permanent extension of the 2001 USA Patriot Act took a hit yesterday, when the House Judiciary Committee voted to extend sunsets on two parts of the original bill and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced a bill with sunsets for the same two items.
When it passed after the September 11 attacks, the Patriot Act included 16 new grants of authority that all expire at the end of this year unless reauthorized by Congress and the president. Bills now working their way through Congress extend 14 of those provisions, but limit the other two — to 10 years in the House bill and to five years in Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter’s bill.
One of the provisions relates to roving wiretaps, which let investigators tap all the communications of a person rather than a specific phone number. The other item concerns investigators’ ability to obtain business records and library patrons’ records through a special secret court without notifying the target that the records are being checked.
In addition, the House intelligence committee yesterday voted to attach a sunset to another provision from last year’s intelligence overhaul bill that grants the FBI power to wiretap “lone wolf” terrorists operating without the endorsement of a foreign power. Mr. Specter put a time limit on that same provision in his bill.
“The one thing sunsetting says is we should not get comfortable with expanded police powers,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat. “They may be necessary in the name of terrorism, but we should be nervous about them, we should be grudging about them and we should review them.”
Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee lost a fight for either four-year or seven-year sunsets. Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, said the 10-year sunsets would give Congress a chance for review while taking the issue out of the political arena.
He said the debate had “not been the best in terms of dealing with the actual issues of the Patriot Act” during last year’s presidential campaign.
Some committee Republicans have resisted sunsets, arguing there have been no abuses. And the White House agreed, calling for permanent reauthorization.
“There has been a record established with the Patriot Act over four years, with no found abuses. While we don’t feel that sunsets are necessary, we will continue to work through this process so that these important tools are made available to law-enforcement officers,” said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman.
The president also has sought expanded powers, including “administrative subpoenas,” which would allow investigators to look at business and personal records without getting a court order. Administrative subpoenas already exist in some civil and criminal matters.
The Senate intelligence committee included the subpoenas in its version of the Patriot Act, which passed last month. But Mr. Specter, Mr. Sensenbrenner and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, chairman of the House intelligence committee, all left them out of their versions. Mr. Hoekstra said he, Mr. Sensenbrenner and others thought that power was “an overreach.”
Mr. Specter’s bill will come before his committee next week, and the House bill should be on the House floor next week as well.
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