Thursday, November 17, 2005

What they should have done the first time.

According to the WaPo, six senators, including Republicans and Democrats are threatening to block the Patriot Act renewal unless certain changes are made.
Negotiators had worked for days to develop an acceptable compromise and presented a draft to senators and representatives late Wednesday.

But senators on the negotiating committee have yet to agree to the compromise, aware that six Republicans and Democrats are threatening to block the final version of the bill when it comes to the full Senate....

.....The Republican-controlled House hoped to approve the compromise on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told senators on Thursday that they will have to address the legislation "before we leave."I am glad that these senators are acting like Americans now. But I wish they had done so the first time around.

But Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, said there are several different delaying tactics available to stop the bill in the Senate.

Feingold said he had cleared his schedule through Thanksgiving. "And this time I don't think I'll be alone," he said.

Added Murkowski: "We have worked too long and too hard to allow this conference report to eliminate the modest protections for civil liberties that were agreed to unanimously in the Senate."

The six senators were the sponsors of legislation this year that would have tempered the powers of the post-Sept. 11 law that expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers.

They complained that the House-Senate compromise would take back some civil liberty protections on which senators had agreed. They include changing a Senate requirement that the government inform targets of a "sneak and peek" search warrant within seven days to 30 days.

Such warrants allow police to conduct secret searches of people's homes or businesses and inform them later.

The compromise also removed a Senate proposal that would have mandated judicial reviews when authorities used the law to search financial, medical, library, school and other records, according to the six senators.
This is a good thing.

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