WASHINGTON -- Opponents of increased wiretapping powers for police are preparing a series of last-minute amendments before a scheduled vote in Congress Wednesday afternoon.
The amendments are a hastily organized attempt to excise the most controversial surveillance sections from an anti-terrorism bill when the House Judiciary committee meets to vote on it at 2 p.m., EDT.
On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican leaders of the panel finalized a bill called the Patriot Act (PDF) that would grant police unprecedented eavesdropping powers, and impose an automatic expiration date of Dec. 31, 2003.
The measure, prepared by House Judiciary chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), is the product of painstaking, closed-door negotiations between Congress and the Bush administration.
But some members of the committee, like Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia), say they've been left out of the process and that the Patriot Act is unacceptable even with the automatic sunset clause.
"There remain a number of objectionable provisions, and the philosophy underlying the legislation remains problematic.... There are a number of troubling provisions in this latest draft," Barr said at a Cato Institute event Tuesday afternoon.
Among them: The ease with which police could eavesdrop on the Internet, expanded information-sharing between police and the CIA and similar agencies, and potentially intrusive surveillance of users by their Internet providers.
"I believe an amendment will be offered to deal with the problem of law enforcement bypassing probable cause requirements by using FISA authority," says Greg Nojeim, deputy director of the ACLU's Washington office.
Nojeim is talking about a secret federal court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Patriot Act hands the court more power: Police can eavesdrop on suspected terrorists for one year, and the FISA court will have jurisdiction when an eavesdropping target is not a foreign citizen but might have information that could be useful to an investigation anyway.
Nojeim says he expects "another amendment to limit the degree to which the CIA gets into the business of spying on Americans by receiving information about Americans generated throught the criminal process."
In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Bush urged Congress to approve his original legislation -- called the Anti-Terrorism Act -- that does not include an expiration date.
"In the long campaign ahead, (federal agents) will need our continued support, and every necessary tool to do their work," Bush said. "I'm asking Congress for new law enforcement authority, to better track the communications of terrorists and to detain suspected terrorists until the moment they are deported."
The Patriot Act stands for "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism."
Yet another anti-terrorist bill is being written by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), who has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday. Leahy's bill, which appears to be gaining support in the Senate, is called the "Strengthening Our Domestic Security Against Terrorist Act."
