The House agreed to a 90-day extension of three Patriot...
The House agreed to a 90-day extension of three Patriot Act expiring provisions, to May 27. Thursday morning, the House voted 279-143 to concur with the Senate amendment to HR-514. Earlier in the week, the House agreed to extend the…
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provisions until December, but the Senate wanted an earlier sunset. The vote keeps alive three provisions of the President George W. Bush-era anti-terrorism act. The legislation (CD Feb 17 p13) authorizes “roving wiretaps,” allows authorities to monitor “lone wolf” terrorist suspects and allows the government to search, without judicial review, “any tangible items” of suspects in terror investigations. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, supported the Senate amendment because he didn’t want the provisions to lapse, he said before the vote. Smith would have preferred a longer expiration date, he said. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said he opposed the straight extension because he wanted more time to work on updating the provisions. House Crime Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said he promised to have hearings before the provisions expire again, on reauthorization as well as oversight of the Patriot Act as a whole. In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., again postponed a vote on his legislation to extend the Patriot Act provisions until December 2013. Republicans objected to the vote, so the committee will now take up the measure March 3, Leahy said. The bill “is virtually identical in substance to legislation approved by a bipartisan majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee last Congress,” he said in a written statement. “It was first announced three weeks ago that the Committee would consider this bill. Eleventh hour requests for additional briefings serve only one purpose: to delay consideration of legislation that both Republicans and Democrats believe is critical to national security.”