Posted on 07/08/2004 4:56:46 PM PDT by Brian Mosely
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican-led House bowed to a White House veto threat Thursday and stood by the USA Patriot Act, defeating an effort to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that helps the government investigate people's reading habits.
The effort to defy Bush and bridle the law's powers lost by 210-210, with a majority needed to prevail. The amendment appeared on its way to victory as the roll call's normal 15-minute time limit expired, but GOP leaders kept the vote open for 23 more minutes as they persuaded about 10 Republicans who initially supported the provision to change their votes.
"Shame, shame, shame," Democrats chanted as the minutes passed and votes were switched. The tactic was reminiscent of last year's House passage of the Medicare overhaul measure, when GOP leaders held the vote open for an extra three hours until they got the votes they needed.
"You win some, and some get stolen," Rep. C.L. Butch Otter, R-Idaho, a sponsor of the defeated provision and one of Congress' more conservative members, told a reporter.
Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he switched his initial "yes" vote to "no" after being shown Justice Department documents asserting that terrorists have communicated over the Internet via public library computers.
"This new world we live in is going to force us to have some constraints," Wamp said.
The effort to curb the Patriot Act was pushed by a coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans. But they fell short in a showdown that came just four months before an election in which the conduct of the fight against terrorism will be on the political agenda.
Besides successfully fending off the effort to weaken the law, the veto threat underscored the administration's determination to strike an aggressive stance on law enforcement and terrorism.
The House has voted before to block portions of the nearly three-year-old law, but Congress has never succeeded in rolling back any of it. Yet neither has Bush succeeded in his quest to expand some of its powers.
Supporters of the law said the Patriot Act has been a valuable tool in anti-terror efforts. The law, enacted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, gave the government stronger powers to conduct investigations and detain people.
"I would say, in my judgment, that lives have been saved, terrorists have been disrupted, and our country is safer" because of the act, said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a man President Bush is considering to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Otter and Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., led the effort to block one section of the law that lets authorities get special court orders requiring book dealers, libraries and others to surrender records such as purchases and Internet sites visited on a library computer. They contended the provision undermines civil liberties and threatens to let the government snoop into the reading habits of innocent Americans.
"We are all in that together," Sanders, one of Congress' most liberal lawmakers, said of the anti-terror effort. "In the fight against terrorism, we've got to keep our eyes on two prizes: the terrorists and the United States Constitution."
The House voted last summer to block so-called "sneak and peek" searches the law allows without the target's knowledge and with warrants delivered afterward, but the provision never became law. Otter abandoned a similar amendment Thursday after it was ruled out of order for procedural reasons.
Thursday's showdown was over an amendment to a $39.8 billion measure financing the Justice, Commerce and State departments for next year, which passed, 397-18. The Senate has yet to write its version of the bill.
The House vote came amid Bush administration warnings of an increased risk of attacks this summer and fall because terrorists hope to disrupt the November's elections.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., read a letter from the Justice Department stating that "as recently as this past winter and spring, a member of a terrorist group closely affiliated with al-Qaida" had used Internet services at a public library. The letter mentioned no specifics, Wolf said.
"If we can stop what took place in my area," said Wolf, whose district is near the Pentagon, a Sept. 11 target, "then I want to stop that, because we've gone to enough funerals."
Critics of the Patriot Act argued that even without it, investigators can get book store and other records simply by obtaining subpoenas or search warrants. Those traditional investigative tools are harder to get from grand juries or courts than orders issued under the Patriot Act, which do not require authorities to show probable cause.
"We don't want tyranny," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
According to a list read by a House clerk, lawmakers switching their votes from "yes" to "no" included GOP Reps. Michael Bilirakis of Florida, Rob Bishop of Utah, Tom Davis of Virginia, Jack Kingston of Georgia, Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado, Nick Smith of Michigan, Thomas Tancredo of Colorado, and Wamp.
Some Democrats switched from "no" to "yes," including Robert Bud Cramer of Alabama, Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, and Brad Sherman of California.
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The bill is H.R. 4754
Bush made Tancredo an offer he couldn't refuse.
Folks who don't read Subversive* materials have nothing to hide from The Government.
This ought to make prosecution of those who read nasty rumors about the IRS and other extra- and un-constitutional agencies and actions of The Government especially easy.
(*Intended or serving to subvert, especially intended to overthrow or undermine an established government)
A damn good reason!!
=== Bush made Tancredo an offer he couldn't refuse.
Aw ... between Rummy's copping his lines from Al Capone and your hearkening to the heady "War on Crime" advent of the War on a Noun series, I'm getting all misty-eyed.
I so prefer thugs with Clean Hands as opposed to potty-mouths like that former GRU thug Putin, don't you?
=== A damn good reason!!
I've heard terrorist have also used public phones.
Shall we tap them all?
K&E vote yes they piss off the loony left.....vote NO and they are shown as not being serious about protecting the American public.
This is master stroke..
Obtuse as usual, Askel.
They use public phones and those Wal Mart phone credit cards.....very hard to tap.
Those who would so willingly give up freedom for their safety will soon have neither Representative Wamp.
"We are all in that together," Sanders, one of Congress' most liberal lawmakers, said of the anti-terror effort. "In the fight against terrorism, we've got to keep our eyes on two prizes: the terrorists and the United States Constitution."
