[Mb-civic] A Clean Patriot Act - Editorial - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

A Clean Patriot Act

Sunday, August 28, 2005; Page B06

WHEN CONGRESS returns, an early order of business will be a conference 
committee to reauthorize key provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Both 
houses of Congress have passed bills similar in broad strokes. Both 
bills would give the administration what it most wants, reauthorizing 
permanently key law-enforcement and intelligence provisions that were 
enacted temporarily in the original law and are set to expire at the end 
of the year. Both, however, would also impose certain restrictions on 
the two most controversial provisions, which they would renew once again 
with a "sunset" provision. Both would tinker with the FBI's authority to 
issue administrative subpoenas known as "national security letters," 
injecting important procedural clarifications into the process. And both 
houses refrained from giving the bureau sweeping powers to issue 
administrative demands for documents. The bills would also require 
reporting by the administration on its use of Patriot Act provisions.

In key respects, however, the Senate bill is much preferable to the 
version passed by the House of Representatives. It retains sunset 
provisions for two additional non-Patriot Act authorities made permanent 
in the House bill -- ones that warrant watching over time. It also 
contains stronger civil-liberties protections in a couple of areas. 
While both bills somewhat limit the authority of the government to seek 
business records in national security cases by order of a special court, 
for example, the Senate requires a stronger showing of those records' 
relevance to counterterrorism. And it also defines a considerably 
shorter period during which federal authorities can delay notice of the 
execution of search warrants to the targets of certain secret searches.

Most important, however, is what the Senate bill lacks: dozens of 
completely extraneous add-ons that have only the most marginal 
connections to the bill's purpose. The House bill would enact new law on 
cigarette smuggling, expand federal wiretapping authorities and the 
federal death penalty to a host of new terrorism crimes, authorize 
funding for first responders, make it easier to subject those convicted 
of terrorism crimes to being monitored for life following their release, 
and criminalize a host of activities related to seaports and 
transporting terrorists and hazardous materials. Some of these might be 
good ideas; some are likely to prove dreadful. None belong in this bill, 
which is the result of a serious legislative examination of the 
administration's needs in the domestic security arena relative to what 
the Patriot Act provided. Reconciling the House and Senate bills would 
be far easier were there no risk of the final product's being larded 
with irrelevant unknowns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082700943.html?nav=hcmodule
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