CDT condemns The Secret Expansion Of The PATRIOT Act

spy1

"Some Members of Congress are trying to expand the USA PATRIOT Act by slipping language into
an intelligence agency bill that is debated and amended largely behind closed doors. We need to
tell the Intelligence Committees and other Members of Congress that these issues are too
important to be debated and decided in secret!

Any expansion of the PATRIOT Act is premature at this point. The "sunset" provision of the
PATRIOT Act, under which a handful of its provisions expire unless renewed by Congress, doesn't
take effect until December of next year (2005). Congress has not finished its oversight work to
determine how the new powers in the PATRIOT Act have been used and whether they were
needed to begin with. As part of that process, and as part of any further changes to the
surveillance laws, Congress should include oversight mechanisms and judicial checks and
balances. That's not what the authors of this sneak move have in mind.

Tell your Representative that you oppose expanding the PATRIOT Act, and that you do not want
the Sensenbrenner-Goss bill, H.R. 3179, tacked onto the secret intelligence bill.

Background

Last year, Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Porter Goss (R-FL) introduced H.R. 3179, a bill
that would expand the FBI's ability to obtain records without a court order and wiretap people
without meeting normal constitutional standards. CDT opposes the bill because we need *more*
checks and balances built into the controversial parts of the PATRIOT Act -- not less. After CDT
and others complained, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on H.R. 3179 last month,
where former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) testified against the bill.

After the hearing, it was reported that Rep. Goss, who is the Chair of the House Intelligence
Committee, was likely to tack the provisions of H.R. 3179 onto the annual intelligence
authorization bill, which his committee debates and votes on behind closed doors. The
intelligence authorization bill generally contains many important provisions and it must pass
every year, so it is difficult for members of Congress to vote against it even if it contains some
provisions they oppose. CDT is concerned that if H.R. 3179 is folded into the intelligence
authorization bill in a secret session, it will pass without adequate deliberation and debate.
These issues are far too important to decide behind closed doors.

Consideration of any legislation to expand the USA PATRIOT Act is also premature. We have not
yet had adequate congressional oversight of how the government is using the surveillance
provisions of the PATRIOT Act. And some provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire at the
end of 2005, so Congress will need to review them next year -- when all of these issues can be
publicly debated and analyzed."

Go to this page: http://www.cdt.org/action/patriotsunset/ to find out how to contact your Rep and let them know how you feel about this issue. Pete

spy1 · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2004 8:47 pm Post subject:

(This is yet another bill!)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation joins in with a link that will let you send a simultaneous email to every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging them to reject S. 2476 and to support S. 1709 (the S.A.F.E Act), instead.

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2907 Pete


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