NEW YORK — President Bush yesterday called for the denial of bail to suspected terrorists as part of an expansion of the Patriot Act and challenged critics of the law to heed the pleas of hamstrung law enforcement agencies.
“Judges need greater authority to deny bail to terrorists,” Mr. Bush told hundreds of supporters, including police officers and firefighters, in Buffalo, N.Y. “Congress got tough on drug offenders a while ago and gave judges leeway to deny bail. They don’t have that same authority to deny bail to terrorists now.
“I’ve got to tell you, it doesn’t make any sense to me that it is very conceivable that we haul in somebody who is dangerous to America, and then they are able to spring bail and out they go,” he added.
FBI Agent Pete Ahearn, who appeared with Mr. Bush onstage at the Kleinhans Music Hall, endorsed the expansion of law enforcement powers and defended the original Patriot Act, which is set to expire in 2005. He said that before the law’s passage in 2001, “We were fighting with one arm tied behind our back.”
The agent defended the law against critics who say it erodes constitutional protections.
“So many in this room have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of this country,” he told Mr. Bush onstage. “The Patriot Act is a law; the Patriot Act has the judicial oversight.
“The rules are there. We follow the rules,” he added. “The last time I checked, the terrorists don’t have the rules that we have and don’t have to play by them.”
One of the rules Mr. Bush wants to change is a law that bars judges from denying bail to suspected terrorists.
“It’s hard to assure the American people that we’ve given tools to law enforcement that they need if somebody has gone through all the work to chase down a potential terrorist, and they haul them in front of a court and they pay bail, and it’s adios,” he said.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he added. “The Patriot Act needs to be renewed and the Patriot Act needs to be enhanced.”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts voted for the original Patriot Act in the Senate, but later became a critic, warning: “We are a nation of laws, not a knock in the night.”
Yesterday, the Kerry campaign issued a statement further criticizing the Patriot Act.
“The president is trying to rewrite history to show that the Patriot Act has been a cure-all for the intelligence failures that were exposed by the 9/11 attacks,” the statement said. “But the record shows that the Patriot Act has actually failed to solve information-sharing problems and that George Bush’s security policies may have actually hurt, rather than helped, intelligence efforts.”
The White House said the Patriot Act paved the way for the successful prosecution of the “Lackawanna Six,” a group of Yemeni-Americans from the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna who pleaded guilty to aiding al Qaeda.
“The Patriot Act helped in breaking up the Lackawanna Six terrorist cell,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “The Patriot Act played an important role in helping to break down the wall between the criminal investigation and the intelligence investigation that was going on there.”
Mr. Ahearn added: “Even after the Lackawanna case, the Patriot Act provisions helped us.
“We were able to share the intelligence from the grand jury, the information that we had there, and pass it to the [intelligence] community,” he added. “That led to many other things that were part of this investigation that were overseas.”
Mr. Bush said the testimonials of Mr. Ahearn and others demonstrate that “those who criticize the Patriot Act must listen to those folks on the front line of defending America.”
“The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States,” he said.
The president’s visit to Buffalo, which was protested by about 500 demonstrators, was followed by a fund-raiser in New York, where he brought in $3.75 million for the Republican National Committee.
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