House Votes to Extend Patriot Act; Senate Judiciary Passes Similar Bill
After a lengthy debate ending Thurs. night, the House agreed 257-171 to reauthorize the nation’s chief antiterrorism law -- a vote that would render permanent some of its most controversial high-tech provisions. The revised Patriot Act measure added restrictions to U.S. agents’ ability to troll library and medical records in investigations and use roving wiretaps focusing on suspects instead of specific locations. The same day, Senate Judiciary Committee passed a companion bill with stricter requirements for seizing records. The Senate Intelligence Committee last month passed another version of the legislation.
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The American Library Assn. strongly criticized the House, especially for its 10-year extension of Sec. 215 and refusal to deny FBI funding for bookstore and library searches, a standalone provision approved last month by the House. Sec. 215 requires production of business records in response to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court order. ALA Pres. Michael Gorman noted 48 states protect library records from govt. “fishing expeditions.” The lengthier sunset provisions also troubled ALA Washington Exec. Dir. Emily Sheketoff, who said revision undermines the spirit of House Judiciary Chmn. Sensenbrenner’s (R-Wis.) sunset demands for the Patriot Act in 2001. She voiced hope the Senate Judiciary bill’s more stringent requirements for law enforcement under Sec. 215 would be inserted in the conference bill.
The House bill was “placed on an artificial fast- track,” inasmuch as its most controversial sections don’t expire for 5 months, ACLU Senior Counsel-Legislative Strategy Lisa Graves said. The group wrote last week to House members criticizing the newly permanent status of 14 of 16 provisions set to expire, and “excessively long” 10- year sunsets on 2 other provisions. Amendments to correct such “flaws” -- such as expanding the new sunset clause to all expiring provisions and treating roving wiretaps in FISA cases the same as those in criminal cases -- weren’t allowed individual up-or-down votes, the ACLU said.
Secrecy surrounding much data on use of Patriot Act provisions made it easier for the House to reauthorize it with only slight modifications, Marc Rotenberg, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) exec. dir., told us. He said he is glad Sensenbrenner held several hearings, but “the hard questions were not asked.” The restrictions on Sec. 215 were welcome -- “obviously something had to happen there,” given the “blank check for a secret search” it allowed -- but the 10-year sunset extension for roving wiretaps “seems a little meaningless,” Rotenberg said. He said he is optimistic that the Senate Judiciary version’s extended oversight of FISA authority, and shorter sunset extensions, will make it into the conference bill.
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Leahy (D- Vt.) said he is relieved portions of the Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act were kept by his committee. He praised the new “sunshine” provisions, such as: (1) Requiring periodic Justice Dept. reports on use of the roving wiretap authority (Sec. 3). (2) Reporting use of the good-faith emergency exception to the Stored Communications Act (Sec. 5). (3) Publicly reporting use of national security orders to get library, medical and other sensitive records, online and off (Sec. 8). The bill sets 4-year sunsets on roving wiretaps, business record orders and “lone wolf” surveillance, or those conducted on people alleged to be unaffiliated terrorists. But Leahy criticized removal of a court notification requirement when intercepted communications are shared with the intelligence community, saying DoJ made no complaints about a parallel provision for grand jury information in the original Patriot Act.
The Senate Judiciary bill requires the govt. to convince a court a person has links to terrorism or espionage before obtaining sensitive personal data, such as library and medical records. Recipients of such orders could challenge them in court, as they might a grand jury subpoena, and also challenge gag orders. “John Doe” roving wiretaps, identifying neither the person nor place for surveillance, also would be barred.