Sad that one of the most liberal lawmakers was one of the few willing to stand up against even a portion of this bill
I wonder what 'conservatives' will say when a Democrat makes this even more permanent or establishes an even more draconian version of the same bill? Well, it will be for our own good so everybody will still be behind it. Right?
Can you name one innocent person who has fallen prey to the Patriot Act?
Yes.
Good news! They didn't all fall for the Marxist ruse about the Patriot Act.
A picture paints a thousand words, doesn't it? Good imagery there.
PINGING THE EVIL ASHCROFTARIANS [See: Loserdopians]
Lets see.Libraries are funded by the government.Public records are public records.If a divorce decree can be open to the public why not library records? Most news reports also leave out that a warrant issued by a judge is required.
Damn it.
while leaving the borders wide open for terrorists...
Give retired police officers the right to carry in any state in the union
But leave the fricken borders wide open and encourage illegal aliens and other illegal invaders
to.....invade
Meanwhile focus on laws of power that have the potential...under the wrong kind of leaders
(Kerry & Edwards for example) to subvert the Constitution of the United States of America
Which so many have died for and many raised their right hands swearing to defend....
Against...Enemies foreign & domestic imo
for international calls - we do. and all cell phone calls are monitored also.
we can vote out people in the executive and legislative branch if we see this being abused. we cannot trust the unelected, lifetime appointment, liberal invested judiciary to protect us in the domestic war on terror. no way. we either put some faith in the executive branch with expanded powers, or we lose and they kill us here at home.
Well you're halfway there. But we should vote out those in the executive and legislative branch that would call for passage of such bills in the first place. I trust no party with that amount of power
So you don't believe judges should be able to issue search warrants?
No I believe judges should be required to issue search warrants. Where did you get the idea I would believe any different? What I have the problem with is so-called conservatives gleefully willing to hand over any amount of power necessary to the executive branch just to 'protect' us just because the right guy is in office. The poster I was responding to advocated 'expanded powers' for the executive branch. I think the executive branch has expanded its powers quite enough over the past 140 years, far past the intent of the original Founders, who BTW were facing issues just as dire to them and the nation of states they founded as we are today
Oh, so rather than force the government to enforce laws that were on the books before 9/11, and to secure our borders, the citizens are just going to have to have some constraints.
How charming.
I saw some terrorists we captured on TV, they were wearing athletic shoes. Maybe we need to start monitoring any and all sports facilities, as well as any malls, stores, etc. that sell such shoes.
I disagree. They've already let us down multiple times, and have shown they can't be trusted with even the normal powers given to them by the Constitution, let alone "expanded" powers.
Before you lay into me for that - I have a few doubts that George Bush can still be trusted with such powers, but I know for damn sure that liberals can't be, and George Bush won't be in power beyond 2009, and may not even be in power in 2005.
I refuse to give the executive branch any more "expanded powers", because the powers they already have could easily prevent more 9/11s (and as some have argued, could have prevented the original 9/11). I also know that where a Republican might be trusted with them, a democrat can't be.
If the executive branch showed even a smidgeon of interest in securing our borders, well I still couldn't justify "expanded powers", but I'd feel better about the powers they and Congress have already given themselves without going to the people first.
LOL! That must have been a hilarious sight. Who knows more about shame than the DemonRAT party!!
Under the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant must be based on probable cause to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. This is not the general rule under FISA: surveillance under FISA is permitted based on a finding of probable cause that the surveillance target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, irrespective of whether the target is suspected of engaging in criminal activity. However, if the target is a "U.S. person," there must be probable cause to believe that the U.S. person's activities may involve espionage or other similar conduct in violation of the criminal statutes of the United States. Nor may a U.S. person be determined to be an agent of a foreign power "solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States."
The USA-PATRIOT Act further expanded FISA to permit "roving wiretap" authority, which allows the interception of any communications made to or by an intelligence target without specifying the particular telephone line, computer or other facility to be monitored. Prior law required third parties (such as common carriers and others) "specified in court-ordered surveillance" to provide assistance necessary to accomplish the surveillance--under the new law, that obligation has been extended to unnamed and unspecified third parties.
~~~~~snip~~~~~
Such "generic" orders could have a significant impact on the privacy rights of large numbers of innocent users, particularly those who access the Internet through public facilities such as libraries, university computer labs and cybercafes. Upon the suspicion that an intelligence target might use such a facility, the FBI can now monitor all communications transmitted at the facility. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the recipient of the assistance order (for instance, a library) would be prohibited from disclosing the fact that monitoring is occurring.
The "generic" roving wiretap orders raise significant constitutional issues, as they do not comport with the Fourth Amendment's requirement that any search warrant "particularly describe the place to be searched." That deficiency becomes even more significant when where the private communications of law-abiding American citizens might be intercepted incidentally.
Source: EPIC's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
Ronald Reagan said that libertarianism is the heart and soul of conservatism, Pyle.
How would you know if they were?
For one, the media would never stop covering it - it would be even bigger than the poor Iraqi terrorists with panties on their heads.
If there were the slightest HINT of someone who had been wrongly hurt with the Patriot Act, the media would scratch and dig until they either found something or managed to get another rumor started.
~Grin~
BTTT.
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