Patriot Act Extension Agreement Reached By Congressional Leaders

WASHINGTON — Top congressional leaders agreed Thursday to a four-year extension of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act, the controversial law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks that governs the search for terrorists on American soil.

The deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner calls for a vote before May 27, when parts of the current act expire. The idea is to pass the extension with as little debate as possible to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government.

Support for the extension was unclear. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wanted tighter restrictions on the government's power and may seek to amend it. In the House, members of the freshman class elected on promises of making government smaller were skeptical.

"I still have some concerns, and at this point I'm leaning against (voting for) it," said one, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.

The legislation would extend three expiring provisions until June 1, 2015, officials said.

The provisions at issue allow the government to use roving wiretaps on multiple electronic devices and across multiple carriers and get court-approved access to business records relevant to terrorist investigations. The third, a "lone wolf" provision that was part of a 2004 law, permits secret intelligence surveillance of non-U.S. individuals without having to show a connection between the target and a specific terrorist group.

From its inception, the law's increased surveillance powers have been criticized by liberals and conservatives alike as infringements on free speech rights and protections against unwarranted searches and seizures.

Some Patriot Act opponents suggest that Osama bin Laden's demise earlier this month should prompt Congress to reconsider the law, written when the terrorist leader was at the peak of his power. But the act's supporters warn that al-Qaida splinter groups, scattered from Pakistan to the United States and beyond, may try to retaliate.

"Now more than ever, we need access to the crucial authorities in the Patriot Act," Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

___

AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.

Comments

[TedEjr]

02:59 PM on 05/22/2011

To quote Ben Franklin--They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Smart man, that Ben. I have opposed the Patriot Act since day one. As an aside, whenever some legislator wants to enact any freedom restricting provision, they always give a a flag wrapped name. Beware when you hear terms like Patriot Act. It will be an act, but most likely anything but Patriotic, from a Constitutional standpoint.

By extending this act, we are handing Al Qaeda a victory. The voluntary abandonment of our rights to due process, search and seizure, and related liberties, is the goal of our enemy. And ineffective in countering them. Did wiretapping help locate OBL? The answer is, no.

[ruleoflaw66]

08:18 PM on 05/21/2011

PA = Police State.

[Dave Harpe]

07:59 PM on 05/21/2011

Please, Mr. Obama, veto this.

[gjdavis60]

01:35 PM on 05/21/2011

You wanted bipartisanship. You got bipartisanship. Happy now?

[GodBlessAmerica]

12:55 PM on 05/21/2011

I was open to having a Patriot Act in the wake of 9/11 - the memories of that day still shake me to my core - with one condition: a sunset provision.

I feel we're at a point where we don't need the Patriot Act anymore, and the emergency law can be put to sleep. It had its purpose, and the purpose was fulfilled. (And I'm sure the GOP doesn't want two n-rs having such sweeping powers)

[Yogini Elizabeth]

08:17 AM on 05/21/2011

While we continue to lose our right...Americans are complacent, pacified watching American Idol.Wake up Americans!!! Pretty soon we won't have any rights at all.

[RKTesq]

04:36 PM on 05/20/2011

This decision begs the question, how does the Patriot Act benefit the wealthy special interests that keep lawmakers in office (and in offshore bank accounts)?

[ProgressivePicon86]

04:19 PM on 05/20/2011

I cannot believe this is getting passed. =/

[Ana4]

02:28 PM on 05/20/2011

I'd like to amend a previous comment with some new information:
Last night I mentioned that it only takes 10% of us who are willing to stop driving cars for a time, say this summer, and therefore cease to buy gas/oil products for a few months to make a serious and effective statement.

10% decrease in oil profits will get the attention of the status quo, and make a huge difference. It's worked before. This morning I heard the results of Bill McKibben's efforts to make a difference:
The 300 mi/5 day bicycle ride from NYC to DC this week by activists delivered petitions to Congress with 400,000 signatures from across the country demanding an end to oil subsidies. They are planning another event for Sept 24th.

Oil dependence IS the status quo; the reason we have the Patriot Act in the first place--the m/o behind the reason. Oil dependence is a threat to the environment and our freedoms.

http://www.350.org

http://www.moving-planet.org

[Dhammaflame]

11:01 PM on 05/20/2011

I have an acre garden all hand dug. We use goats and a cow to eat the other 2 acres of grass. We drive 2 or 3 times a month (80 miles). We telecommute to work.

[Ana4]

07:34 PM on 05/21/2011

Bravo--I'm glad you have some land and use it thusly. As this cycle of depression continues, I expect more urban gardens to replace grass lawns, though it may not come to that as this cycle is very different from previous ones.

I read your other recent post, and I do much the same; gave up tv 1/2 yrs ago and am glad of that. Digital media is mesmeric and actually hypnotizes people; that's why it's so hard for most ppl to stop watching. Most of my friends also don't have tv's, and many of us telecommute also. We all do what we can to lower our carbon footprints. Doing is important; nothing changes until we change.

[celticfireusa]

02:02 PM on 05/20/2011

Big Brother is here and never going to leave....

[blessedfrog]

01:49 PM on 05/20/2011

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!"



-- Alexander Hamilton

[zekandzora]

01:40 PM on 05/20/2011

In regard to the {Un} Patriot Act.

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, then it will lose it's freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort and security that it values, it will lose that too. Unknown Americans must decide: Are we to be governed by Americans or by an International organization ? I, for one, owe no allegiance to the United Nations nor will I give it any. I obey only the U.S. Constitution. You had better think about this issue, for if the U.N. can violate the Sovereignty of Haiti, Iraq and other countries, it can violate ours...The United States may not be the top dog 15 years { or even 2 years } from now. U.N.security council resolutions, backed by say Chinese soldiers, could be aimed at us."

Charley Reese [ Orlando Sentinel ]

[blessedfrog]

01:49 PM on 05/20/2011

x2

[Debbie McPherson]

07:13 PM on 05/20/2011

zek
 
f & f
 
What are Americans thinking???? We are losing everything---everything....red hot tyranny under a fascist dictator is where we are today....is it too late get any of our freedom back?
 
Homeland Security makes America the next Germany --think Germany 1939....
 
Our Congress is selling us all out....they have used this "war on terror" to destroy all that was great about our country ---our freedom....
 
Perhaps founding father James Madison said it best, when he noted in 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution:
“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

[Dhammaflame]

09:02 PM on 05/20/2011

1913 was the foot in the door.

[Libertarian09]

12:37 AM on 05/22/2011

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense."
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (April 16, 1953)

[zekandzora]

01:29 PM on 05/20/2011

Any thing that is designed to take away ANY of my God given, Constitutionally protected and guaranteed rights is anything but patriotic. The "double speak" would not surprise the man who wrote a very prophetic book regarding the times we are now going through. George Orwell laid it out in his classic, 1984.

[zekandzora]

01:35 PM on 05/20/2011

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This was written by one of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin

[Libertarian09]

09:00 PM on 05/20/2011

God didn't give you any rights. To believe that is to believe that you are the chosen people and that only leads to heinous atrocities against the non-chosen.

[zekandzora]

11:30 PM on 05/20/2011

Maybe your god did not give you any rights but my God certainly did give me rights. He died to "set the captives free" and I will die before I relinquish that which God died to give me.

[tjdwill01]

12:37 PM on 05/20/2011

Who was it who said: "I cannot tell what powers may have to be exercised in order to win this war"? George W. Bush? Dick Cheney? Donald Rumsfeld?

Actually it was Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a "fireside chat" broadcast on September 7, 1942. He understood that survival was the number one right, without which all other rights are meaningless.The many crackdowns on domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act, as well as the ability to intercept and disrupt their communications under the powers of that Act, receive little or no credit for the fact that there has been no repetition of anything like 9/11.

[zekandzora]

01:46 PM on 05/20/2011

As usual you, in your fear, are willing to throw away the God given Constitutionally assured rights I have in order for you to "feel" a little safer. My rights are "unalienable". My Mossberg next to the bed gives me all the security blanket I need. He who try to take that right would be advised well to have their affairs in order.

[blessedfrog]

01:51 PM on 05/20/2011

The fact that not a single small truck bombed off in the US
tells me that the 'enemy' isn't that big.

[tjdwill01]

01:59 PM on 05/20/2011

Americans have such such short memories. Authorities have thwarted 20 attempted U.S. plots since 9/11.

[lornejl 2]

11:48 AM on 05/20/2011

This is getting sad that you can't comment on 99 % of the threads here anymore ; (

[GetAbike]

12:08 PM on 05/20/2011

Blogs are the worst. The authors do not have to follow ANY guidelines as they get rid of contrarian views to their own enlightened opinions.
Gotta love HP.

[Dhammaflame]

12:14 PM on 05/20/2011

Corporate media is NOT biased?

[blessedfrog]

02:17 PM on 05/20/2011

IT seems to have clamped down even more with AOL

[gfm975]

01:20 PM on 05/20/2011

No shiite, AOL has taken HuffPost down a notch or two.